Downwind of the
Halal Cart
my stomach
starts to growl

Foreign smells
have filled the air
my appetite
to prowl

Those places
I have yet to go
but memory
knows so well

Another life
another time
where Heaven
— sleeps with Hell

(The Corner Of 34th & Market Streets: July, 2025)

Perpetual moments
the key
to existence
Memory
your biggest
foe

Blocking
the path
to future promise
Lapsing
forgetfulness
grows

Time an illusion
a crutch
for the weak
To hobble
and stumble
in constant retreat

This instant
recurring
when chosen at will
Where Poets
and Prophets
— forever instill

(Villanova University: July, 2025)

**** the spark
the fire dies
Mute one voice
and Poets cry

**** the larva
**** the host
Burn your bridges
— post by post

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

There’s gray
in my beard
but no gray
in my soul
Where Peter Pan
flies
Cherub’s wings
in control

My edges
though silver
my center
of gold
One glance
never tells you
what prescience
— beholds

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

Writers write
everyone else
— just talks

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

Keeping
memories close
pushing
people away
I live in  
the safety
of what’s held
at bay

Trading
the future
retreading
the past
Living
nostalgic
for what
cannot last

Each
invitation
each corner
unturned
Calls to me
distant
calls to me
spurned

But I keep
on running
retracing
old steps
As voices
still follow
in search
— of me yet

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

What is a color
obstructed
What is a sonnet
untold
What is the price
of reluctance
Tainted in silver
or gold

What is the weight
of your damming
What is a blessing
unused
What is the lifespan
of choices unmade
Measured in freedom
— recused

(The First Book Of Prayers: July, 2025)

Stuck to
myself
the glue starts
to lift
Exposing
my nature
a soul
frozen stiff

Letting
me go
the dermis
strips off
The sun
rushing in
melting
the frost

Open
to light
new Angels
take hold
Rebuilding
my past
the future
remolds

All dread in
the mirror
now turned to
the wall
My essence
unfrozen
and prescience
— rethawed

(The New Room: July, 2025)

Averting
his death
reborn
in a dream
Time
had been stopped
the Reaper
unseen

Escaping
the end
his fancy
came true
Beginning
and ending
unbroken
— anew

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

All that awaits
are the memories
All that’s left
still unclaimed
All that I treasure
lay buried inside
All in those choices
— unmade

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

Searching
for his palette
the painter
wanders on
Dreaming
of each color
to visualize
his song
Tubes of paint
lie scattered
unsqueezed
their caps remain
In attics
of blank canvasses
with images
— unframed

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

Walking across
a college campus
classes done till Fall
I hear those lessons
never taught
on winds that truth recalls
The questions that we
used to prize
now locked away in files
To favor dogma’s
jagged edge
— in deaf self-serving bile

(Villanova University: July, 2025)

Trying to make some sense of it all
but ready to begin
my exit from this fated tryst
with baggage worn and thin

One last goodbye is all I leave
for you and you alone
who held me through the darkest nights
— my home away from home

(Villanova University: July, 2025)

There’s a place
in time
of no return
where you’re destined
for the end

A ride
straight down
with no reverse
to break
no longer bend

A final stop
on Hades
train
where devils
wait in line

With all
new couplets
in the flames
and nothing
— left to rhyme

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

Anticipation ends
as creation begins
Before chasing the words
you must first know the wind
Direction predestined
on zephyrs ordained
Each gust but a phrasing
of verse unproclaimed

A breeze or a tempest
in a cyclone of hail
In sunshine or clouded
they come to regale
Those moments that matter
that time would suspend
Once spoken eternal
— and Aether defends

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

Beginnings
unending
Each moment
befriends
Untethered
unfettered
Intuity
mends

Connection
­in motion
Where starts
never stop
Time lost
in fruition
From bottom
— to top

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

Jezebel
the racehorse
with wolves
she was found
To run
in the daytime
by moonlight
she howled

Her stable
was cave like
her food
freshly killed
Smart jockeys
won’t ride her
no matter
how skilled

In May
was The Derby
with roses
askew
As trainers
and grooms
stood in fear
at high noon

She had
to be victor
or hell
would arrive
With Jezebel
eating
the winner
— alive

(Rhymes From The Nursery: July, 2025)

Great men
stand taller
than the countries
they serve
Honor
and courage
the bureaucrats
scourge
To sacrifice
self
without
question or pause
And champion
the weak
in defense
— of their cause

(Independence Hall: July, 2025)

Only
a coin toss
standing
between them
Fame
the divider
with fans
to embrace
Caught
in the essence
as twins
symbiotic
One
in the limelight
the other
— ungraced

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

To campaign
in poetry
but govern
in prose
Words stretch
till breaking
integrity
blown

Promising
everything
sins
unconfessed
Bombast
and pander
the charlatans
— best

(The New Room: July, 2025)

Memories
of Formica
kitchens
And 2-burner
Hotpoint
stoves
Lipstick on
a menthol
****
Costume
pearls
in rows
Perfume
from the
five and dime
Drive In’s
on the
field
A promise
made
a promise kept
And
love
— that time can’t steal

(Listening To Patsy Cline: July 4th, 2025)

Writing
in margins
where words never go
The meaning
bipolar
whose ink doesn’t show
Living
inceptive
divorced from the light
Married
to emptiness
— unstringing my kite

(The New Room: July, 2025)

Brian died
taking
part of me
with him

The part
that he
lent me
in 1966

Brian died
and the
colors
diminished

The notes
out of rhythm
and time
— left unmixed

(Pet Sounds-Ocean City N.J.: July, 1966)

And in the end
as it was
at the beginning
Only and forever
as spoken
— The One

(1st Book Of Prayers: July, 2025)

Through all
of his failings
and all
of his faults
His memory
redemptive
his conscience
set free

Through all
of the battles
and all
of the scars
His soul
still a ******
his heart
— is pristine

(Dreamsleep: July, 2025)

That vacuum
inside you
once in it
you’re trapped
Insular
nothingness
too late
to look back

What’s empty
imprisons
no reference
in space
Where freedom
and choice
become duly
— erased

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

Music first played
on the heartstrings
of God
Whose chorus
of Angels
carries beyond
A melody sacred
each note
comes from He
Whose flute calls
us closer
Whose harp
— sets us free

(1st Book Of Prayers: July, 2025)

Two halves
from the middle
each end joins the past
Memory’s essence
the moment recast

Each second
or hour
lost victims of fate
Time off the table
— not early or late

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

I was a
poet
you
were a sailor
Waves
came in couplets
words
in the brine

I was
reborn
with the ocean
in rhythm
Released
in its wonder
forever
— in rhyme

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

Downwind
of my perception
Upwind
before the fall
Immune
in my protection
From dullards
at the mall

The past
remains in focus
The future
but a myth
My words
fall out of judgment
Each phrasing
to enrich

To read
with understanding
To hear
beyond the din
To feel
beyond the senses
To love
beyond the rim

Released
without containment
On wings
not leased or loaned
Into
the inner sanctums
With time
— Goliath’s stone

(The New Room: June, 2025)

The only child
but favorite
of two ‘outlaws’
mare and stud

He bucked each
gelded moment
on their wild ride
of love

Until that day
he up and left
their branding iron
of pain

To wander high
and lonesome
mongst the free  
and tumbling sage

In search of one
last bronc to mount
that one last
horn to make

And spur the wreckage
of his youth
as Angels
— pull the Gate


(Pendleton Round-Up: June, 1993
Elko Nevada: Cowboy Poetry Reading: January, 1994)

“No Man Is An Island”
but that was before smart phones
To text and to tweet
technology’s drones

With ear buds in place
these Stepford’s march on
Virtually connecting
— to what’s already gone

(University of Pennsylvania: June, 2025)

Built on envy
and city lights
The vagrant actor
alone at night

In hidden alleys
with tinsel thorns
On celluloid
new lies are born

A big screen promise
of broken dreams
The waitress car hop
on Wilshire scheme

Drugged on stardom
with toxic friends
What footlight’s start
— the darkness ends

(The New Room: June, 2025)

The staff of my Father enjoining the past
futurity’s herding a bleating morass
The bloodline of orphans forever is linked
tattooing the flock with invisible ink
The first time the last time when nearing the end
tomorrow’s ungifted excuses portend
And times better nature is better untimed
beginning and ending forever conjoined
Eternity’s fenceposts hem in with disdain
all future inclemency fire and rain
But just as that last final sheep stays unsold
— my Father returns to re-shepherd the fold

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

It’s great
that they read us
a joy
when they say
“I loved your
last poem
the best one
today”

We post
and we thank them
for all
that they give
Refilling
our pens
with more reasons
— to live

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

The psychic tattoo
of paternity
darker than
fate’s blackest ink

The guilted knife
of maternity
cutting you
near to the brink

A prodigy alone
in the shadows
offspring of
scorn and disdain

Begging for love
and acceptance
from parents
— called heartache and pain

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

I said
what I had
to say

And did
what I had
to do

While asking
no one
to care

And seeking
nothing
from you

I went
where I had
to go

And saw
what I had
to see

To get
where I had
to get

And be
what I had
— to be

(Bryn Mawr College: June, 2025)

A Hall of Mirrors
ill conceived
With dark reflections
to deceive
From front or back
and side to side
Each look impounds
what time proscribes

Were you looking in
or looking out
When Alice voiced
her final shout
A dozen clonings
a thousand views
The glass your jailer
— in silver hues

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

Expressions
of spirit
the music
plays on

Beyond any
verbiage
or words
come and gone

At high
elevations
each note
takes you up

To reach
into heaven
where feelings
conduct

As harp
strumming Angels
with harmony
strong

Play chords
of acceptance
to guide
— you along

(1st Book Of Prayers: June, 2025)

Joy
cannot last
Few moments
contain
The unbridled
feeling
Euphoria
claims

Joy
but a transient
It comes
and it goes
Resetting
our wishes
To bask
— in its glow

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

Do you write
pretty words
with a message
unchanged

Does intent
leave you vacant
the darkness
sustained

Do you ponder
and flirt
in a language
affair

Do you kiss
and then tell
without promise
or care

Do you vow
to do better
with love
on reprieve

Does your heart
leave you jilted
next breath
— to deceive

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

I made it to
the edge of thought
with consciousness
ablaze
I escaped the fire
but not the heat
all memory
a haze
I just got out
when fate attacked
from inside
burns the past
To leave me orphaned
without a home
my legacy
— in ash

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

Poets
who cry
Jesters
goodbye
Alone
in the dark
Old heartaches
to mark

Time
closing in
Memories
thin
Whispers
and tears
Finality
— near

(Villanova University: June, 2025)

I’d gladly take
one verse
ill written
Than a tome
explicit
with words
unfelt

I’d gladly take
one moon
still distant
Than a sunrise
hidden
by rain
that pelts

I’d gladly take
one real
good tiding
Than a score
of praises
that slap
my back

I’d gladly take
one heart
on fire
Than a million
minds
no souls
— attached

(Villanova University: June, 2025)

The beginning
of the end
The end
of the beginning
To look
and not see
A desperate
path

To start
what can’t finish
Destroying
tomorrow
When eyes
remain closed
The future
— uncast

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

Politics & Religion
boneyard
of existence
Power & Corruption
misleading
in kind
Promising & Deceiving
legislation
and dogma
Politics & Religion
deathtrap
— for mankind


(The New Room: June, 2025)

A mouthful
of hate
A bullhorn
of lies
Dissected
infected
With terminal
pride
Conscripting
the fledgling
Embedded
in brine
Indicted
convicted
True felons
— of time

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

Ella sent the invitation
Louis worked the door
to celebrate between the lines
inflection served du jour

My heart was given freely
their phrasings lined my soul
beyond the words and melody
goodbye to rock and roll

The Saints Were Marching In
as Satch blew his horn with glee
(and Ella said)
No, No They Can’t Take That
— Away From Me

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

The Pride And The Longing

One man’s ‘Old Days’
another man’s ‘New’
Chasing a memory
the pilgrim is due

One reminisces
what one only schemes
The pride and the longing
— two sides of a dream

(Ardmore Pennsylvania: June, 2025)


Shades Of Gray

Mixing wheat
with the chaff
The good
with the bad
In shadings
of gray
The truth
finds a home

Taking shape
from the whole
When shunning
both ends
Polarity’s
vanish
And clarity
— shown

(Ardmore Pennsylvania: June, 2025)

*****
in tatters
Gomorrah
is ash
L.A. lies
burning
New York
in the trash

Cowards
run rampant
Weakness
endeared
Our heritage
shattered
With traitors
— revered

(Inside The Fire: June, 2025)