“Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” – T.S. Eliot, poet (26 Sep 1888-1965)
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Thought For the Day: Where Is the Life We Have Lost In Living? Where Is the Wisdom We Have Lost In Knowledge?
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Information, Knowledge, Life, Living, Lost, T.S. Eliot, Thought For the Day, Wisdom
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For Fear That We Will Fall
For Fear That We Will Fall
by Michael Doyle
Listen to the world as you do
But in the end to yourself be true
Neither a borrower or lender be
Because debt destroys harmony
Words of wisdom to follow far
As true as truth is the northern star
The plot is thicker when studied long
Especially when madness is brewed strong
Misperceived as we are in our perception
Always the trick of the tale lies in its deception
Is it better to purposefully churn a sea of trouble
Or will the doing so only make it double
Be careful in your every taken action
Ensure you follow what will lead to satisfaction
Heartache knows its path to consummation
To sleep; to die; is the final contemplation
Whipped into the scorn of oppressive time
When insolence leads itself into uneasy rhyme
The wrongs of life take their deep toll
And only each of us can be true to our own role
Possessing the way to freedom within our hand
If only we might follow the path as planned
There is more to dread than those things of death
As we find end of weary life with our last breath
The path to freedom lies in the just before
Each of us who dare just a little more
Still fear seems to stop us all
Too afraid to fly for fear that we will fall
(c) September 25, 2021 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Action, Afraid To Fly, Before, Borrower, Careful, Churn, Consummation, Contemplation, Dare, Death, Debt, Deception, Die, Double, End, Fall, Fear, Freedom, Harmony, Heartache, Insolence, Last Breath, Lender, Listen, Madness, Northern Star, Path, Perception, Plot, Poetry and Poems, Role, Satisfaction, Scorn, Sleep, Stop, Time, Toll, Trouble, True, Truth, Uneasy Rhyme, Words of Wisdom, World, Wrongs of Life, Yourself
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First Principles: There Is No Room In This Country For Hyphenated Americanism
“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. …The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.” – Theodore Roosevelt (Address to Knights of Columbus, Oct. 12, 1915)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged All Possibility, Amerianism, Certain Way, Country, First Principles, Hyphen, Nation, Nationalities, No Room, Permit, Ruin, Squabble, Tangle, Theodore Roosevelt
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Thought For the Day: Children Have Never Been Very Good At Listening To Their Elders, But They Have Never Failed To Imitate Them
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” -James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)
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Tagged Children, Fail, Good, Imitate, James Baldwin, Listen, Thought For the Day
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Thrown Away
word prompt is Away
Thrown Away
by Michael Doyle
Times like these are seasonable
When life itself feels unreasonable
What I had wanted to be for the better
Somehow fell apart when together
Now it seems taking life day by day
Alone with the feelings I threw away
Is all that I have to look forward to
In the mistakes I made in me and you
Word prompts bring back fatal memory
In those things it seems I’ve done to me
But still I know there will be a new tomorrow
Even despite the pain and all the sorrow
It is good to know that words still flow
Even though it is that I know what I know
That the wrong done was mostly done by me
I stand strong and beyond the edge of sympathy
All these things that it seems I threw away
And wondering how I will make it through the day
All the flawed cards I put into wrong-minded play
I wish somehow I would find some words to say
That would take away all of what is my mistake
Somehow do penance and heal the heartbreak
I reflected on this as I completed the survey
At the end of cardiac rehab I filled out today
Thinking how do I say to them, “yes, I am sad”
Of course it is that I feel I have made someone mad
No, it has so little to do with the cardiac rehab
And more to do with self afflicted that I now have
Bleeding out emotionally as I know I have done wrong
No longer sure of anything or that I even belong
But doing my best to bravely be contritely strong
In the full awareness of what I did as wrong
In short, I know that what I dreamed of as someday
I have destroyed and thrown it all utterly away
My tears say it’s not really all that funny, so, I am sad
All of my good intentions gone wrong and hurting bad
Watching you from across the room, I want to smile
But your hands on your hips let me know your denial
What I could have done, what I should have done
Doesn’t matter any more because we are as done…
…as this poem
(c) September 24, 2021 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Alone, Better, Day by Day, Edge, Fatal, Feelings, Fell Apart, Flow, Forward, Konw, Life, Me, Me and You, Memory, Mistakes, Poetry and Poems, Season, Sorrow, Stand Strong, Sympathy, Taking Life, Thrown Away, Times, Tomorrow, Unreasonable, Want, Word Prompts, Words, Wrong Done
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First Principles: They Are Not To Do Anything They Please To Provide For the General Welfare…Only to Lay Taxes For that Purpose
“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please…Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.” – Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791
Thought For the Day: A Lie Doesn’t Become Truth, Wrong Doesn’t Become Right and Evil Doesn’t Become Good Just Because It’s Accepted By A Majority
“A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right and evil doesn’t become good just because it’s accepted by a majority.” – Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Accept, Booker T. Washington, Evil, Good, Lie, Majority, Right, Thought For the Day, Truth, Wrong
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Holding On to Legacy
Holding On to Legacy
by Michael Doyle
There are some things to be said
That keep rolling around in my head
One of which must be said precise
That extremism in defense of liberty is no vice
Moderation in pursuit of justice is not a virtue
Nor can any ethical argument be made to so construe
While to some this may be seem quite obvious
Too many others remain cheerfully oblivious
In this present crisis of the American house divided
These are some things of which I have decided
One of these is the need for a new birth of freedom
As long as it remains true to the American te deum
What has come before, raises the level of intelligence
To negate this past, is to shirk off its relevance
We must guard against the leveling in this modernity
While amply realizing the best of our precious legacy
Strewn there in the passages of our Declaration
Are the seeds of the Constitution of our nation
Let us not back down against the face of destruction
But instead hold on ever stronger to our ancestral institutions
(c) September 23, 2021 Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged American, Ancestral Institutions, Birth, Construe, Decide, Declaration, Defense of Liberty, Extremism, Face of Destruction, Freedom, Guard Against, Head, Hold On, Holding On, Legacy, Leveling, Moderation, Modernity, Nation, Negate This Past, No Vice, Oblivious, Obvious, Poetry and Poems, Precise, Pursuit of Justice, Realize, Relevance, Rolling Around, Seeds, Shirk Off, Strong, Te Deum, The Constitution, Things To Be Said, Virtue
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Thought For the Day: There Is A Fountain of Youth: It Is Your Mind, Your Talents, the Creativity You Bring To Your Life and the Lives of the People You Love
“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age” -Sophia Loren, actor and singer (b. 20 Sep 1934)
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Age, Bring, Creativity, Defeat, Fountain of Youth, Learn, Lifee, People You Love, Sophia Loren, Source, Tap, Thought For the Day, True, Your Mind, Your Talents
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First Principles: It Is the Duty of All Nations To Acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, To Obey His Will, To Be Grateful For His Benefits, and Humbly To Implore His Protection and Favors
“It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.” – George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Acknowledge, All Nations, Almighty God, Benefits, Duty, Favors, First Principles, George Washington, Grateful, Humble, Implore, Obey, Protection, Providence, Will
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