The Love of Valentines

A violet cascade of rich perfume
Pervades a little letter full of love,
Red hearts and lips upon the flowers bloom,
Exotic chocolates melt the skies above!
Oh, love, to taste another’s beating heart,
Caress a body supple, warm and smooth,
To burn with Venus, struck by Cupid’s dart,
To have another, soothing and to soothe.
No- Love long suffers, lacking want and pride,
It follows virtue, and seeks not its own,
Embracing Truth it banishes the lie,
Bears, trusting and enduring all, alone.
Gold shines as trials purge the muddy dross,
Love burns, a fire, and it bleeds, a cross.
-Tyler William O’Neil
-February 14, 2010

The Truth

All men are freckled with unspoken urge,
One crafts a city and one sings a dirge,
Though Wisdom cries, ‘tis vanity in all,
They falter not, nor hasten, large or small.

The budding leaves amaze the youthful eye,
The sun delights to canopy the sky,
Yet writhing, do they wither soon away,
As sunlight ages to the death of day.

So wisdom chants to them a silent lie,
Born in an instant, so they live and die,
Yet still they toil on for ceaseless years,
To shoulder boulders at their ceaseless fears.

Tell lawyers that they quibble at the law,
Forgetting justice, thieving with the jaw.
Tell priests they speak what once our savior said,
While all their love and passion’s grown stone dead.

Tell politicians that they steal the bread,
For which the hand of heavy labor bled,
They serve the few, neglecting humankind,
That their contrived injustice isn’t blind.

Tell rich men that they stole it from the poor,
That robber barons bite them to the core.
Tell poor men that they haven’t worked enough,
They lack devotion, energy and love.

Tell soldiers that their glory wastes away,
That battle does not fall their family’s way,
‘Tis wicked to defend your home by war,
And “service” wrecks a thousand to the core.

Tell lovers that they want mere copulation,
That odes and sonnets are but mere frustration,
Tell noble love it seeks a baser end,
That selfishness inspires every friend.

Tell wisdom that, in thinking, it is folly,
Tell prudence that it loses all that’s jolly,
Tell justice that it cannot be authentic,
Tell fortitude its actions are pedantic.

Tell faith it has no object of devotion,
Tell hope it looks for chance and random motion,
Tell love it costs far more than it is worth,
Tell virtue that it has no place on Earth.

Yet still they persevere, what noble hearts!
To brave and conquer all despairing darts,
It takes one passion, one, that cannot die,
This longing wields the truth against the lie.
-Tyler William O’Neil
-December 25, 2009

Authority: Sin as Deconstructionism

A poem must not merely be, but mean.
No truth stands higher than authority,
For He who makes has made, whatever dream
Intrudes upon the hearer’s fantasy.
The pen of being writes the universe,
And readers cannot separate the two,
They strive in vain to spread their vile curse,
To cut from Truth the children of the True.
Hold fast, hold fast to He who speaks the Truth,
And do not question what his meanings mean,
For He has spoken not from fear of youth,
As Hamlet says, things are. They do not seem.
‘Tis sin that cuts the Maker from the made,
And Truth shall heal the Love that has decayed.
-Tyler William O’Neil
-October 16, 2009

The Incarnation

Leaves crumple and are trampled under foot,
The ancient bones of ancestors decay,
Time bursts the core of being to its root,
For life is just a seven second play.
Yet something stands beyond this broken mess,
A thing unchanged, magnificent and pure,
The universe itself is just a guess,
While everything proceeds from Being’s core.
And what if Being entered our malaise,
And time affected everlasting Truth?
Each moment, aging, lucid as a haze,
Would sharpen, taking shape and form and youth.
A moment makes a grand eternity
As Fortitude becomes Infirmity.
-Tyler William O’Neil
-September 14, 2009

Two Fictions

Each moment we reject a thousand things,
By choosing we reject each other plan,
The fiancée rejects a thousand rings,
Yet it was meant to be, since life began.
Each person can describe an atom’s shape,
We know how stars begin, and planets end,
We learn a thousand truths, our mouths agape,
And yet we cannot fathom living’s end.
We cross the sky in ships of shining steel,
We build tremendous cities filled with light,
We travel to the moon- it seems unreal,
Until we age and fade into the night.
We’re born outdated, aging into youth,
It seems that paradox contains the Truth.
-Tyler William O’Neil
-September 9, 2009

Facades of Majesty

The man who seeks his own eternal fame
May not have been accepted in his youth,
And those who have repressed desire’s flame,
May search for Love or Goodness or for Truth.
Psychologists explain the goals of men,
Illuminating baser drives beneath-
They substitute the cure for the amen,
Removing ancient glories like false teeth.
Perhaps they are correct in their accounts-
And men cannot desire noble things,
Unless they channel from ignoble founts,
Desires for the mean and lesser things.
But if the love of glory be disproved,
Then should the great desires be removed?
-Tyler William O’Neil
-August 24, 2009

The Easy Life is Not Worth Living

The hammer hits the anvil, stroke on stroke,
The pick dislodges monsters of the earth,
As human muscle fells the mighty oak,
The final threshold breaks, a new rebirth!
The burning flames of virtue form a man,
His brothers sharpen him with every word,
His actions rise atop where they began,
To fly on wings like freedom’s noble bird!
Yet indolence draws humans to the grave.
With food and drink and merriment alone,
They cannot love or serve, are never brave,
More motionless than monuments of stone.
So heark and hear that ease is not the goal,
For virtue, truth, and service form the soul.
-Tyler William O’Neil
-May 30, 2009

Beati Mundo Corde

To him all things are relative indeed,
For he does not relate to certain truth,
Revolting with the fickleness of youth,
Embracing man or woman for his need.
The wiser fool acknowledges the deed,
It soon repels and sickens him, forsooth,
And yet, behind him, evil seeks the youth,
Aspiring to wake his dormant greed.
Pure sancitity reviles such a deed,
Aware that sin obscures the seeker's eye,
Below, he turns his vision to the sky,
And learns the secret Truth of every creed.
Man uses his own heart to be the eye,
The pure in heart can see beyond the sky.
-Tyler William O'Neil
-August 6, 2009

The Passion of Abstinence

The beauty here before my eyes deceives,
She cannot in all likelihood be mine,
For while her presence be a fragrant breeze,
Her soul must complement my soul’s design.
The maiden yet still hidden tells the truth,
For God has destined for us n’ere to part,
So struggling against the rage of youth,
I must prepare myself for Cupid’s dart.
Which love is truly passionate by far,
The one that loves the present girl alone,
Or he that perseveres the longest yard,
To find the star, his destiny to know?
So abstinence cannot be truly bleak,
It fuels the love that all immortals seek.
-Tyler William O’Neil
-August 2, 2009

XV Amor Prudentitatis Secundus

(The Second Love of Wisdom, the second sonnet on Philosophy)
As Plato said, one ought to question all,
Each answer will lead closer to the Truth,
Philosophy does ever to me call,
For he who knows is better fit to choose.
This modern life is ever full of choice,
And one ought not to choose 'til he is sure,
Yet if you wait too long, you'll have no voice,
And silence cannot be a useful cure.
The Earth is ere beset by many flaws-
Injustices and evil spring to mind,
And what will better shut their hungry jaws,
That Truth's amazing power to unwind?
False thoughts, when brought to light, lose their appeal,
Yet Truth must first be found to make it real.
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies XI Octobris, Anno Domini MMVII

XI Amor Prudentitatis

(The Love of Wisdom)
A summer spent in leisurely distress,
Teh windless heat burns down upon the soul,
No joy is full, all life is but a mess,
A mix of pointless passion, empty goals!
Then what- I hear a voice among the trees,
The silence broke by tremors of the sun!
I feel, to end the heat, a cooling breeze-
Which seeks to finish answers left undone!
I am a man, a thinker and a sage,
The world is matter geared to higher cause,
All life is beauty, sung from age to age,
All death does serve the Master's Holy Laws!
As daybreak floods the land with blazing light,
The silence ends with songs of wrong and right!
-Vir Cogitans Americanus
Scribit Dies II Septrembris, Anno Domini MMVII

129 Progress

The ages pass, and men grow slowly old,
Time moving fast, a merciless command,
And now the people ask if time is gold,
If it performs a task so truly grand.
The man who knows disdain does answer no,
In time before the pain he once was glad,
Now sadness reigns, his heart is ever cold,
He knows the pains he once had never had.
The happy man does answer loudly yes,
He now does stand atop the golden stair,
He does remember well his old distress,
And will quite gladly tell of dead despair.
Yet neither speaker knows full well the truth,
For as emotion grows, it blinds the sleuth.
© Jerusalemrising (Tyler O’Neil)
Written January 1, 2007

118 The Threefold Caste

Some see in hollow earth a beaut’eous light,
They bury all their worth beneath the sands,
And yet when time, a monster, shows its might,
Their broken rhyme is lost to fleeting glance.
Where such see worth, the most do find despair,
They search the earth, for balm to quell their pain,
Their lives as well are lost, with joyous air,
Which tells the deathly cost of happy feign.
The last of broken man do hold his hope,
The wise unwanted man is ere the sage,
He searches not for happiness to cope,
Nor revels, caught by riches of the age.
Instead the wise will woo that maiden truth,
When purpose cries, comes glory to the sleuth.
© Jerusalemrising (Tyler O'Neil)
Written December 19, 2006