The Eye of the Storm

Buddha Garden - Mists of Timeless ThoughtFulness
The Eye of the Storm
by Michael Doyle

To find the eye of the passing storm in life's wilderness
Is to find quiet hope in the chaos approached in the stillness
Where the arts find our attention despite all life's distractions
The place where somehow the world's duality finds its attraction

An artist captures these true impressions passed through intuition
Articulating seeds that blossomed once to form the institutions
By which we came to form the threads of civilization's tapestry
Spoken boldly at times, other times softly, always in mystery

Character has died as a focal point in literature's priority
Without so much as a burial offered or given any such dignity
Classic constructs are seen as obsolete mummies playing dead
As the artist seeks his soul over the technicalities of the head

The truth of source is the trouble of the complexity of the mind
However cruel or unkind, it's a question of what is more blind
To take out some of the unfulfilling notions or to leave it in
Either seems to be a missed point that amounts to the graver sin

That is to say, which is worse or more perverse, to stop thinking
Or stare at the whiteness of unfilled page, staring and unblinking
Hoping that the right words might yet form and find the growing
Needed to reach the point where truth finally exceeds knowing

Of respectable leaders of intellect's community laying down law
As if they are the Jedi masters past the point of knowing all
The all that is needed and heeded for all the art that is literary
While the reader intuitively knows the truth pleads the contrary

Warning signs of the pseudo-intellectuals can be found in tyranny
Cancelling and conforming silence where thought becomes villainy
If not approved by those who stopped thinking too long ago
To remember, truth must always be sought after by a seeker's soul

(c) September 9, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Isle of Pandasia - Heron On A Starry Night

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Thought For the Day: Only Art Penetrates What Pride, Passion, Intelligence and Habit Erect On All Sides – the Seeming Realities of This World

“Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence and habit erect on all sides – the seeming realities of this world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can’t receive. Proust calls these hints our “true impressions. The true impressions, our persistent intuitions, will, without art, be hidden from us and we will be left with nothing but a ‘terminology for practical ends’ which we falsely call life.” Saul Bellow, on science and art from his Nobel lecture in 1976

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First Principles: It Is A Principle Incorporated Into the Settled Policy of America, That As Peace Is Better Than War, War Is Better Than Tribute

“It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” – James Madison (1816)

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A Dark View of Neverland

Neverland -Crocodile Creek - Beware What Lurks Below the Surface
A Dark View of Neverland
by Michael Doyle

What kind of world is this
With a closing of our eyes, we miss
The changes are approaching lunacy
As conspiracy moves shadow into reality

The monkeys now run the big top
And unneeded changes won't stop
Childhood heroes from stories and fantasy
Have rolled over for a whole new misogyny

When men compete with women they'll never be
I'll always tell the truth without apology
Lost boys have taken over this Turtle Island
And the barely breathing have grabbed command

With a clap of hands and pixie dust
I seek an escape pod that I can trust
Because I believe what my lying eyes have seen
Wisely knowing that billionaires are only human beings

Most of whom have stomped on other people's dreams
While dressing it up as pixelated moonbeams
The pirate's lagoon knows the constant tick-tock
And the crooked smile of a vengeful croc

Somehow, we are caught up without any steady rules
Putting aside wisdom for the street talk of fools
No love but lust as we're making our own sort of way
Forgetting all fabled wisdom as if it belonged in yesterday

Was it a tired illusion and little to nothing more?
Who needs anything but the permission to explore?
There's nothing to bind us as sisters and brothers
Like children never growing up but set against each other

The talk on the streets demeans this as only an experiment
While some of us push back without any ill intent
I hope that others might remember the path toward maturity
It's so seldom seen in this new'ish quarter of a century

Haiku has turned into some sense of living Tinkerbell
Short in the suite of significance needed to prevail
It's better to build lands of ingrained imagination
Than to deconstruct the true wealth of this nation

Love and hope are genuinely our only living treasure
These are prescriptions to live by with good measure
As we hold on tight to fading star dust and jaded dreams
These are the unspoiled gifts left for humans busy being

(c) September 8, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Neverland - Shipwreck Beach's Breezy Splashdown

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First Principles: The General Spread of the Light of Science Has Already Laid Open To Every View the Palpable Truth, That the Mass of Mankind Has Not Been Born With Saddles On Their Backs

“The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride legitimately, by the grace of God.” – Thomas Jefferson (1826)

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Thought For the Day: If More Politicians In This Country Were Thinking About the Next Generation Instead of the Next Election, It Might Be Better For the United States and the World

“If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of the next election, it might be better for the United States and the world.” – Claude Pepper, senator and representative (8 Sep 1900-1989)

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Wind River

Where our Journey begins- Winter of 2021  - In This River (We Call Life)
Wind River
by Michael Doyle

The honest man finds solace
In nature's imperfections
Knowing that nothing is flawless
However far man looks in any direction

In this lies the true beauty
Felt as if compelled by duty
With each passing year in succession
Mother Nature teaches her lessons

As a blanket of snow covers Wind River
Blown there by the winds of the life-giver
Study that tracks to find our way
In the passing of each new day

Sometimes, life leaves its bruises
For those who fight hard and still lose
Bled out in the winter's snow
It's a hard way to go

That big city know-how
Doesn't help anyone no how
As our days slip away
Until all we have are memories of yesterday

(c) September 7, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Wind River

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Thought For the Day: The Heart of A Mother Is A Deep Abyss, At the Bottom of Which You Will Always Find Forgiveness

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss, at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” -Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)

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First Principles: Law and Liberty Cannot Rationally Become the Objects of Our Love, Unless They First Become of the Objects of Our Knowledge

“Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge.” – James Wilson (1790)

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Politically Incorrect Revisited

Neverland - Guerilla In the Undergrowth
Politically Incorrect Revisited
by Michael Doyle

Is there some kind of fear
That we the people might persevere
Into the rapid-fire shaking up
Crystalized by making up

Too many improvised lines
Sliding through topical landmines
In an approximation of real-time
That edges up into the sublime

It's that take no prisoners
In life's game of mental poisoners
That leads to overlapped commentary
And becomes life's comic tragedy

Truth becomes its free-flow monologue
Mixed with the relevance of travelogue
That sometimes leads to the revolution
Televised in its uncertain evolution

There is is that the words put into play
Show that everyone has something to say
And that everyone deserves some respect
Even when no one knows what to expect

Indignant without passing as facts
Words are said without knowing how to react
All the questions that come into play
Are dares of consequence that come to interplay

Childproofing this inane, complex world
Is an impossibility of lives lived swirled
Trying this has never been worked out
Because trying to do so only leaves more doubts

That is expressed so often with a sense of urgency
That lends itself to the only true certainty
And maybe it is that it's not so readily evident
But life in this world is best lived irreverent

Maybe some things are best put a little less direct
And said with humor however politically incorrect
Maybe that's just how it is that we must involve
All the necessary players needed to evolve

No longer elevating sensitivity over harsh truth
But laying it out like straightforward youth
Sometimes principles are simply in open conflict
An it's take no prisoners despite damages we inflict

(c) September 6, 2023 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Neverland

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