“The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.” – Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen), author (17 Apr 1885-1962)
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Thought For the Day: Salt Water Cures Most Everything
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Tagged Anything, Cure, Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen, Salt Water, Sea, Sweat, Tears, Thought For the Day
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For the Love of Mom
The subject of Day 16 of Na/GloPoWriMo‘s challenge is to write a poem that uses the form of a list to defamiliarize the mundane. Far be it from me to ever really consider my mom or any mom that I know as mundane. But, it is true that everyone has one…..
For the Love of Mom by Michael Romani It seems it's time to draw on loving memory As I recall the anchor and center of my family I'll always treasure all the things I learned Like how to live, love and thoughts discerned From that once living pillar of sheer tenacity I loved her undying devotion to raising her family With rolled up sleeves never afraid to do her all Then taking comfort in tea and a book as I recall She would always make an even of new things discovered And when we hurt, held us until we recovered Always involved in every part of my life's growing Giving love and guidance and hints for learning and knowing I remember the phone calls even after I had grown All the loving words and the many kindnesses shown There was no doubt that if I fell she would catch me And if I was in real need she would always fetch me All the things needed even when I had not asked Teaching me to stand strong even when my sorrow it masked How she taught me acts of charity practiced privately Never taking life too seriously but holding on lightly There were a million tiny gifts and acts of generosity Books, games, adventures and art to tease my curiousity She was a pillar of matronly strength in her delicacy Teaching lessons without meaning in the art of dignity All the way to the last day of her last breath drawn She could hold me in check with a look despite my brawn As I think back on her this quite, lonely night I know that it was by her will that I turned out alright (c) April 16, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Anchor, Center, Devotion, Family, Live, Love, Memory, Mom, Mundane, Na/GloPoWriMo, Photograph, Pillar, Poem, Poetry, Tenancity, Treasure
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Thought For the Day: First We Shape Our Buildings, Then They Shape Us
“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” –
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged After, Buildings, Notre Dame Cathedral, Shape, Thought For the Day, Us, We, Wintson Churchill
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First Principles: The Bible Should Be Read and Applied To Our Daily Lives
“The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.” – John Jay (1784)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Best, Bible, Book, First Principles, Happy, John Jay, Life, Next, Precepts, Read, Regulate, Teach, Word of God, World
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A Vancouverite Current
The Na/GloPoWriM0 Day 15 challenge is to provide a Robert Brown or Shakespearian styled monologue sort of a poem. I opted for a redo on Hamlet’s “To Be or Not To Be” monologue. Kind of.. I opted for happy thoughts not gloom.
For ready reference, this is how the piece by Shakespeare is written:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56965/speech-to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-question
A Vancouverite Current by Michael Romani To move or not to move, that is the question Whether the gray of either sky depends on the border Or, if by either border, love finds its fortune Or, that if by the decision, one finds more troubles In seeking the warmth of her arms, I find my way to sleep And perhaps more, for by this sleep, I find my friend And love as an end to heartache and a thousand natural shocks That my flesh is heir to; it's more than an infatuation Devotedly to be wished, To love and sleep And in this sleep to dream; yes that is the motivation For in that sleep that comes with love, what dreams may come So much deeper than any mere mortal coil Deep in our momentary pause - I feel naught but deep respect That makes for happiness and a long, rewarding life For who can question the pleasures and hopes of time, There in her sweet song, a proud man's folly Or, the wisdom to find and keep love, without delay Putting an end to my insolence, no longer to spurn But instead with patience merit the worth of our sake That I might in all of my quiet and noise make Naked to the truth of love, I in my jammies bare No longer weary and beaten in this life, But that hope that comes of something after love, Vancouver, the undiscovered country, from whose voyage This traveler may never return, puzzles at my will And yet still, I would know the good that I have Then to go another way that I do not know? My conscience makes a coward of me yet Though I know my native resolution will not regret Still, there are moments when caution casts its thoughts, For this is a decision of greatest moment For with this decision, there in its Vancouverite current Once made, there is no turning back (c) April 15, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Arms, Beaten, Border, Caution, Conscience, Country, Coward, Current, Decision, Deep, Delay, Devote, Dream, Flesh, Folly, Fortune, Friend, Gloom, Good, Gray, Happiness, Happy, Heartache, Heir, Hope, Infatuation, Insolence, Jammies, Know, Life, Love, Me, Merit, Moment, Monologue, Mortal Coil, Motivation, Na/GloPoWriMo, Naked, Native Resolution, Noise, Patience, Pause, Photograph, Pleasure, Poem, Poetry, Pride, Purn, Puzzle, Question, Quiet, Regret, Respect, Return, Reward, Robert Brown, Sake, Shock, Sky, Sleep, Song, Thought, Time, To Be Or Not To Be, Traveler, Trouble, Turn Back, Vancouver, Voyage, Warmth, Weary, Will, William Shakespeare, Wisdom, Wish, Worth
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First Principles: The Unlimited Power To Tax Necessarily Is the Power To Destroy
“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” – John Marshall (1819)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Bear, Destroy, First Principles, Institution, John Marshall, Limit Beyond, McCulloch v Maryland, Power, Property, Tax, Taxation, Unllimited Power
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Thought For the Day: Declining Civilizations Are Marked With A Tendency Toward Uniformity and Standardization
“Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity.” – Arnold Toynbee, historian (14 Apr 1889-1975)
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Arnold Toynbee, Character, Civilization, Conquest, Consistent, Decline, History, Moral Decay, Standardization, Tendency, Thought For the Day, Uniformity
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Wordplay In Homographic
Na/GloPoWriM0 Day 14’s challenge is to use words that sound or look alike or are always confused for one another. This took quite some doing in that I have used this twice this year and was out of ideas. Still….
Wordplay In Homographic by Michael Romani There's something to be said in that bout To all the things that it's about About writing to and about the right In all the words that we come to write In what's left in our every night All the truth and lies that come to light Is that which is and which is not To that massive surge that becomes a knot Of words that dwell in our souls as we wait Yet carry a lot of latitude despite their weight As I watch the falling Autumn leaves Of life until the sense of urgency leaves And all the thoughts that I'd bear Are such a truth as I'd bare Looking out on the open sea To see all that I might see Listening to a thousand violins That drown out all of life's violence There in the stillness of the night Where I dream myself a knight But, I find myself covered in flour As I offer my love a flower Such are the ways of my illusion Even here in my grandest allusion Vaguely poem shaped in its slight Trying my best and sunk at first sight Galloping down life's long road To the places that I've long since rode It seems life's bells have tolled Or, so it seems that I've been told As that old road starts to wind Along the way of that gusty wind This is the way we travel, we two AS the one we're becoming too It's my great pleasure to find you amiable As I find myself feeling quite amicable There's an awful lot we might presume That is to say if we might assume That such an adventure is much ado And that you and I will never bid adieu (c) April 14,2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged About, Adieu, Ado, Allusion, Amiable, Amicable, Assume, Autumn, Bare, Bear, Bout, Flour, Flower, Gust, Homographic, Illusion, Knight, Knot, Leave, Life, Light, Na/GloPoWriMo, Night, Not, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Presume, Right, Road, Rode, Sea, See, Sight, Slight, Told, Tolled, Too, Two, Violence, Violins, Wait, Weight, Wind, Wordplay, Write
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Thought For the Day: A Writer Writes From Empathy More Than Experience
“Writers don’t write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don’t. If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.” – Nikki Giovanni
Posted in Thought For the Day
Tagged Admit, Empathy, Experience, Hesitate, Nikki Giovanni, One Book, Poems, Thought For the Day, Write, Writers
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First Principles: The Militia Consists of the Whole People
“I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.” – George Mason
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Ask, Exception, First Principles, George Mason, Militia, Public Officials, Whole People
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