Paper Tiger/Straw Dog

Standard

Paper tigers are

saber rattlers,

neighbor tattlers,

favored whiners and

major prattlers that

savor decline,

yet cannot fight.

To do away

with a roaring beast

only to find a

fragile feline

in its place

should not be surprising.

A splash of cold water

shows their true form,

and they never really recover

after that.

Sometimes stripes are earned,

sometimes they are merely projected.

Straw dogs are routinely discarded,

after their special day,

not because they deserve this,

but because this is their purpose.

Dressed to the nines,

blessed and

lest we forget

left in the street

once their job is complete.

No matter how many times,

they are thrown away,

straw dogs return another day,

to be a display,

that cannot stay.

Entropy

Standard

Things rarely coincide,

With our colorful graphs,

Hopeful expectations,

measured projections

And detailed guides.

There is truly evil,

And bright spots to counter it,

And most know the typical script,

To this classic conflict,

Up to its denouement.

But change the variables,

To the triumph of chaos

Over order,

And few fear anything more.

Yet in this life,

The single worst bet one can make,

Is that everything will become predictable,

And clinical.

That with time’s inevitable,

Inescapable lapse,

That the house will never one day

collapse.

We won’t relive the past,

Though things can relapse,

Because with the march of time,

We can revisit where we’ve been,

But we cannot become again.

We exit states of high concentration,

To return to areas of low,

Momentum erodes,

Into stillness,

With building pressure,

Comes a sometimes violent

Release.

Order decays

Into disarray,

Unless you’re there to pick up the pieces.

The Waiting Game

Standard

Wu wei,

Each day,

Parlay,

Then part ways.

Nonaction, indeed,

Is a good strategy.

An absentee,

Cannot be,

On the team,

Deemed,

The loser.

Nonaction,

Trains one,

To run from,

The game,

Entirely.

“Let it fall on your lap,”

Relax,

Take a nap,

Do your taxes.

No matter how fast,

You run,

The rat race,

It doesn’t change,

The fact,

That beyond it’s face,

It’s a maze.