“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” – Adam Smith
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First Principles: It Is Not From Benevolence But Self Interest That We Get Our Dinner From the Butcher, Brewer and Baker
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Adam Smith, Advantage, Baker, Benevolence, Brewer, Butcher, Dinner, First Principles, Humanity, Interest, Necessity, Self-Love, Talk
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Thought For the Day: Art Is An Attempt To Bring Order Out of Chaos
“Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.” – Stephen Sondheim
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Tagged Art, Attempt, Bring, Chaos, Order, Stephen Sondheim, Thought For the Day
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Is There Hope?
I am feeling down today. Had way too long of a walk through prairie wildflowers and then woods in a riparian corridor, but, even that hasn’t cheered me up. Still, it has led another poem at least.
Is There Hope? by Michael Romani Is there hope for this world With so many flags unfurled So many ready to do battle And too many tongues wagging in tattle? Has the age of chivalry died? Or, does it still live when we've tried To live our lives in the right way Facing bravely the moments of each day I ponder with you this premise As I offer my word as my promise A handshake given in bond of the affirmative Agreements made in offer of the contemplative Nights of momentary introspection In the forced joviality of random collection When it was that it was that we met You don't remember and I'll never forget Trees felled into sheets of empty pages That become clouded with words and rages In hope that some might one day touch your heart As it seemed they did once at least at the start (c) July 13, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Age of Chivalry, Battle, Bond, Brave, Contemplate, Empty Pages, Forget, Handshake, Heart, Hope, Introspection, Met, Moments, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Premise, Promise, Random, Remember, Tattle, Touch, Trees, Try, Word, Words, World
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Uncured Affliction
Mona Lisa smiled, but, why?
Uncured Affliction by Michael Romani One voice whispers in the darkness Different than others given to harshness Times remembered; meeting eye to eye With the kind of truth, you cannot deny Doctor won't you cure me of this affliction This I need stronger than any addiction Secrets the say are worth the killing for It's a cliché of madness that self implores All the questions worth the task of asking Are worth even more despite their masking A methodical suicide takes extensive courage Though unworthy of spectators urged to discourage We're told that false veneration of truth is all that matters While the inquisitor chokes as our singularity shatters False truths may indeed, of course, all be equal But, the one objective truth is, today, barely legal God created the world, I believe as they do so say But, then in all changes mankind must chart the way Instead of tolerating, we whip others into submission How then we do this without expecting blessed retribution? Life composed can seem as though a myriad of dragons slain Though sometimes it is the dragons who win in our playing A subtle grace note slipped in just before the third Is glistening there in the haunting melody we have heard Dissonance tragically too finds itself into malady Shaming itself away from the dreamer's intended melody As useless as the many traps we quietly sink into Despite the illusory patterns that we find to pursue Until a feather touch lights magically on the keys And another drunken sailor prays earnestly on his knees Hidden deep within her observed Mona Lisa smile Good fortune whispers her sober denial (c) July 13, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Affliction, Change, Cliche, Courage, Create, Cure, Dissonance, Dream, Drunken Sailor, Equal, Eye to Eye, False, Feather Touch, God, Good Fortune, Grace Note, Harsh, Hidden, Illosry, Keys, Legal, Madness, Malady, Mankind, Mask, Melody, Mona Lisa, Objective, Pattern, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Pray, Pursue, Question, Secret, Shame, Singular, Smile, Third, Trap, Truth, Voice, Whisper
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First Principles: Religious Wars Are Not Started Over There Being More Than One Belief System But By Intolerance and Eclipse of Reason
“Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance… the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.” – Baron de Montesquieu
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Tagged Baron De Montesquieu, Cause, Fact, First Principles, Human Reason, Intolerance, One Religion, Religious War, Spirit, Total Eclipse
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Thought For the Day: If We Seek Beauty In the World, We Must Carry Beauty With Us As Well
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.“ – Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Tagged Beautiful, Carry, Find, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thought For the Day, Travel, We, World
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Destructive Good Fortune
Our planet began from the cosmic storm that stirred the soup that makes up the fundamental building materials that became all we know. Of course it was all by accident…
Destructive Good Fortune by Michael Romani To watch through the window scars And look from above at falling stars Is to be reminded of all the debris That screams by in mindless trajectory And to think on things bigger than small Like extinction events beyond our recall The improbability of that happenstance That brought and end to saurian circumstance And allowed for the rising of early man As a meteor crashed into the jungled Yucatan A free dive into this catastrophic place Is a silent scream felt in humanity's embrace Twelve miles deep vaporized into poison gases With a single bullseye, the age of the Dinosaur passes As Earth's history experiences destructive good fortune In moments like these of providential contortion Through the deserts we pursue relics of our history In finding the building blocks of Earths' great mystery All of this that we live comes from remnants of star dust We learn as one day we return into dust as we must Small particles pulled by cosmic electric force Clumping together to somehow chart a new course Pushed and pulled through something called gravity The storm begins to build into it's frenzied intensity So begins the building of our beloved planet At least as we best now understand it There's nothing subtle in Earth's origin Built as if by coincidental sledge hammers again and again (c) July 12, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Age, Building Black, Bullseye, Chart, Circumstance, Coincidence, Contortion, Cosmic Storm, Debris, Deset, Destruct, Dinosaur, Early Man, Earth, Electric Force, Extinction Event, Falling Star, Free Dive, Good Fortune, Gravity, Happenstance, History, Humanity, Improbable, Intensity, Meteor, Origin, Particles, Photograph, Planet, Poem, Poetry, Poison, Relic, Rise, Sledge Hammer, Star Dust, Storm, Think, Trajectory, Yucatan
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Story Teller
It’s a great gift to tell tales that are seem so true that they almost walk right of the pages we read. Isn’t it?
Story Teller by Michael Romani Story tellers bring the tale Where once upon will prevail In stories of the deep woods And red velvet riding hoods Silver tongues and dreaming eyes Wait for love and each sunrise For dreamers of leather bindings Where the stories are worth the finding In old book stores holding treasure Where readers find their greatest pleasure Practices of life lifted from old books Those illustrated with ancient looks From eyes that see from vivid dreams That take a walk among human beings The magic of words come into play When stars align with what they say By saying more than ever be said While playing on endlessly in the heads Of those who have the story tellers' gift And shape the souls living beyond the rift Beautiful souls wither under criticism Locked up in the hopelessness of pessimism Where truth is heard and then discarded Because sometimes truth told is too hard As written words bring back memory Of those lost but kept like family When we remember to keep hope inside And allow each other's planets to collide (c) July 12, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Align, Books, Collide, Deep Woods, Discard, Dream, Eyes, Family, Find, Gift, Hard, Heard, Hope, Human, Illustration, Leataher Bindings, Life, Magic, Memory, Old Book Stores, Pages, Pessimism, Photograph, Pleasure, Poem, Poetry, Read, Red Riding Hood, Rift, Silver Tongue, Soul, Stars, Story, Teller, Told, Treasure, True, Truth, Vivid, Wither, Words
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First Principles: When Legislators Take and Destroy the Property of the People or Reduce the People To Slavery, the People Are Absolved From Further Obedience
“Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.” – John Locke
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Absolve, Arbitrary Power, Destroy, First Principles, John Locke, Legislature, Obedience, Property, Reduce, Slavery, State of War, Take, The People
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Thought For the Day: Our Bodies Are the Instruments Through Which Our Souls Play Their Music
“We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.” – Albert Einstein
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Albert Einstein, Biochemical, Body, Bundles, Cosmos, Frequencies, Garments, Instrument, Light, Music, Play, Sacred, Slow, Souls, Sound, Thought For the Day, Waves, We
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