“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” – Leonard Cohen
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Thought For the Day: Poetry Is the Evidence of Life
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Tagged Ash, Burn, Evidence, Leonard Cohen, Life, Poetry, Thought For the Day
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First Principles: A Good Moral Character For Life Is The First Essential of Mankind and Formed By Habits Contracted Early On
“A good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life.” – George Washington (1790)
Posted in First Principles
Tagged Conduct, First Principles, George Washington, Habits, Important, Indelible, Learned, Life, Mankind, Moral Character, Stamp, Virtuous
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In A Question of Liberty
On this second day of Na/GloPoWriMo, we are invited to explore writing a poem that avoids closure by providing the open end of the question. I believe that as an invitation to explore a significant question raised by a far greater mind than my own, Thomas Jefferson’s question on the origin and keeping of liberty.
In A Question of Liberty by Michael Romani There is the origins of my nation I find the path toward my destination On that has chosen me as much as I Might have chosen it and here's why I watch my nation's place in history Embedded as it is in questions of liberty From whom have we derived our vision And is it one greatness or derision From these colonists so ordinary Arose a notion so very extraordinary That mankind is fit to live in liberty Finding its own path through history It's always been the ordinary men Who have risen now just as then God choses through which He's spoken Speaking the truths never broken The same God has given us all liberty And on this basis secured our history These are the gifts of God given freely To deny this is the sheerest heresy If it comes that we remove this conviction And believe man wiser in our self depiction How then will freedom remain for us all The world trembles as God given liberties fall God is just, yet mankind believes itself clever So very clever that we forget in our endeavors Just how much the loss of God to society will cost Will we somehow carry on or will all be lost? (c) April 2, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
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Tagged Believe, Broken, Carry On, Chose, Clever, Colonist, Conviction, Cost, Depiction, Derision, Destination, Embed, Endeavor, Extraordinary, Fall, Freedom, Gift, God, Greatness, Heresy, History, Keep, Liberty, Loss, Lost, Mankind, Na/GloPoWriMo, Nation, Ordinary, Origin, Path, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Question, Risen, Secure, Society, Spoken, Thomas Jefferson, Tremble, Truth, Vision, World
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The Beauty of Healing
Learning more about how belief shifts biology in connection between mind and body led to this spilling out on my notepad…
The Beauty of Healing by Michael Romani The mind body connection Stimulates the immunity It's a matter of chemistry Applied in the proper direction Belief shifts our biology It's proven in its modality And can bring about the cure With the body's ability to heal and endure Negative thinking has its consequence This must not be ignored with diffidence Better to plant a proactive field Than to allow for what negativity yields We must give careful regard To what we allow us to believe As we tend to our souls, we must discard The blasts of harm that we receive Never, ever give your power away But, instead learn how to fortify With all the things that you do and say For as we believe, we do also ratify How it is that we are ready to heal Or, if we slip into living just to die We must keep ourselves in a balanced well Trusting in the best as our reply Becoming our own best authority Instead of falling under someone's shadow We become proactive rather than living reactively And in doing this we come to increasingly know That some of our best answers lie within Waiting for our best truth to be found Living in the present moment not or then But in the light of day that come around Perhaps one must trust in the given diagnosis But, never believe in the worse prognosis Statistics are dark and highly impersonal And the average is no measure of which you are capable Recovery is something found deeply optional The something different is of what you're capable Rising above the insistence of probability Opening up to the entire realm of our possibility Each of us is the magic that we find and need Bringing about that which we desire Never giving in to the darker seed But, instead becoming that to which we aspire (c) April 2, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Ability, Answer, Apply, Aspire, Authority, Average, Balance, Beauty, Belief, Believe, Biology, Body, Capable, Chemistry, Consequence, Cure, Dark Seed, Desire, Diagnosis, Die, Diffidence, Direction, Discard, Fortify, Harm, Heal, Healing, Immunity, Impersonal, Increase, Know, Light of Day, Living, Magic, Mind Body Connection, Modality, Negative Thinking, Photograph, Plant, Poem, Poety, Possibility, Power, Present, Proactive, Probability, Prognosis, Ratify, Reactive, Recovery, Regard, Say, Shadow, Shift, Soul, Statistics, Stimulate, Trust, Truth, Us, Within, Yield
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Thought For the Day: Hang A Question Mark On All Things Long Taken For Granted
“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” –
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Tagged Affairs, All, Bertrand Russell, Healthy, Question Mark, Taken For Granted, Thought For the Day
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First Principles: Can the Liberties of A Nation Be Secure When The Conviction That the Liberties Are A Gift From God?
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever…” – Thomas Jefferson
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Tagged Basis, Conviction, Country, First Principles, Gift of God, God, Just, Justice, Liberty, Life, Mind, Nation, Reflect, Secure, Sleep, The People, Thomas Jefferson, Tremble, Violated, Wrath
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A Parchment To Write On
Today, April 1, 2019, marks the beginning of the annual National/Global Poetry Writing Month. The first gauntlet flung down is to write a poem based on the idea of making something. A friend suggested parchment. This became to me how to make the parchment, the memories worth placing on parchment and that how this might be illuminated, bound and kept safe for a family’s memory.
A Parchment To Write On by Michael Romani Starting with a rich, dark cup of coffee You might begin to ponder with me Just how to create the vellum of yesteryear Or something quite alike and near Much like veal only different, calfskin is prepared From the membrane by which words are ensnared To tell a story that is warm and inviting The type of a story worthy of its writing With the scrape of a crescent shaped knife Comes the unveiling of a once lived life Like the drive through Joshua Tree's near 70 miles Filled with panoramic views and endless smiles Where a person might climb massive rock formations And stroll through a cactus garden offering incantations Where one might marvel at an oasis filled with water While learning to be a kind and loving father And a winter's abundant rain sprouts into wildflowers As springtime arrives with its countless hours There is the tree likened to arms outstretched in prayer And the ocotillo's red blooms blossoming everywhere There in these sparkling visions worth illuminating Are the veining sheets drying and then waiting Writing now is easier than the lines and columns That only yesterday required the quire's negotiated slaloms And the words chosen with warmth and simplicity Offer up their very best in practiced complicity Summarized within the bindings of embellished gilt Where travels told offer their charm and are felt The stability of well kept memories preserve against humidity And in so doing become a family's cherished memory (c) April 1, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
Posted in Poetry and Poems
Tagged Binding, Bloom, Cactus Garden, Calfskin, Charm, Cherish, Coffee, Complicity, Drive, Embellish, Ensnare, Family, Father, Felt, Gilt, Hours, Humidity, Illuminate, Joshua Tree National Park, Lines, Membrane, Memory, National/Global Poetry Writing Month, Oasis, Ocotillo, Panoramic, Parchment, Photograph, Poem, Poetry, Ponder, Prayer, Preservee, Quire, Rain, Rock Formation, Scrape, Simplicity, Smile, Springtime, Stable, Story, Travel, Tree, Unveil, Veining, Vellum, Visions, Warmth, Wildflowers, Winter, Words, Write
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A Prairie Sky’s Truth
Sometimes seeing things differently is mental illness; sometimes it’s seeing things differently. A show I was watching at the suggestion of a person who is increasingly important to me portrayed that in an interesting bit that I have attempted to put into poetry below.
A Prairie Sky's Truth by Michael Romani Some things in life invite us to be stronger Putting these into perspective a little longer We hold onto those that free our minds Clinging to questions of truth, hoping to find That melody we hope will always play Hope found in the words we find to say With eyes as blue as the prairie sky We find a new home there in you and I Until deep disturbances in our sleep Delusions, illusions and truths we keep Finding our truths fail our expectations It's hard to move forward in anticipation Society chooses to over medicate All of those we find we cannot mediate Numbing their senses of who they are AS we kid ourselves into thinking we've not gone to far In treating those who are different Preferring science to being reverent But in none of this do we find answers And still mental illness grows like cancer Try as one might to drown out the dreams There are those still waking to silent screams Until they reach the tunnel's ending light Praying for some way to make it through the night Twenty one waxed candles shining bright The return of a blind girl's sight A love lost that life has returned In all of these signs, these are lessons learned If only a person could just disappear Putting behind all pain of the passing years Where then would that person go But to those things that help her grow (c) April 1, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
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Tagged Answer, Anticipation, Behind, Blind, Blue, Cancer, Candle, Delusion, Different, Disappear, Disturb, Dream, Drown, Expectation, Eyes, Find, Free, Grow, Help, Home, Hope, Illusion, Kid, Learn, Lesson, Life, Light, Long, Lost, Love, Mediate, Medicate, Melody, Mental Illness, Mind, Night, Numb, Pain, Passing Year, Person, Perspective, Photograph, Play, Poem, Poetry, Prairie Sky, Pray, Question, Return, Reverent, Say, Science, Sense, Signs, Silent Scream, Sleep, Society, Strong, Think, Treat, Truth, Tunnel, Wake, Words, You and I
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First Principles: A Nation Taking the Bible As Their Only Law Would Be Obliged In Conscience To Temperance, Frugality, Industry, Justice, Kindness and Charity Toward Mankind and To Piety
“Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God … What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be.” – John Adams
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Tagged Bible, Charity, Conduct, Conscience, First Principles, Frugality, God, Industry, John Adams, Justice, Kindness, Law Book, Love, Mankind, Member, Nation, Paradise, Piety, Precepts, Reverance, Temperance, Utopia
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Thought For the Day: If You Laugh A Lot, When You’re Older Your Wrinkles Will Be In the Right Places
“If you laugh a lot, when you get older your wrinkles will be in the right places.” – Andrew Mason
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Tagged A Lot, Andrew Mason, Laugh, Older, Right Places, Thought For the Day, Wrinkles
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