“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” – Zora Neale Hurston, folklorist and writer (7 Jan 1891-1960)
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Thought For the Day: There Are Years That Ask Questions and Years That Answer Them
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Answer, History, Questions, Thought For the Day, Time, Years, Zora Neale Hurston
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First Principles: Foreign Influence Is A Baneful Foe To Republican Government
“History and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” – George Washington (1796)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Experience, First Principles, Foe, Foreign Influence, George Washington, Government, History, Republic
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Handwritten Passages
Everyone has their own writing style. Largely, mine is to first write by hand and then transcribe this to the electronic keyboard. Others do things differently. This is a little bit about that.
Handwritten Passages by Michael Romani Writing by hand brings something each day That defines existential dread in some way In some sense it brings its relief That helps us through that hallucinatory grief While we struggle through our uncertainty And that fills our lives with unresolved mystery In each letter formed, we struggle to find our voice It's a minimal brand created by our every choice With each stroke, doors open to the sacred story Shining our blurred visions and hoping for shed glory Vibrating with the strange energy of anticipation We become the agents of our own uncanny transformation Seeking to transmute, distract and to change Through the very words we write and rearrange Reordering the mythos and windows of perception We hope to share truth deeper than deception Final moments in passages mark the transition Pushing us forward into our twisted contemplation In a mad world of paradoxical constructions It seems fantastical to desire creation and destruction We are theologically engaged in the questions of our existence Focused on capturing lines loved past resistance Sometimes we don't even know that we've arrived Yet, somehow our ideas and words have survived In the space of bewilderment we find our grace There in the beauty and questions, we come to embrace Struggling with the unclosed loops of the undone This is the forever of the lives we've come to as one We who create, create to fill the void that awaits The no longer being here that always comes too soon and not late We sit here, pad in hand, with the blessed uncertainty Filled with the clamorous silence of our absurdity As we increase our tolerance for life's ambiguity Cutting deeper than the deep in all of its acuity This then is that needed space of unfinishedness That begs those who write in hand for completeness (c) September 21, 2018 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Anticipation, Brand, Contemplation, Deception, Existential Dread, Formed, Hallucinatory Grief, Handwritten, Mythos, Paradox, Passages, Perception, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Relief, Sacred Story, Shed Glory, Struggle, Transformation, Transitiion, Truth, Uncertainty, Unresolved Mystery, Voice
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Daily Prompt – Existential
There is something in the existential moment
When we realize life consists of daily torment
But still it’s the very best deal that is offered
Dreams of immortality are not even proffered
With a the straightness of anyone’s best face
So this is it and what we must should embrace
The pain we feel and the dreams we steal
Are the very best of what we know to be real
So maybe it’s time to accept things that are
Instead of pushing on and over a bridge too far
Thoughts of death visit us almost daily
As we rebuff these in our moments even gaily
This then are the moments of our days
Truthfully I would not change them in any way
Posted in Photographs & Memories
Tagged Acceptance, Bridge Too Far, Daily, Daily Prompt, Days, Deal, Death, Deny, Dreams, Embrace, Existential, Gaily, Immortality, Moment, Pain, Push, Real, Steal, Straight Face, Torment, Truth
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First Principles: Absent Freedom of Thought and Speech There Is No Wisdom or Public Liberty
“Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.” – Benjamin Franklin (1722)
Thought For the Day: The Crack In Everything Let’s the Light Get In
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen, musician and writer (21 Sep 1934-2016)
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Crack, Everything, In, Leonard Cohen, Light, Thought For the Day
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Daily Prompt – Marble
In between the squawks, grunts and slew of garbles
I do believe that somehow I found my lost marbles
Somehow in the middle of all that crossed talk
When I finally learned to do the cross walk
I think that at long last I have found them
The moment I realized the worth of sin
Was less than the yearning to do right
I gained a little something like second sight
Spilled out so that all were there to be seen
I began my walk back toward being a human being
Or, at least somehow a bit of a better one
Truth be told, I know I owe it all to the Son
Playing for keepsies in another sort of style
I shoot another mental marble and smile…
Posted in Photographs & Memories, Uncategorized
Tagged Cross, Crossed, Daily Prompt, Debt, Garble, Human Being, Keepsies, Marble, Right, Second Sight, Sin, Smile, Son, Talk, Truth, Walk
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Thought For the Day: Don’t Believe A Gender; Believe the Evidence
“Even liberals should concede that in America one is innocent until proven guilty. Particularly with 36-year-old allegations that are impossible to corroborate.” – Star Parker
“The role of the press should be verification, not validation. Rape is a devastating crime. So is lying about it. It’s not victim blaming to get to the bottom of the truth. It’s liar-shaming. Don’t believe a gender. Believe evidence.” – Michelle Malkin
First Principles: Mankind Is Most Content When Best Employed
“When Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, and in continual ill-humour.” – Benjamin Franklin (1771)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Benjamin Franklin, Contentment, Employed, First Principles, Mankind, Troubled, Unemployed
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Difficulty Is Just the Beginning
In this modern world, it’s not a question of what’s painless. Nor is it of not having choices. It’s about making the choice to be and make a chosen relationship work. Maybe it’s always been that way?
Difficulty Is Just the Beginning by Michael Romani In this modern day world's complication There rests an uneasy sense of implication That even the best relationship will be difficult And any attempt to make it less will not yield that result The difficult part is just the beginning It's the steadfastness despite this that brings winning The acceptance of this passes as modern wisdom And no one believes love by itself offers keys to the kingdom In a luxury of time pieces, life often slips by The wages of narcissism are blown sky high As we lurch forward seeking to be better to one another But finding we run aground like ships without rudders And still we go forward in little failures of absurdity Constantly certain we suffer endless indignities Exploring the best of each other artistically We manage by as we grow closer emotionally The contempt that society leads us to hold For each other even as we quietly scold A miracle of fates awaits its own transformation As we learn and grow with each new contemplation It turns out that life's acceptable business Becomes the crush of managed unhappiness We find our equilibrium in a truth we'll never find Our love is hard won and we'll never leave it behind (c) September 19, 2018 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Absuridities, Acceptable Business, Acceptance, Aground, Beginning, Better, Choice, Closer, Complication, Contemplation, Contempt, Difficult, Emotion, Equilibrium, Explore, Failure, Fosters, Implication, Indignity, Keeping Faith, Keys to the Kingdom, Kindness, Life, Love, Managed Unhappiness, Miracles of Fate, Modern World, Narcissism, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Relationship, Scold, Society, Steadfast, Time, Transformation, Truth, Wisdom, Work
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