Thought For the Day: The Only Thing One Can Give An Artist Is Leisure In Which To Work. To Give An Artist Leisure Is Actually To Take Part In His Creation

“The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.” – Ezra Pound, poet (30 Oct 1885-1972)

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…Of Hope

The Pond - Faith Hope Love
...Of Hope
by Michael Doyle

Our nightmares become us in the night
Startling us with their unholy light
Mankind has always struggled as we do
But it is only in this that we renew

As God has mercy on us sinners in our end
In our knowledge and utility as we contend
And the voices of the older generations speak
When toward the future, they dare to peek

Watching as the rats of life bring plague to us all
Knowing that the desire for purity will not prevent our fall
When the scourge emerges from the mire and mud
The days will come when all we will see is the blood

Coursing as it does through humanity's veins
We all call out for God's healing rains
Yet, we forget the more peaceful days and times
When our vices fell as gentle as our endless rhymes

The rats of life come to take another bite
Dragging us into darkness from the light
The holiness of barren souls will not save us
Still, we hold on just because...
...of hope

(c) October 29, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
t a b u l a r a s a by Theda Tammas

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In the Shoes of Humanity

The Well Dressed Shoe Box
In the Shoes of Humanity
by Michael Doyle

Too many are missing the vocabulary
Necessary for living well in God's family
These things should be known and taught
For God's messages to be truly caught

The time to win a fight is before it starts
Setting the right intentions in our hearts
Ownership is the righteous path of healing
Approaching life with love is soul revealing

When catching those in sin, we must bring gentle correction
To restore that person's path to the right direction
Mindful of the laws of Christ for the sake of redemption
We must test ourselves in our holiest contemplation

We must love people with the right integrity
As God keeps us focused in right authenticity
It's this response taken without stealth
That keeps life right and relations in good health

Too may want to catch other in their sins
Finding fault and mistakes again and again
It becomes a judgment game in the struggles of each other
And we forget God's grace found in loving one another

In this fallen world, hurt people hurt other people
Even while living under the roof of the Lord's steeple
This condition must be approached below the surface
Knowing the Lord's loving embrace in its true purpose

To find a way past conflict, we determine what mean people mean
By learning the backstories behind our fellow human beings
Growing in knowing the ways that people come to make mistakes
This opens the doors that bridge to love instead of heartbreaks

Empathy points to the gentleness of love and knowing
Walking the ways of peace, not assumptions, in our growing
Let's lean-in to reach past and beyond life's fences
Walking in patience and putting away our false pretenses

Reburned as Jesus in the moments that need real grace
Empathizing with the troubles humans find and must face
It is there in combatting narcissism armed with empathy
That we come seeking understanding and offering sympathy

We should not seek to always put others in their place
Instead having the courage to put ourselves in their place
This is to model how God stepped into the shoes of humanity
With love trumping judgment instead of our unholy vanity

The truth is that the path of always being abrasive
Is not the passage toward being more persuasive
The Holy Spirit's need is to find the added value
In our approaches toward others in what it is we do

Opening doors by keeping in our peace of mind
Not regretting having given our ugly piece of mind
We cannot gain by leaving relationships behind
It is the pain of the blind wounding the blind

Healing the wounds of brokenness takes tact
Relieving pressure by understanding how we act
Assessing ourselves to act with God's compassion
And adding that true value as it it is good fashion

To be worn well in the end as we pump the breaks
Of offering mercy instead of riding life's mistakes
We must build each other up instead of bringing down
Helping each other as if family in need of victory's crown

Let's live the miracle of understanding prayer
Learning to grow better relationships through care
In doing so, let's find the courage to truly love one another
We are, after all, sisters and brothers

(c) October 29, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Walled On Flutterbys

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Thought For the Day: In A Series of Acts of Kindness There Is, At Last, One Which Makes the Heart Run Over

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over. So in a series of acts of kindness there is, at last, one which makes the heart run over.” – James Boswell, biographer and lawyer (29 Oct 1740-1795)

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First Principles: Bear One Another’s Burdens, and So Fulfill the Law of Christ

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” – Galatians 6:2 (NIV)

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The Singularity of the Immersive

The Brittle Epoch by Bryn Oh -An Artist's View of the Moon
The Singularity of the Immersive
by Michael Doyle

The virtual offers its trailing breadcrumbs
Pushing forward into spaces where the mind numbs
Through the effort of examining its potential
The path walked has become quite consequential

This platform of mixed media is greater than its sum
And uniquely qualified to beat its own kinetic drum
Somewhere between the simplicity of strict anonymity
There are shades of art provided in its complexity

The artist stands boldly in prints of black and white
While the music accents a vision of enhanced sights
She chooses the glimpses desired to be given a face
While never revealing a direct look to embrace

Intermixing stylistic work with those contemporary
Artists that share the same spaces as if extemporary
While actually being well-versed in her preparation
And artistically calculated in providing the formation

Of impressions provided in astute observation
That regards little as to acceptance or rejection
The artist gathers the data from views seen
That others love the work and respect a human being

Just exactly who it is that she is and will choose to be
This is true regardless of what is known of her identity
Behind the scenes that are those which are displayed
In the careful contrivances, she has skillfully portrayed

The fluidity of identity has become an artful construct
of the experimental nature of new reality that instructs
Us how to be accepting of acknowledged limitations
Where what might be known can only be known in experimentation

This is a new age of art and artistry that is relinquishing
The old-school edges that defined what was held interesting
As media and identity blurred into areas of the frontier
And the expectations of perceptions that no longer adhere

Instead, becoming new and fluid while evolving connections
With affection and conception to become acceptable exceptions
Drawing the viewers to experience the emotions that reveal
What exactly their own minds allow them to think and feel

Eyepaths naturally form and sweep across the composition
While focal points become useful in guided exposition
Of what an artist wishes to say without necessarily saying
High in the connections and contrasts that are displaying

What it is that an artist wishes to be appreciated and seen
Like the dignity of figures perceived by the astute and keen
Some figures are necessary in their important centrality
While others are nonessential and have a bit more neutrality

That which is pointed to will more naturally find the eye
Whether a shop's window or a bird flying across the sky
While that which provides contrasts to a perceived majority
Well become that which the viewer senses some affinity

These, in its simplest form of the artistic declarative,
Are the elements that come together to paint a narrative
The creative tension is played on with a sense of mystery
As it has always been along the paths of artistic mastery

Angles provide the needed process of triangulation
That tell the story by brush strokes of stimulation
There is a method to leading to what the eye must see
All of which is provided in its guided imagery

From eyes looking outward there is a connection
That holds your eyes as if by impactful direction
This then is the first method of bringing immersion
Making the viewer of art a witness in this conversion

The artist plays the audience by teasing their imagination
All in a process that become a consolidating illumination
Despite all the day-to-day things that can bring distraction
It is a fragile struggle to keep immersion's connection

It is all these teases that keep us wanting to explore
Somewhere in the half-life of opening and closing doors
The imprints of life each have their lasting traces
It is their immersive nature that tantalize the our spaces

Those that make us understand an artist's message displaying
That say the unsaid without so much as the mildest saying
And make lovers of art of all of us lost in our conversion
As we connect once again in a singularity of immersion

(c) October 28, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
The Singularity of Kumiko (Bryn Oh 2021) - Stairway of Continuity for Another Day
The images in this poem were photographed by me from the work done by the immersive artist, Bryn Oh. If you follow the photos to my Flickr account, you will see the locations these can be found within Second Life’s virtual platform.

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A Humble Servant’s Inquiry

Pendle Hill 2023 - Conjuring A Lifeline
A Humble Servant's Inquiry
by Michael Doyle

Is it rebellious to question?
I ask this in humblest confession
We wish only that those we love
Might escape a little longer from heaven above

While others wish for that death
Through the struggle of wounded breath
A second prayer is uttered for holy rain
That might somehow take away all the pain

Looking in the mirror at who we've become
Wishing to see the younger self as one
With who we've become in life's journey
And to one day leave this life for a better eternity

God, please hear this noble quest
Of those in pain and seeking their true rest
Please put a merciful end to this test
And let all your children be redeemed best

Paid in full as they were at their life's best
Before life's blemishes knew their conquest
Please grant your humbled servant's request
And put an end to life's damnable tests

(c) October 28, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Fantasy Faire - Brocellande

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First Principles: You Must First Enable the Government To Control the Governed; and In the Next Place, Oblige It To Control Itself

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” – James Madison (1788)

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Thought For the Day: People of Modest Talent Can Attract Attention, At Least For A While, By Being Unrelentingly Offensive

“[Film and theater critic John] Simon has simply discovered the trick used with great effectiveness by certain comedians, talk show hosts and punk rock musicians: people of modest talent can attract attention, at least for a while, by being unrelentingly offensive.” – Steven Pinker, author and psychology professor (b. 18 Sep 1954)

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Witches Brew

Fantasy Faire - Mythspire Ridge - Into the Shallows
Witches Brew
by Michael Doyle

In the shroud of fog, we find the door
And knock on it, hoping yet to explore
Hidden secrets are lost behind smoky eyes
But it's the kind of secret that is hard to disguise

What sort of secrets would it be to refuse
The demands of the world and become a recluse
It's the sort of mind that comes openly to debate
Not in hostility but as a friend to man unable to hesitate

Instead, eager to share all that a mind has learned
Orthodoxy fights back as if its never been discerned
That different eyes see those different things
Needed to be experienced as each new day rings

The searching for answers should come through as light
Unafraid of the darkness while quietly shining bright
Gathering together to sharpen each other's minds
While bravely venturing forward, leaving ignorance behind

Greatness is humbled by greatness that is seen
As we encourage each other as the best among human beings
Though such courage comes with worried advice
An inquiring, earnest mind shared is worth any price

Lesser minds find it hard to understand
What it truly is to follow true leaders fit to command
And that in loving one another, we learn to forgive
And forge ahead into life yet to be fully lived

Sure so-called experts hang onto their providence
To securely hide their pretense against all evidence
Until reminded of their own past mistakes
That has brought others too many heartbreaks

Through strong advocation, the mystery is brought
To the inquiring minds and hearts that have truly sought
Only to bring about the best in the cause of the better good
Of those who fell on hard times by being misunderstood

Good does as it is that the good knows that it should
It's never the case or question of why or even would
But instead, chases after the essence of true humanity
Once it eludes the horrid outcomes of man's worst vanity

(c) October 27, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Fantasy Faire - Mythspire Ridge - Veiled Mushroom

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