Two Performance Review Mantras (“Mercy and Truth Are Met Together; Righteousness & Peace Have Kissed”)

I. Mantra For Myself

I smile if I have shown a light.

I smile if I if I have aimed at right.

I smile if I have done my best.

Imperfect, I’ve no other test.

II. Mantra For Others

I smile if they have shown a light.

I smile if they have aimed at right.

I smile if they have done their best.

Imperfect, they’ve no other test.

Ballade of King John (Addition to "The Apology Box")

                   Ballade Of John Lackland*

            (English king & Richard I's brother)

Although I spilled much blood in France, I would

Have spared it had I means.  But they gave me

No choice.  Vast English lands within France could

Not spurn their sovereign with impunity.

When Anjou, Maine, Poitou and Brittany

Rebelled, I therefore fought.  What choice had one

Who held the crown, who must thus faithfully

Protect the English realm?  God's will be done.

Yet, when the fighting came home, too, I would

Not fight those barons who might murder me

And bring down England, too.  I understood

Consent under duress is legally

Not binding.  With such practicality

I saved the crown and nation.  Having done

So, I proved John would ever faithfully

Protect the English realm.  God's will be done.

Likewise, I fought that "Innocent" who would

Behind misnomers do his treachery

(Like wolves in sheep skin).  Therefore, I withstood

That scheming Roman priest across the sea

Who smelled our English lambs here grazing free.

He would have fleeced them had the Lord picked one

Less faithful, had the Lord not ordered me:

"Protect the English realm!" God's will be done.

O Lord, I only ask for serving thee

Long days for Albion.  When anyone

Presents a threat, King John will forcefully

Protect the English realm.  God's will be done!

*According to various sources, the poet’s 24^th great-grandfather through Thomas Yale and 26^th great-grandfather through Anne Lloyd Yale.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016
  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Confucius and Lao Tzu (Additions to "The Apology Box")

            Confucius’s Sonnet

Mere force brings no true order since forced change

Warps from without and thus can never fit

An inner nature that’s rejecting it.

Without such fit, there’s but apparent change.

As mere force is deficient, sages thus

Discount it.  Righting wrong, they find a way

To change a man by his own choices. Thus,

They speak and do precisely. Sages sway

With virtue and right language of the kind

They’ve learned in studies of the old archives

Of ritual and common mythic mind.

Their teaching teaches them. Example drives

Without a whip. On earth, in heaven, too,

Truth bans all thrashings hells purport to do.

            Lao Tzu’s Sonnet

Would breath that loathed to make a sound in life

Somehow reverse itself in airless death?

Would it somehow convert itself at last

Into fools’ terms?  No--death is muter still.

I’ve neither arrogance nor wish to harm.

I’d not presume an ant cares how my mouth

Might label it.  I all the more of course

Would not presume that heaven gives a damn.

Man’s categories cause him needless ill—

A man can’t covet or despise a thing

Some category’s not disjoined from him.

Man's words spread categories' ills about.

Without air heaven must be wordless.  Hence,

I'm mute where no decrees expel me hence.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Cincinnatus: The Other Political Archetype

As we watch today's political nastiness, we should remember there is a better political archetype.  There is the Cincinnatus figure who serves out of duty when he'd rather be doing something else. In the legendary case of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (who died ca. 438 B.C.) that something else was farming which he twice abandoned out of duty to serve.  Can we not find such persons today to serve?  Perhaps wanting a political office should in itself be disqualifying.  Perhaps at Judgment Day all good politicians will speak as I imagine Cincinnatus speaking at his Judgment Day in this sonnet I have written: