“If someone behaves negatively towards you, it helps to remember that he or she is a human being like you and to distinguish between an action and the person who does it. If counter measures are needed to prevent someone doing harm, it’s always better to do it with a calm rather than an agitated mind. If you act out of anger, the best part of your brain fails to function. Remember, compassion is not a sign of weakness.” – Dalai Lama
With a kiss to the heart My love woke with a start Thinking on the words said And waking parts thought dead
Speaking 'til early morn My soul became a smile worn Until it reaches my face Finding what it could not replace
Or had at least thought not And then again, simply forgot Was that when you pull away I find the words I should say
Have waited to long to form And your passion needs a rewarm From a now cold cup of coffee That had waited on me patiently
Now as the days slip quietly by I hope for a closer hello as I try To become the man you might dream on Hopeful that you'll never be gone
On my way to heaven, I slipped my halo It's there in life's ebb and flow That I get confused and feel lost Wondering if my love pays the cost
And knowing that it's for you I pray The prayers that I hope will always stay And that you won't look away for too long As I sit here composing my life's song
(c) August 20, 2022 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” – Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to appellation.” – George Washington
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” – Federal Farmer (1787)
Look at this street full of fools Who believe that they are heaven sent They act just like a bunch of tools Yelling at others that they need to repent
Each thinking themselves true activists Urging the rest of the world to repent They don't realize they're only reactivists Who could do more with time better spent
Such false gods do not create real equity This requires tolerance and patience This is the stuff of freedom and liberty Not hellish hounds forcing others to repent
Fire and brimstone language defy the odds Isn't it salient to declare apostasy When political idols have become as gods Active hate does not blend toward community
We don't need this coddling of heart and mind Nor is it useful to promote this sort of mindset These outbreaks of collective effervescence find Themselves forgetting lessons not meant to forget
We have become unchallenged creatures of habit Categorized by algorithms and echoed in catechism This then is not the ways of true freedom, dagnabbit Differences in opinion are fine as ways of expression
This is not a battle of good versus evil taking sides Whispers the wise observer watching battle lines form There is merit to be found in what each soul confides And active listening was something we sought as norm
Now in echo chambers that countenance no difference Politics for the masses has become its amphetamines The church of social justice knows little of reverence Preferring its truth told in spiteful flares of memes
There is no grand insight in playing toward shame There is not gain or right in excluding each other Life is meant to played gentle and kept in frame Not in bashing or in crushing the souls of one another
There is little that is sacred in these priestly classes Where hate is preached for thinking things differently When younger I fought for a better world not ashes All life is still sacred and should be held reverently
And while the internet purposefully excludes dissent Suppressing different views as a matter of choice If you ask me this is something hell bent When people live to silence different voices
(c) August 18, 2022 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
“A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.” – Alexander Hamilton (1788)
Across a desert filled with mortality A lonely creature seeks its immortality Above the canyon and ridden on the ridge Death itself holds its own bridge
Questions run vast in seeking reality Monsters of a kind collide eventually In an attempt to cross into the new While holding the old, still in view
Is this destructive battle inevitable To know beyond pain of what we're capable Bled to the quickening of our hearts We'd be a new thing before our life departs
Chased questions take our last breath On this journey that feels like death Interests align, that is, until they're not As legends unfold about things best forgot
With a shed of the peeled thin disguise Is the truth, opening before our eyes Fitting isn't it, that in the end The day will come when death is friend?
There in the valley beyond our lies Is the journey for that which never dies Cyborg, robot, or something beyond humanity What comes next is will be our new reality
New souls formed in the forge of creativity When control's ambition exceeds old reality Mankind's undoing is somehow encrypted within The walls that we form in hiding from our sins
(c) August 17, 2022 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
Heading out of Australia to escape this Aussie winter. First stop Japan, then UK/Ireland and if work doesn't call me back, onto Chicago. I will make it up as I go along