Day: January 24, 2017

Hope and Despair

Published on January 24, 2017

How fleet of foot is dream-spun Hope;
and how Despair, her lead-shoed sister,
trips a clumsy way to fill her place!

How fair and rosy Hope’s sweet cheeks;
and how their bloom is lost to mind
as glum Despair’s sad visage fills our eyes.

How fickle, that our foolish minds
oft mark these twins we woo unequals
as we come and go through life’s wide rooms.

How quick to judge, and hurt from judgment,
paint another’s Hope, Despair;
gloat to see another’s sorrow.

How fleet of foot is our sweet Hope;
across the room, her doorway shadow
hides in double dark, Despair.

How soon the tables turn eternal –
spin, reflecting like a mirror;
Hope and Despair mere phantasms.

How we dance, by Hope enamored;
hounded by Despair, we crawl.
Constant changes make life’s music.

24 JAN 2017

The Renaissance Myth: bref double

Published on January 24, 2017

If genius is the thing that saves mankind
by pulling it along above the mud,
and with the rarest spark, inducing flames
to warm against the night the coldest souls,

then why does the world still seem deaf and lame?
Could be, outside that magic, a savant
controls the weak container that is man,
so that true genius rarely breeds in coals;

and Nature, seeking balance, leaves most duds,
to make such genius difficult to find.
So talent tends to weaken other skills
and handicap our saviors in their game.

The renaissance mystique we rarely find;
and by its flaws, most genius comes to nil.

24 JAN 2017