Abelard: The Peril & the Price of Careless Thought (Addition to the Apology Box)

                         Abelard’s Ballade

Thought is the cruelest place where charts mark no

Fixed latitude or constancy of shore

For shifting airy coasts and courses.  Though

Polaris holds without, within one's oar

Has no such brilliant constant marker for

Safe navigation.  Vague, obscure and fraught

With shifting inner shoals, one can’t ignore

The peril and the price of careless thought.

Did man precede the beasts?  Both “yes” and “no”

Say Testaments where just a pair yet more

Go in the ark, where Eve’s made second though

She’s simultaneous in lines before,

Where we’re commanded to love yet restore

Slaves to a master, where it’s said we ought

Not judge yet brook no sin.  We’re fodder for

The peril and the price of careless thought.

There’s such confusion--turn the cheek yet go

Acquire a sword as well?  Why wasn’t more

Care taken in the drafting?  All should know

That words have consequences.  Maimed, I bore

The scars of mixed-up syllables.  Before

More suffer needless butchery, one ought

To master language.  I explored, therefore,

The peril and the price of careless thought.

Lord, thus I did my volumes.  Since they store

All I discovered, I can rest.  Full taught

Below, no suffering here would teach me more

The peril and the price of careless thought. 

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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

Anselm's Short Ballade (An Addition to "The Apology Box")

              Anselm’s Short Ballade

I’m unsurprised that mind persists although

The body drops extinguished.  Nothing may

Be perfect but the Lord.  That being so,

Death must be flawed and therefore cannot stay

The intellect forever lest we say

Death is invincible and perfect, too.

I can’t consistently speak such a way,

Lord.  Reason will not let me turn from you.

Nor could I doubt your being, Lord, although

You did not show your face.  God is, we say,

The greatest thing conceivable.  That so,

God must exist since absent things, we say,
Are less.  Should God not be, that opens way

To something greater:  God plus being, too.

But nothing’s greater.  Logic shows the way,

Lord.  Reason will not let me turn from you.

And thus I kneel in hopeful prayer you’ll say,

“Come follow me as well in heaven, too.”

I cannot rise until you’ve shown the way,

Lord. Reason will not let me turn from you. 

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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

 

            

Five Warriors: Hannibal, Charlemagne, Roland, William the Conqueror, & Henry V (Additions to "The Apology Box)

                    Short Ballade of Henry V            
                             (esse quam videri)

Although my youth was rough, I may defend

It.  By its terms, one's immaturity

Is that imperfect era one must spend

Developing, that time when logically

The mind and morals both are raw and we

Are all inferior.  I would not scheme

Like lesser youths and falsely polish me--

Hypocrisy's a sin.  I'd be, not seem.

When I was crowned, my youth was at its end.

Therefore, I ended my frivolity

Lest I live on a lie, lest I pretend

I somehow kept that younger quality

That I had lost.  I acted honestly

Instead when grown.  I battled till supreme

At Agincourt without distorting me--

Hypocrisy's a sin. I'd be, not seem.

Lord, now I'm but a spirit, I should be

In Heaven with the bodiless.  I’d dream

Of nothing else.  I’d feign no firmer me--

Hypocrisy's a sin.  I'd be, not seem.

Three Religious Warriors: Richard I, Saladin, & Charles Martel (Additions to "The Apology Box")

              Richard I’s Sonnet

Christ is my only standard. As he drove

The money changers from the temple who

Profaned it, I in imitation strove

To save God's temples from blasphemers, too.

If smaller groups of money changers must

Be driven out, much more so should we drive

Out hordes of unbelievers.  I was just

Therefore in how I chose to reign and live.

Although great men have critics and I'm not

Immune, I'm confident the worst they’ve said

Of me is I craved men and therefore led

Men East.  If true, such charge condemns me not.

In judging right and wrong, Christ is the test.

I've read his words.  The topic's not addressed.

               Saladin's Round

            (By a Kurdish hero)

There is no God but God and he is Lord

Of every atom of creation.  He

Is thus by his own essence rightfully

The Lord of old Jerusalem and all

Her Asian territories rather than

Someone whose agent sits in far-off Rome.

Someone whose agent sits in far-off Rome

Abstractly drinking blood and eating flesh

With wine and broken bread in temples there

Has brokered more than mere abstractions here.

This broker's swords have broken men and spilled

Real blood and gore throughout God’s Holy Land.

Real blood and gore throughout God’s Holy Land

Required response and we have given aid.

We’ve had to use swords doing that though we

Preferred the use of reason.  Though we’ve won

Upon the field, our greater victory comes

Through favoring mercy over death instead.

Through favoring mercy over death instead

Of other attitudes, we’ve followed God

And done his work.  Though evil trembles at

Such simple logic, we find rest in it--

God favors mercy and believers know

There is no God but God and he is Lord.

                Charles Martel’s Sonnet

Though God is three in one, it’s blasphemy

To tolerate an earthly trinity

Of Christian, Jew, and Muslim. There can be

Just one true faith since Christianity

Alone is scriptural.  Of course God knew

Martel means “hammer” and called me to do

The labor.  Although just a bastard to

That beast Plectude, great battle plans I drew

For plated men and beasts.  At Poitiers,

Design met field.  There my troops held at bay

The foreign hordes our armor drove away

From Christendom forever.  Lord, I pray

For Heavenly inclusion having fought

For God and Christendom as scriptures taught.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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

Three British Ghosts: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry II, & Thomas Becket (Additions to "The Apology Box")

          Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Tale

We think with stories--nouns don’t wag themselves

Until some verb has given them a tale.

Once storied, terms turn temporal. They are

Man’s plot across the moral, cognitive,

Creative, and artistic realms.  God said:

“Fool, know thyself!”  Obedient, I read

And wrote much history to understand

Myself and therefore follow God's command.

As I was British, Britain and my race

Of course were my prime focuses.  To my

Dismay, I found few tomes about the two

And those I found were partial works at best.

I was compelled to remedy the void

And thus began inquiring back to Troy

Past Virgil who omitted British limbs

Of that vast, ancient Trojan tree.  Despite

The paucity of written volumes, I

Discovered much of what I needed in

Myself--I was a sumptuous gallery

Of Trojan portraits.  In my face I saw

Our brave Aeneas as he first set sail

As well as all the awful anguish he

Displayed at sea regarding Dido’s pyre.

I saw our diverse portraits of him as

He sought and then subdued all Italy.

I saw then subsequent great Romans all

Reflected in their English cousin.  I

Turned Northerly, saw Brutus, great-grandson

Of our Aeneas, drive the giants from

That Northern Isle and seed the Trojan race

In latitudes more rarefied.  I saw

Troy’s engineers grid out New Troy whose name

Would later be Trinovantum till changed

To London.  I saw portraits of the roads

And baths and amphitheaters they built,

Perused the faces of lawgivers such

As Queen Marcia and Molmutius,

Examined portraits of Belinus and

Brennius as they took both Gaul and Rome

Long years before their Roman cousins came

To Albion.  I saw Cordelia then

I glimpsed that brilliant jewel within the crown,

Our Arthur, then saw Merlin, too.  I looked

At Mordred’s features, feared that evil glance

Of treachery.  I saw the future, too,

When Trojans sailed abroad again to new

Uncharted regions, saw how, too, the sea

Itself acknowledged our hegemony.

I saw the continents and isles elect

To speak the British Trojan dialect

Beginning on a Carolina shore

That both Virginia Dare and mystery bore.

I saw the Trojans smiling in their graves

As Britain ruled both continents and waves.

And though I did not put it down in ink

I saw with certainty enough to think

Our cousins far across that western sea

Would some day walk upon the moon and we

Would tongue the heavens, too, with our own speech.

Now, Lord, I shelve myself here safe with you.
Just like the tomes we write, each man is, too,

A tale of both himself and of his race

Unique in aspect nothing can replace.

Like rarest books, same principles as well

Ban burning us in heaven or in hell.

            Henry II’s Short Ballade^[1]

Now judgment day has come at last for me,

I hope the Heavens will recall the way

I used the jury, dropped the blasphemy

Of the ordeal.  It seemed too proud to say

Man speaks God’s language equally and may

Decipher him in contests fortune ran.

A human jury seemed the humbler way

Since no man knows the mind of God or can.

I also hope when Heaven’s judging me,

It will recall proud Becket and the way

I handled him.  It was vain blasphemy

For priests (no less than other men) to say

They are the only ones who know God.  May

We all be humbler!  Until others ran

Him down, I tried to coach a milder way

Since no man knows the Mind of God or can.

Lord, though I hope in judging me you may

Find the vast Christian polities I ran

Well ruled, I won’t presume.  I’ll just obey

Since no man knows the Mind of God or can.

               Becket’s Sonnet Acrostic

                   (A strict role player)

For me, my duty was the polar star

I navigated by.  As Chancellors are

Devoted to their kings, I was therefore

Unwavering as Joseph was before--

Country and Pharaoh first.  Then “serve the Lord

Instead,” Pharaoh commanded.  In accord,

Archbishop I became.  As God’s trustee,

Roles changed and Pharaoh lost command of me.

Your servant now, he called me enemy

From that first moment when he knew I swore

In following you I'd follow him no more.

Refusing any compromise of roles,

Struck down in church for focusing on souls,

This priest reciprocated Calvary.

---

[1] According to various sources, the poet’s 25^th great-grandfather through Thomas Yale and 27^th great-grandfather through Anne Lloyd Yale.

Sonnets of Seven Greek Philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno of Citium, Diogenes of Sinope, Heraclitus, & Protagoras (Additions to "The Apology Box")

                   Plato’s Sonnet

            (A liberated caveman)

When I was tethered up inside the cave

Where I could see but shadows on the wall

I craved to see how Real Things would behave.

I plotted my escape through study:  all

Real Things should be discoverable in the end

Though first unseen directly.  I knew there

Must be Real Forms somewhere since shades depend

On Something Real to cast them.  With great care,

I studied every shadow so I might

Infer what cast the umbrage.  In that way

I burrowed backward out into the Light.

I now see plainly Forms have Forms, and they

Have culmination here in that one Form

Of Good that I predicted as the Norm.

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.

Boethius, St. Ambrose, and Marcion the Docetist (Additions to "The Apology Box")

               Boethius's Sonnet

Was Theodoric’s prison in the end

That proved the real academy.  Was there

They taught first hand true good cannot depend

Upon mere fortune.  There caged in despair

This humbled bureaucrat learned power flees

In but a moment and, too, learned, how fast

“Good” title both in name and properties

Is marred.  Yet, I found hope!  Though no things last

Below at length, that maid Philosophy

Took pity, visited dark dungeons and

Consoled me with her higher poetry

Of permanence.  Caressing that sweet hand,

I thought no more of nooses or of cells

But of divinity and where it dwells.

 

               Saint Ambrose's Sonnet

Before the awful bench where all will stand

We come in turn to plead and do admit

Our errors though in doing so submit

In mitigation it was not our hand

That sought the staff.  Instead, Milan asked.  We

Were acquiescent, humbly turned our backs

On Roman boons (yet kept her bones as racks

For Christian ornament--past lies would be

Upholders of the truth.)  Thus we transformed

Words, music, marbles, even living flesh--

Behold Augustine we baptized afresh.

Mere spirit now, our temporal see performed,

Pray let us see Rome’s church ascending now

Above Rome’s ruins we’ve refurbished now.

             

            Marcion The Docetist’s Sonnet

I’ve kneeled before the true God now revealed

Through that majestic phantasm called Christ

That clarified true faith and thus repealed

The older books.  Sweet ghost!  If sacrificed,

I knew it was not God.  Perfection by

Its very terms can never suffer.  For

To suffer is to lose, to be less than

Complete and thus prove imperfection.  Nor

Could it have been a man.  Though man could be

Sinless despite the lie of Eden, You

Could not allow a sinless man to be

Condemned and killed for sins he did not do.

Great ghostly messenger!  It had to be

Of course fantastic coming, Lord, from Thee!

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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