Prophecy

A mountebank will teach a man that reckless faith is grief;
no prophet brings an iron word to men who know a thief.

Tock

The mainspring of the clock unwinds,
but mine is tight; each tick reminds.
Eternal cadence binds me short:
no time for work, no time for sport,
for each of two will rob the one.
Though time is endless, I have none.

Mortality

This life is futile, bounded twice: birth brought me late and death shall take me early. No work produces permanence, and play cannot sustain itself, so our labors and our loves fail to leave a mark. My words will dissolve in the vastness of time, and even time will end and swallow all traces of me.

My Fire

A bit of boasting burns a bridge,
and brashly will I kindle.
With sickly glow,
the fire's low,
but prideful flames won't dwindle.

Eternal blaze, I covet you
while you drive me to covet.
You cause me strife
but give me life;
I hate you and I love it.

You drive the lively forest back
by poisoning my vision;
I see a face
of friendly grace,
but your smoke paints derision.

I'd like to snuff you, but I won't;
I feel compelled to feed you.
I'll let you stay
again today,
but say that I don't need you.

Impotent Support

There's a chain status going around in Facebook right now:

Changeyour FB profile [picture] to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal? to not see ahuman face on FB till monday, december 6th. join the fight against child abuse and copy and paste to your status to invite your friends to do the same..

That won't stop anyone from abusing children, nor from ignoring child abuse when they see it. The gesture simply lacks impact.

There is, first of all, a very weak connection between old cartoons and child abuse, and this tenuous link carries no emotional force. When I see Pinky and The Brain, I don't think "Oh, those poor children"; I think "One is a genius, the other's insane". These images hold for us memories of mindless entertainment, not tragedies in need of fixing, and so a smattering of old cartoon characters won't inspire anyone to action.

This is all based on the ridiculous idea that "spreading awareness" of an issue (that is to say, mentioning it and doing nothing else) will alleviate it. If anyone is in a position to stop someone from abusing a child, they already know that the child is being abused (or if they don't, this crusade won't tell them what qualifies as abuse or whether any particular child whom they can help is being abused). I am fully aware of the fact that some children are beaten and molested, but my knowing doesn't stop it from happening. Even if I see it and find myself in a position to stop it, seeing the Rugrats on Facebook won't be the thing that spurs me into action.

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Facebook Users Defeat All Child Abuse by Changing Their Profile Pictures [Trends] (gawker.com)