Satire and the Soul

I've been a bit free with the vitriol with a couple of poems recently, and need to check myself. Some months ago I met a bard, Kevan Manwaring. In his book, the Bardic Handbook, he recommends satirising oneself to see how it feels... With satire comes responsibility Thus spake the bard, regarding cosmic law ‘Tis true that thought and act and speech are free But heed the truth learned by the bards of yore What goes around and round will soon return To that dark human place where it began And pain shall be the lesson he shall learn Who points his pen in anger at a man Lest he forget, we none of us shine bright That are not sullied by some silent shade And he who seeks another man to slight May curse the pen that bore the words he made For what we see in others, we have known Some simple human neediness or greed The weakness we perceive is like our own Who knows a tree that has not seen a seed So satirise yourself, so spake the bard Before you dare another man to mock And turn upon yourself a light as hard As that with which you wish a man to shock Unshadow your shortcomings, write them true Or fall upon your failings like a sword For this is what you would to others do And thine own self hast thine own pen ignored Now weigh the pain you draw like blood from light With cut of blade, of swift and vicious pen Look down upon yourself from lofty height As you would fain look down on other men What do you see, but merely flesh and fear A naked frightened soul that cries for love All sorrow bound and clothed in darkness drear With eyes up turned in hope to light above Have pity, spake the bard, for every word You wield will have the power to wound or heal Remember what you here have seen and heard Think twice before you cause a man to feel The lacerations of your jagged wit The schadenfreude of your savage ire Lest you be made to join him in the pit Lest you be so consumed in that same fire He snuffed the candle flame, picked up his book And left the poet, wise from sorrow shown An unveiled mirror’s face in which to look At imperfection that was his alone With satire comes responsibility For what goes forth returns, of that be sure And you are that which you in others see The naked frightened soul the poet saw by Gail