ALOHA PROMISES FOREVER

Waking Up Alone

Posted on June 21, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

Didn’t Bowie set it out for us well? Time may and does change us. But, we cannot change time. Why do realize that when we are young. Then so many of us lose sight of this as we grow older and want to hold on to yesterday as if it was ours to hold. One of the joys that I have as I watch my little girls become the young ladies that they are is in hearing their reasoning even on areas that I disagree with them on. I think this world will be left to very capable hands and hearts. I am so very proud of both of them. And yet, I write a poem like this. lol No one said that I’m not contradictory at times, right?

Waking Up Alone
by Michael Doyle

Youngsters don't tend to live in the past
Living fully aware that many things don't last
They're never afraid to listen despite their fears
The Rubicon may have been crossed but we're still here

Time makes time until marked time is gone
And still, tomorrow comes moving forward and on
Life brings its hints of stark mockery
But, we've always known the humor of history

Apocalyptic warnings of too many hard rains
Have drowned out the approach of the slow trains
Moving us past the point of known no return
As an accordion sighs and life's blossoms burn

Yesterday, today and tomorrow will die too
Doing as they do and all things eventually do
Fatalism hangs in the air as a sneering question
That bleeds into all life withstanding its hesitation

As we each see the highs and experience the lows
Dreaming of things we're fear to really know
Wondering how it feels to know we're on our own
Feeling beyond the terrible terror of waking up alone

(c) June 21, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Alone, Apocalyptic, Approach, Aware, Bleed, Bowie, Capable, Change, Cross, Die, Dream, Drowned Out, Eventually, Fatalism, Fear, Feel, Feeling, Forward, Gone, Hands and Hearts, Hangs In the Air, Hard Rains, Hesitation, Highs, History, Hold On, Humor, Know, Listen, Live In the Past, Living, Lows, Mockery, Moving, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Point of No Return, Proud, Question, See, Slow Trains, Sneer, Stark, Still Here, Terror, The Rubicon, Things Don't Last, Time, Today, Tomorrow, Unafraid, Wake Up, Waking Up Alone, Warning, We're On Our Own, Wonder, World, Yesterday, Young Ladies, Youngsters | Leave a comment

Back Chat of Eternal Insomnia

Posted on June 21, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

So many of us spend countless hours into the we hours of the night staving off the limited hours until the morning light. Insomnia and its accompanying sleep exhaustion have claimed many of us and leading into less good than bad. Still, we choose more of the same, don’t we?

Back Chat of Eternal Insomnia
by Michael Doyle

At 4 AM, you realize your sleeplessness
The oddest part is just how it's needless
Nothing can be said in these late moments
To bring world peace or ease life's torments

Of relationships that have somehow gone wrong
And no words said that will make you belong
Any more than you will or already do now
Nor that will not keep a more reasonable time anyhow

You know you have to wake up early tomorrow
Then that's when you realize to your sorrow
That tomorrow is already come to be today
Yet, nothing has changed, for the good anyway

Life in all of its fundamental complexity
Surges over you like a sea of anxiety
Like an un-subtle compulsive tide will rise
Nothing quite removes the red from your eyes

You keep leaving the bed clumsy into the night spaces
Your mind numbly feels out it's blank bits and traces
As gravestone toast pops up in slices of indignity
While that cup of coffee feigns restoration of your humanity

On and on, your mind drones on virtually empty
Believing yourself genius at your own audacity
Alone in your apartment, you find yourself as you sit
In the company of thousands of others who'll never forget

There in the mystical fellowship of insomniacs
Are the makings of tortured souls turned into maniacs
Each mistaking the other as a guild of piercing minds
Each unwilling to ever be left in the state of being behind

Over the city's rooftops, data flow shimmers and flexes
As millions of lost souls seek to to somehow truly connect
It's a God like time that manages to feel as if eternal
Though in the end burns deep like something infernal

The clock loses itself in these darkest of dear hours
As Gothic backchat seizes control and then sours
All the woe of far too little time in which to sleep
Caught in the foggy grayness that just could not keep

(c) June 21, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Anxiety, Apartment, Audacity, Bed, Believe, Belong, Burn, Change, Chat, Clock, Company, Complexity, Connect, Control, Countless Hours, Cup of Coffee, Data, Do, Drone, Empty, End, Eternal, Eyes, Feel, Fellowship, Flex, Fog, Forget, God, Gone Wrong, Gothic, Gravestone, Gray, Guile, Hours, Humanity, Indignity, Infernal, Insomnia, Insomniacs, Keep, Late, Left Behind, Life, Lose, Lost Souls, Maniacs, Mind, Mistake, Mystical, Need, Night, Numb, Odd, Photograph, Piercing Mind, Poem, Poetry, Realize, Reasonable, Red, Relationships, Restoration, Rise, Rooftops, Seek, Shimmer, Sleep, Sleep Exhaustion, Sleeplessness, Slice, Sorrow, Sour, Surge, Tide, Time, Toast, Today, Tomorrow, Too Little Time, Torments, Tortured Souls, Trace, Unwilling, Virtual, Wake Up, Will, Words, World Peace, Yourself | Leave a comment

Happiest of Fathers Day!!

Posted on June 21, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

Wishing every father out there that they know the love of being a daddy who is richly blessed by the love of his children!!

As for me and mine, I think we’re heading out for a short road trip!!

Posted in Thought For the Day | Tagged Blessed, Children, Daddy, Happy Fathers Day!, Love, Road Trip, Thought of the Day, Wish | Leave a comment

First Principles: My Rule…Is…Go Straight Forward In Doing What Appears To Me Right AT the Time, Leaving the Consequences With Providence

Posted on June 21, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

“My rule in which I have always found satisfaction, is never to turn aside in public affairs through views of private interest, but to go straight forward in doing what appears to me right at the time, leaving the consequences with Providence.” – Benjamin Franklin

Posted in First Principles | Tagged Appears, Benjamin Franklin, Consequences, Doing, First Principles, My Rule, Private Interest, Providence, Public Affairs, Right At the Time, Satisfaction, Straight Forward, Turn Aside, Views | Leave a comment

Thought For the Day: When It Rains On Your Parade, Look Up Rather Than Down. Without the Rain, There Would Be No Rainbow

Posted on June 21, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

“(W)hen it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Posted in Thought For the Day | Tagged Down, Gilbert K Chesterton, No Rainbow, Parade, Rain, Thought For the Day, Up, Without Rain | Leave a comment

Brand Me

Posted on June 20, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

Watched a Ted Talk with my princesses on branding.

Brand Me
by Michael Doyle

Thinking back on life
Through all of the joy and strife
There has been one question
Held back with some hesitation

What then is my story?
In what then is my glory?
Is there then, any?
In all of my moments of many

First chorus song as choir boy
Filled with American pride and joy
I was going to become the president
Devoting all passion toward this as precedent

Nose held down on the grindstone
Between study and books read alone
Making all-stars on every team
I had no idea, the craziness of this dream

Thinking back on life
Through all the joy and strife
There has been one question
Held back with some hesitation

What then is my story?
In the what then is my glory
Is there then, any?
In all of my moments of many

Having reached the age of eighteen
I put away my young boy dreams
Turning my back on these to be a military man
Devoting myself to being All-American

Wounded body and wounded pride
Taking each in the fullest stride
I spent years believing I'd go to hell
At times that would have been just as well

Thinking back on life
Through all the joy and strife
There has been one question
Held back with some hesitation

What then is my story?
Honor given and bound for glory
What is that then if it means any
In all my moments spent, too many

The best of life now lies in bed
Their laughter echoing in my head
Two princesses that I love and adore
At my place, they'll find their open door

Thinking back on conversation and dreams
Placed in my life like a thousand sunbeams
I thank God for trusting their care to me
Considering this privilege of my dear family

Perhaps this then is all that I'll ever be
If so, that's a fine enough place of destiny
If my tombstone only reads 'a man who loves his family'
I will go to my grave humbled but gratefully

(c) June 20, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry and Poems | Tagged Adore, All I'll Ever Be, All-American, All-Star, American, Any, Bed, Believe, Best of Life, Body, Books, Brand, Branding, Care, Choir Boy, Conversation, Crazy, Destiny, Devote, Dream, Dreams, Echo, Eighteen, Family, Fine Enough, First Chorus, Glory, Gratefully, Grave, Grindstone, Head, Hell, Hesitation, Humble, Joy, Just As Well, Laughter, Life, Love, Many, Me, Military Man, Moment, Nose Held Down, One Question, Open Door, Passion, Photograph, Place, Placed, Poem, Poetry, Precedent, President, Pride, Pride and Joy, Princesses, Privilege, Put Away, Read, Song, Story, Stride, Strife, Study, Sunbeam, Team, TED Talk, Thank God, Thinking Back, Time, Tombstone, Trust, Two, Wounded, Years | Leave a comment

Thought For the Day: A House Is Made With Walls and Beams; A Home Is Built With Love and Dreams

Posted on June 20, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

“A house is made with walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Having just spent the day in the company of my two princesses grown into big girls, I can attest to the truth of this. I just tucked them into a cozy sleep. These moments are the moments my heart knows its contentment and peace.

Posted in Thought For the Day | Tagged Beams, Built, Dreams, Home, House, Love, Made, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thought For the Day, Walls | Leave a comment

First Principles: An Honest Man Can Feel No Pleasure In the Exercise of Power Over His Fellow Citizens

Posted on June 20, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

“An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens….There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends & books.” – Thomas Jefferson, in letter to John Melish (January 13, 1813)

Posted in First Principles | Tagged Exercise of Power, Feel, Fellow Citizens, First Principles, Honest Man, No Pleasure, Thomas Jefferson | Leave a comment

The Good Fairy Tale

Posted on June 19, 2020 by alohapromisesforever

What then is a fairy tale? What elements are necessary? And what are the purposes served in these?

The Good Fairy Tale
by Michael Doyle

From deep within the wishing well
Comes the invention of the fairy tale
It's hard to keep the stories you know
As generations diffuse these from the shadows

There in the hallowed place of convergence
Rests the faded details of their resurgence
Traces of all these fables in the sublime
Resting this side of the moon since ancient times

There is a love between beauty and her beast
The crux of which survives in as much as least
Once upon a time begins many of these fairy tales
As the rest is but a variance of misfortune's details

From the Book of Job on down is borne the familiarity
That hard times can befall even the blessed royalty
Princes become who they are as always subject to emulation
Reads the rich fabric woven across the storied nations

While their beauties rely on not just on their outside
For such is next to nothing to the wisdom before her pride
Honest and wise they nearly always are beyond all measure
Present in equal shares is the inner beauty which we treasure

Everywhere in these tales, magic is at source for all
With every fairytale does its best to casually reveal
That all that happens, happens for the sake of happy ending
If not in reality, at least while we are pretending

It's that moment of joy in the ever present eucatastrophe 
That each tale provides for in it is the hope of humanity
Lived happily ever after as set out in each such tale
Justly done to instill that righteousness will always prevail

Courage has its fortitude which comes into acting well
In the face of fear, the hero's journey continues its trail
To love and be loved must be that it is freely given
And each restoration is but at tale of that which is forgiven

Each story of these are necessary to relay the good of will
All of which is necessary to the telling of the fairy tale
Listen deeply now children and you shall always hear
How goodness will always win as evil is vanquished and disappears

(c) June 19, 2020  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved