Selecting the misery,
  crown jewel of my pain

To wear like a necklace,
  but serve as a chain

Its dark stone on fire,
  all light one’s defaced

Reset in a solitaire,
—black diamond embrace

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Coming from nowhere
Going the same
The tracks in front
Pointing to
Tracks behind
The wind on the lake
Reminding
That I am still a guest
The snow on the ice
An invitation
Begging acceptance
New Hampshire Winters
Are white
In my memory
And frozen in their
Clarity
Even whiter
Dawns
Out of the stillness
A Moose crashes
Through the snow
Never acknowledging
My presence
His majesty
Confirming everything
That unfound I’ve lost
His spirit cries out
And with quiet respect
I follow him across
The frozen lake
Leaving tracks of memory
One final time
—never to be seen again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

With each step that I take,
  words jostle and form

Inside me they cluster
  deep down where it’s warm

At nighttime they visit
  in moments of peace

Defining my feelings
  —extending my reach

(Las Vegas Nevada: January, 2019)

Visionary’s promise,
   what’s never seen

Believers die invested,
   in lives that wait

Junctions of immunity,
   and sweeter air

A mutilated oneness,
—we call the truth

(West Philadelphia: January, 1973)

The ribbon is cut
The die is cast
The cement is dry
Yet nothing lasts
The brazen rewarded
The hero a fool
All reason outdated
New fury the tool

A journey presented
Your ship to go far
With doldrums eclipsed
By the light of new stars
The lands will seem foreign
The people most strange
But they’ll smile as you pass
And call you by name
You run and you run
And you run from it all
With no map to guide you
The albatross calls
And then sweet intention
Returns from respite
Rephrasing the unmentioned
Where maybe you might
In fear of the tonic
All healing disdained
Right, left-side disjointed
The cork from the drain
The covers pull back
Your bones are now bare
The tiller is slack
And there’s nobody there
So you take to the helm
Hands firmly in place
And you care not a whit
If it’s all empty space
As a raven is perched
On the yardarm so high
A land bird that lurches
Cawing all truth a lie
And you wonder then maybe
Have you wandered too far
As you ladle the future
From a long empty jar
The wind starts to move
A gift from the moon
What’s whole has been halved
And the sun almost noon
The rigging is creaking
The mast ever tall
The wind has died down
With no new ports of call
The feeling still burns
In the fire within
To find that one thing
That unfound—to you sings
The ocean is flat
The seas become calm
The seasons repeat
From reflection embalmed
The night sky is clearest
The darkest the days
The winds have escaped you
Adrift you now stay
But then just a wisp
Of a breeze on your cheek
Portends of a magic
And the vision you seek
It strengthens and gushes
Throughout all the night
As the red sky last evening
Had hinted it might
As the headsails go up
The big linen comes down
And you climb up the mast
Stepping over a frown
The creak of the lapstrake
Splashes over the bow
The present’s in sight
Incarnate right now
You look down on a lifetime
In this moment of joy
As the smell of the brine
Covers anything coy
And an Island approaches
From the mist up ahead
As the stillness reproaches
And retreats to its bed
The wonder returns
All speculation begins
Of the magic you’ll find
In this newness again
At the top of a mountain
Strange trees then appear
In a shape that’s uncertain
Neither familiar nor clear

The closer you get
The more they seem to move
As their shapes become giant
And your hopes then behoove
Now anchored offshore
With the dinghy in place
You can see them more clearly
Each shape and each face
Like monolithic Gods
They reign high on the hill
Looking down on who enter
With a warning that’s shrill
But where are the people
The Island is bare
Just giant stone carvings
That linger and stare
As you land on the beach
The ground starts to shake
And from deep in your heart
The primordial aches
The mountain then trembles
All paths become closed
With the thunder a warning
Any trespasser knows
As you run to the dinghy
Its been stolen and gone
And your ship is now missing
In its place just a song
Calling out in those words
That you already know….

“A price not paid dearly
     is only for show”

You turn back to the mountain
And in an explosion of light
You’re lifted up to the heavens
Spun around in a fright
Then shooting straight downward
Toward the mountain below
With force you are planted
Along monument row
And now that you’ve joined them
All questions abide
The distance and separation
In heaven collide….

“Can I leave, am I destined
   to be left here entombed ?”

And in language you recognize
You hear back so soon
From those pillars immortal
Voices start to be heard
Your welcome now total
Reborn in their words

“You can leave if you want to
  the choice is now yours
  but this mountain goes
  with you
  all places defer
  you’ve reached
  through the mystery
  you’ve passed your own test
  the tonic’s within you
   —the raven has fled”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2013)

Nocturnal flower
In need of sleep
Your petals wilt
The count for sheep

New dawn unpromised
The die is cast
A croupier wearing
Sun’s setting mask

Through endless courtship
Faith on the run
A Jester whispers
“Your dreams have come”

The meadow waiting
Its reaper gone
New light unspoken
  —your buds in song

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

I- Insight without intuition
N-Never to understand
T-Trapping what can’t be caught
E-Endgame to confound
R-Riddle we play with ourselves
E-Earnestly said nothingness
S-Spoken in bewilderment
T-Time and again
I-In our ongoing confusion
N-Never capturing why
G-Gravitas without Veritas

— Interesting!

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

Living on the surface,
  dinner’s always served at eight

Living on the surface,
  pride forever casts your fate

Living on the surface,
  things always seem just fine

Living on the surface,
  plays an endless pantomime

Living on the surface,
  the church contains your soul

Living on the surface,
  your religion swallowed whole

Living on the surface,
  things never change that much

Living on the surface,
  you can only look, not touch

Living on the surface,
  the wheel only spins one way

Living on the surface,
  each spoke a mortgage pays

Living on the surface,
  love professes in a vow

Living on the surface,
  real commitment not allowed

Living on the surface,
  new doors stay locked and shut

Living on the surface,
  your re-entry self-destructs

Living on the surface,
  your reflection flat and clean

While just below the surface,
—beats the heart of what things mean

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

(From My 'Searching For Crazy Horse' Collection)
                   'Read In Elko Years Ago'

With ten more miles of wire
  my horse wants to turn back

There’s dark clouds over the mountain
  just a small tent in my sack

The fence line sits all busted
  from two bulls that went astray

They both missed being neutered
  last year on roundup day

My hands are cold and blistered
  that salve jar all but gone

Two wolves begin to howling
  that lonesome prairie song

The storm clouds now have thickened
  light pulls its covers back

Just one more night on the western *****
  —with eight miles left to track

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)
              'Wrtten in 2006'

Poetry travels
  where Prose cannot go

To sleep with the stars,
  by heaven aglow

Each new verse a planet,
  orbiting round…

An Epiphanous light,
—burning profound

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

The Poetry Of Friends
  The Music Of Love

The Beginning Of The End
  Death From Above

The Unwritten Word
  Wuthering Heights

All Truth Now Unheard
  A Thief In The Night

Advise And Consent
  A Darkening Sun

An Anthology Of Perception
  All Truth On The Run

A Book Never Lent
  A Farewell To Arms

With Time Better Spent
Entranced By Your Charm

The Wind In The Willows
  The Catcher In The Rye

Death Calls You Silent
  The Long Goodbye

The Flight Out Of Nowhere
  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

That Someone To Care
  Islands In The Stream

The Reasons Left Unsettled
  To Loan Sacred Ground

Hansel And Gretel
  Once Lost And Then Found

One Unto Many
  Many Unto One

Befriending Your Enemy
  A Raisin In The Sun

The Russians Are Coming
What Is To Be Done

The Fire Now Burning
  Fathers And Sons

All Freedom Aborting
  Last Link In The Chain

The Message Retorting
  A Universe Shamed

That Moment To Enslave
  Destiny’s Child

Lonely Are The Brave
  The Call Of The Wild

With Hope Now Asunder
  Lone Wolf At The Door

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
  Our Final Encore

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)

The beauty of isolation,
  the magic in being alone

A singular attraction,
—sagacious undertone

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

You fly toward the finish,
  and take the last curve

The Mulsanne behind you,
  your legend—your nerve

Worn tires losing traction,
  the edge of control

Fate laughing inside you,
  old blood on the pole

Your mind now invaded,
  the ghosts have arrived

Eighty-two came to watch,
  eighty-two lost their lives

Your brakes are on fire,
  you tap them just once

The last lap demonic,
  a young driver in front

You fake to the inside,
  diving deep to the wall

The rookie left startled,
  checkered flag set to fall

At over two hundred,
  charging down the last straight

With both hands on the wheel,
  death again has to wait

You roar past the grandstand,
  your right arm in the air

A dark podium beckons,
—the Devil’s to share

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

My words the result
  of the times I’ve lived
  not a classroom exercise

My feelings all paid
  with the blood of my fears
  not a rambling diatribe

My trail has been lined
  with each tear and misstep
  to mark the way ahead

My life a memory
  telling a tale
   —whose direction my soul has led

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2018)

When time loses its hold
  do you choose a new father

Free of place and all station
   even freer from blame

Your mother is now
  and your mother forever

But your father is a choice
  much more than a name

Do you wrestle in torment
  as he calls out to you timeless

Beyond the past and the future  
    —where you forever remain

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

Those drunken nights and barroom fights
  now seed my fallowed ground

Where women spurned and lovers churned
  rule memory’s lost and found

Those wasted days and sleepless years
  like wine have aged within

Fermenting each unwritten page
  —reharvesting my sins

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

Intoxicant of sublimation
New ruler of alienation
The channels change
As the mind stops,
And the images
Fall away

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2013)

The duplicity of solitude,
—thinker and thought

The lies we tell ourselves,
  hoping never to get caught

In darkness, living behind walls
  that conceal

Our thoughts from our feelings,
—masquerading as real

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2011)

Once I was zoetic,
  and words became life

But now I am dead,
—and death becomes me

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2016)

Bogged down in the details,
  truth is undone

Swimming through the corn flakes,
  milk overruns

Looking at the forest,
  seeing just trees

Pieces micromanaged,
—big picture tease

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

The Democrat party,
  all masters and slaves

G.O.P. left in tatters,
  their promises frayed

Haves lie to the have nots
  bright futures a whim

As the dragon’s fire burns
  —the thick with the thin

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2016)

Time immortal, the master thief,
  stealing tomorrow from the past

Abducting each moment, all life itself,
  —today within its grasp

(Santa Fe New Mexico: February, 2019)

Caught in the same web
  of insecurity

  —we write

To ease the pain, to emancipate
  the joy

  —speaking truth to our doubts

Freeing them upon the wind, all
  questions unanswered

  —as our voices escape

Crying out names that only heaven
  will know

  —while eternity smiles

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

The only way to cross eternity
  is in a poem

Distance not measured in miles or years,
—epic ballads to intone

The light speed meteor will chase forever
  the wake of verses flown

Where words fly silent and words fly deep,
  —beyond a future heaven loaned

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2016)

Love destroys what *** begins,
as playgrounds and schoolyards
hide the true nature of the King

Innocence bleeding,
within the deep warm incision
of a preternatural beginning

(West Philadelphia: October, 1972)
From 'An Anthology Of Perception' Vol. #1