“States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.” – Alexander Hamilton (1790)

“States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.” – Alexander Hamilton (1790)


The Pleasures of the Kill
by Michael Doyle
To be a vampire is to live a very long time.
You can spend this time in venal pleasure or sublime.
But either way, it is a counting of thousands of days,
And this time is best spent in as many ways.
Jealousy will not do anyone any gain or bring good.
Of this much a love-torn vampire holds understood.
Still, there in the early days of hunting a kill,
There is hope that eternal life brings more than a thrill.
To speak the word that brings about one's death,
To fill it to the fullest and take one's breath.
There is nothing better than to spill blood afresh,
Pleasures of the kill compare to pleasures of the flesh.
In the end, what is any sin but the same as all sin,
The Devil thinks he holds the better hand and will win.
But when the end does come, will he believe it then?
It's a hand of cards only the wicked can win.
Crickets and katydids speak softly to the soul,
When the mud of the bayou squishes under the sole.
If only the vampire wishes his thoughts aloud,
To become human again would do him proud.
A little bit of bloodlust under the moonlight,
Makes a deviled man hungry to take another bite.
The soulless one walks without a sense of direction,
Knowing only what he feels with strong recollection.
Anger and danger are known in their savage traces.
It can be felt like power in low-born places.
But once the devil has known his full embrace,
There will be no more talk of things like grace.
(c) October 14, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

“It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.” – Samuel Adams

“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” – Maya Angelou


As the Devil's Own
by Michael Doyle
One man views evil with a quiet bemusement.
Another sees it as a form of amusement.
Neither looks beyond pleasure for purpose.
It is not for them to want to be of service.
Vampires feed to live and not become extinct.
Hunting is a matter of exercising pure instinct.
Regardless of the turn of every season,
It is bloodlust that is sought and not reason.
It is as if I am the Devil's own,
And with you as my echo, I'm never alone.
There is within me an overpowering beast
That, when unleashed, will surely feast.
Taken in sum and under even loose observation,
Mankind's depravity is pushed by raw ambition.
It is almost unimaginable, the amount of depravity
That man manifests with the greatest capacity.
All it takes to hang within this morbid noose,
Is the whisper that God isn't watching and we are loose.
Looking to feed only the unworthy, diabolical criminal
Makes risking starvation almost too elemental.
It is as if I am the Devil's own,
And with you as my echo, I'm never alone.
There is within me an overpowering beast
That, when unleashed, will surely feast.
The year was a blur when Jelly Roll wrote the blues,
While the New Orleans vampires heard it all its hues.
This was the way that it was and had always been
When vampires taunted their favorite human beings.
Time passes, changing memories like a gothic romance
Reversed courses feel well-rehearsed, like a second chance
That has been ghosted until the truth once concealed
Becomes the substance laid bare when it is again revealed.
It is as if I am the Devil's own,
And with you as my echo, I'm never alone.
There is within me an overpowering beast
That, when unleashed, will surely feast.
A vampire's humanity is the last bridge for him to burn.
Memories are the odyssey of a journey from which we learn.
The worst manners come from a hunger that is rarefied
And the self-made arguments that are seldom satisfied.
It is up to each of us to set our defining line.
As I look at you with a lust to finally make you mine.
We play at life as if overhanging a Damoclean sword
Tell me when you have heard the measure of our secret chord.
It is as if I am the Devil's own,
And with you as my echo, I'm never alone.
There is within me an overpowering beast
That, when unleashed, will surely feast.
(c) October 13, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

“I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” – William Penn

“We never feel Christ to be a reality, until we feel Him to be a necessity.” – Austin Phelps


In God's Liberty and Love
by Michael Doyle
Watching after the Lord of all,
His ways I model and always recall.
Lesson after lesson, I will learn,
In all things that I must discern.
Grace and peace pave the way,
In all that I do, and all that I say.
These act as spiritual guardrails
To save our souls from Hell.
We've lived through a generation of deism,
And this has led to spiritual pessimism.
The Gospel's convictions remove reasons to resent
That our God is a God who is always present.
Paul made it clear about the radical alteration
That God brings change to every generation,
Shocking us and focusing our core
Into the belief in love and spiritually more.
We must remove stumbling blocks for one another,
Living God's love for our sisters and brothers.
Righteousness, peace, and joy edify us as we comport
To the ways of God that bring spiritual comfort.
Living in liberty does not mean we are to do.
Christ's reflection should be revealed in you.
Freedom to do isn't a mandate to actually do.
In all we do, we must keep God's love in me and you.
We are to keep moving beyond self to think of others.
We are to live for the good of all of our brothers.
Where we sit changes the shade of our experience.
We are to think about this and give others deference.
We should care about what God cares,
Allowing others their differences to be fair.
In keeping the doctrines blessed by the above,
We learn that greater than liberty is love.
Love calls us to a higher standard of life,
Doing what is loving and not bringing strife.
Managed tension brings us beyond the mechanical,
Being overly stressed can make us maniacal.
Liberty is the path and is instrumental,
But it is in living love by being intentional
That church and indeed life is a garden of seasons,
With a multitude of choices and its own reasons.
The right to do should be chosen by our limits,
And in all we do, we are guided by the Holy Spirit.
To bring this to a navigated sense of clarity,
Life should be lived with love over our liberty.
(c) October 12, 2025 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” – Soren Kierkegaard

“Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.” – Romans 14:1 NIV

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