You can’t
embrace reality
forever

Its tenets
restrict and
constrain

By definition
it renames
itself

Once spoken
to then be
disclaimed

What comes
upon you
the moment laced

Where vacuums
exit
in time and space

Regenerates
from life’s
cocoon

In endless
cycles
— moon to moon

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)

Without
your heart
open
emotion unspun

Without
the right feeling
the words
lie unsung

Without
the right words
the
verse to abate

The reader
in Limbo
awaiting
—his fate

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)

Intelligence
a number …
never a word

The writer
a halfwit
till viscerally heard

Tomato
tomatto
the pudding unproved

Empirical
nonsense
— the spirit unmoved

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)

Naivete
in life
brings terror
to dreams

The psyche
wide open
a victim
to scheme

The innocent
notion
belief
to defile

Asleep
in the
nursery
—where monsters run wild

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)

Does worry only exist
in our memory
Or is foresight
required to fret

Will a bear live in fear
of the hunter
Or ignore what
might happen unmet

When alarm bells go off
in the moment
Rejecting the
future and past

Is time at its essence
but present
All reference
— a rationalist caste

(The New Room: January, 2024)

Once she performed it
she made it her own
With joy we all listened
and marveled atoned

Endowed from the heavens
the Angels in awe
Her spirit celestial
your nerve endings raw

A voice for all seasons
Grand Madam of sound
To search for a lifetime
her like never found

While crossing each genre
she made time a slave
Her stylings eternal
— a gift heaven gave

(For Aretha Franklin: January, 2024)

Living in one
renting the other
Owning them both
then to discover
As owner I’m captive
the tenant is free
In debt to the banker
—remortgaging me

(The New Room: January, 2024)