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Pause for poetry:
Richard Orlando /2

Avoiding Anger When Reading the News

A poem by Richard Orlando

August 4, 2025

Anger makes sane reasoning useless
It is often cruel, hysterical, and unmanly
It is troublesome and uncivil
and disrupts friendships and societies
adding insolence to power
and power to insolence

Live harmlessly and embrace the world
free your heart and cure anguish
with calmness and self-control
Enhance a quieter life with art
cling to humour, music, and dance
The mind is more rapt by higher pleasures.

Feature image: Madison Inouye –PexelsBouton S'inscrire à l'infolettre – WestmountMag.ca

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Richard Orlando - WestmountMag.ca

Richard Orlando has been a Westmounter since 2013, and lives a quiet life of retirement with his cat and companion Sola. On May 31, 2019, he helped celebrate the 200th birthday of his favourite poet, Walt Whitman, at a group reading in the Westmount Library.


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Pat Macgeachy
Pat Macgeachy
1 month ago

Such an apt time for me to read this poem….I have been so ‘caught up’ in these daily assaults to my senses…such a waste of my energy .
Thanks for sharing!