OK, so I'm a Poet Too

Hello Friends,

We'll re-start a weekly campaign blog entry starting the Week of August 30. In he mean time, enjoy these poems I wrote during my recalls to active duty with the Navy:

Beyond Their Time

By Jim Hardin (June 18, 2002)

I know of men born beyond their time

Trapped in an age of self indulgent chaos

Men who long for chivalry and honor

Though they dread that age is long lost

Many say such an age really never was

That mankind has always been beastly

So they’re ridiculed and viewed as quaint Pollyanna’s

Without a common sense of reality

“Intolerant!” is the charge of those whom loath

These men for the moral codes they keep

Their values derided as archaic burdens

By those who comfort in a conscience-less sleep

Men who naively believe in a woman’s virtue

That man’s spoken word is made of never fading ink

Yet neither saints nor sinless are titles they claim

For they know freewill is to temptation but a single link

Preferring truth to vic’try and honor to pleasure

Not chosen, but choosing the life they should

Men constantly struggling against selfish modernity

Tough seems obvious their efforts will come to no good

They helplessly watch as their children are drawn

Like a herd to the wiles of Lucifer’s grain

Many tell them it’s useless to struggle against

A time without honor, virtue or shame

Yet struggle they will till the last of them falls

As we’ve read in Arthurian legend and rhyme

Though out of step with the rest to the course they will keep

These very few men born beyond their time

Not A Penny For My Thoughts

By Jim Hardin

“A penny for your thoughts” they say

To find out what I’m thinking

But seems such low a price to pay

For the risk that I’d be taking

For when I speak the risk is run

That some would take offense

Though honesty they claim to want

Most feel the copper ill-spent

So tis best to give your thoughts for free

In that way they stay your own

‘Cause though some in anger will be

At least they can’t ask for a refund