There just beneath my skin As simple as you please Is the real me that begins With the will not to appease
But to be just who I am inside Behind my appearance, I hide Disguised by the roles I play Is the real me that stays
In all the tales that I've told About the blues felt on the road A thousand voices speak at me Telling me all there could be
If only I would play the star They feel my heart on this guitar The notes that fall out as I play All the little things I dare to say
Life is too often defined Not by the individuals refined But by our demanded roles Never mind the depth of our souls
Husband, wife, son, and daughter Holy mothers and rascals for fathers It turns out that relational ties Are too often the worst of our lies
In all the tales that I've told About the blues felt on the road A thousand voices speak at me Telling me all there could be
If only I would play the star They feel my heart on this guitar The notes that fall out as I play All the little things I dare to say
Even at this dreaded sense of distance I hold on to my shattered insistence That real intimacy is somehow possible It's something I want to be capable
Real, rote, or false, we live for relationship It's the idol that we live and worship Ruminating on the muse of the infighting Found in the words that others are writing
It's the radical love felt by our preference As leap frog forward in our experience Looking for something for our songs to say To make ourselves deeper than the games we play
If only I would play the star They feel my heart on this guitar The notes that fall out as I play All the little things I dare to say
Even at this dreaded sense of distance I hold on to my shattered insistence That real intimacy is somehow possible It's something I want to be capable
(c) April 12, 2025 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.” – Kahlil Gibran
Back breeding and use of DNA sequence Without thinking of possible consequences Seems so easily at our potential expense That I struggle to make it make any sense
Yes, what we have lost was wonderful Almost all of it has been something beautiful And true enough, man brought much adversity That we almost owe it to restore biodiversity
Still, we must think of the DNA degradation As we unleash beasts and disease on our nation It isn't just a shout into a fearful dark To think about results like Jurassic Park
The spirit of God will move across the face As we revive not only our intentions but the trace Of our misunderstood and unintended consequences Iconic as the aspirations, what will be our recompense
Maybe we could focus on habitat loss and poaching Taking greater care instead of habitually encroaching As the world endures man and nature's climate change We might protect and ease the way the world rearranges
Still, while man thinks of himself as the conservator What happens when we are no longer the apex predator? Planetary health is a subject of fantastic complexity Let alone the vast considerations of balanced diversity
Will unintended germs and bacteria be part of innovation In this new chapter of mankind's attempt at conservation? Without pessimism, all the science, ethics, and the environment Suggests a fragile bridge between what we get and what we meant
Still, as we look on the gray wolves turned into the dire Approaching as we are, a border without any guard wire Last seen 10,000 years ago, it headlines a resurrection story That is filled with wonder, beauty, and approaches glory
We must pause and consider the implied toolkit of technology That has come knocking at the door of biology and theology The redesign of life and ecosystems is a synthetic biology In which differences and sameness are more than symbology
It is one thing to play with puppies, but what of fully grown There is too much that we do not know that needs to be known Genetic engineering at this point is merely cosmetic tweaks And these gray wolves might have more than a few missing links
Solutions are offered to public health and agriculture Each nuance of this is something that we should work to nurture Synthetic biology provides much to say about restoration But each step requires responsibility and great explanation
Ecosystems are delicately balanced sets of interactions Without a complete understanding of needed intersections All of the unanswered questions have unpredictable consequences How we proceed must depend, not on hope, but on evidence
What we have presently is an honest attempt at imitation But nothing that close to scientific restoration It's an experiment of well-intended progress for the dead That only observation will prove the test outside our heads
(c) April 11, 2025 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.” – Luther Standing Bear
“Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the constituents.” – James Madison (1788)
“Music is the greatest communication in the world. Even if people don’t understand the language that you’re singing in, they still know good music when they hear it.” – Lou Rawls
I sat back as the nurse checked my vitals Thinking of all the drama queens and teen idols Starting there, as I sincerely try to explain All that I have seen, and to try to make it plain
Words and pictures I had fused into expression Vagueness and specificity made their impression Transforming time and words into artistic space All of the moments spent left their lasting trace
Astral aliens are superior in their secret identity Beautiful as they are in pages of comic book tapestry It was a different time in what seems a different age As story after story played out on the ragged page
Honed styles and thematic concepts in each edition Offered us all a perceptive analysis of the human condition Hip to the panels and meaningful balloons of dialogue It was as if stereo was confined in a functional analog
It was storytelling that smoothly seemed to flow Illustrations marking time with expressions that show All those words really had no vivid way to say What it was to make it through an artist's busy day
Astral aliens are superior in their secret identity Beautiful as they are in pages of comic book tapestry It was a different time in what seems a different age As story after story played out on the ragged page
Whistling past yesterday's graveyard of passing memory Life's storm clouds are felt through their familiarity Mine too were micro-novels in vivid panels of cartoons Those were pieced together in study hall before noon
Each in scrawled passages of colors and fine lines Begging to be something that a life lived refines Somewhere between almost real and feigned abstraction Were stories etched out as a moment's distraction
Astral aliens are superior in their secret identity Beautiful as they are in pages of comic book tapestry It was a different time in what seems a different age As story after story played out on the ragged page
(c) April 9, 2025 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
Heading out of Australia to escape this Aussie winter. First stop Japan, then UK/Ireland and if work doesn't call me back, onto Chicago. I will make it up as I go along
