A Wolf Waits

Early one morning
reason escaped
And prescience went with it
unlocking the gate
Lights in the asylum
flicker and fade
The inmates grow restless
a deepening shade
Evening brought darkness
no stars in the sky
But nobody wondered
no questioning why
The moon simply vanished
a wolf waits to howl
All order disorder
—with thought disavowed

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)


Spinning The Cylinder

When does intelligence
turn on its host
Killing the patron
leaving a ghost

Russian roulette
in a game zero sum
Perception reloading
—acuity’s gun

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)


Quantum Leap

Life beyond numbers
images reign
Killing all reference
lost in refrain
Gaming the theory
zeroing out
Counting symphonic
—Angels about

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)

The Muse continues to punish me
whenever I write prose

Her slaps severe with pain heartfelt
no fury 'hell hath known'

She sentences me to endless nights
and days when words won't come

Until I succumb to writing verse
and she — my breath becomes


(Fairmount Park: October, 2016)

From the sound of the bugle
in the rush of the wind
The bodies are counted
as grieving begins

In the morrow replaying
as blood spills again
The enemy forward
whose countenance grim

The courage of many
all acting as one
Their wills long suborted
with fear on the run

Till the bugle goes silent
the bugler face down
Last day ill remembered
—a wounded dog howls  

(The New Room: June, 2023)

The only way to become a writer
—is to write

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

He learned
to race
before
he walked
The world
too slow
his freedom
caught
To fans
who watched
and those
who loved
His spirit
soars
at speed
— above

(The New Room: December, 2024)

If some is good
more is better
Less is threatened
all enslaved

If more is reasoned
less is questioned
Good intentions
—hell repaved

(Dreamsleep: January, 2023)

“All you can be is all you can be,”
damning with faint praise

A lover, not a girl to wed
—left hand falsely raised

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

Are you happy spreading misery,
distrust what you embrace

More joyful when the skies are dark,
than bright on sunny days

Is truth a tool you wield and fling,
a weapon in your hand

Love what looms and threatens most,
to never understand

Are feelings there for you to trash,
with others left to cry

A promise made but left unkept,
much worse than any lie

When all is said, and all is done,
and everyone looks back

Will you be known for what you were
—that knife in someone's back

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)

Let me take you on a journey,
  to a place inside yourself

Not the body mind connection,
  but true consciousness itself

Before you walk a darkened space,
  a light must first go on

Not tasked with anything other than,
  an awareness set upon

Your eyes look out, true vision in,
  the stuff of what you’re made

Before the questions were unleashed,
  one answer left unblamed

So close your eyes and close your mind,
   and set your spirit free

The path aglow from whence you came
   —that leads you back to thee

(Dreamsleep: June, 2019)

Refusing to ever
say hello

The coward says
—goodbye

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

Writing is a messy feast
where crumbs fall to the floor
to congregate and aggregate
to hide and form and spore

Left alone and thrown away
these remnants take new life
invading what you fear the most
on dark and stormy nights

They creep inside your cleanest lines
to weaken and distract
what memory long has cast aside
now rising from the cracks

And latching on while holding tight
they make you speak their name
those orphaned crumbs your table cleared
—in sweeping lost disdain

(Dreamsleep: October, 2021)

Salt lick temptation
lures that dangle,
camouflaged darkness
masks and blinds

Easily captured
when most attracted,
flypaper memories
—trap and bind

(The New Room: November, 2021)

Hostage to fortune,
prisoner of time

Trophies a burden,
polished and shined

Greed but a jailer,
freedom denied

Hope in confinement
—wishing a crime

(Dreamsleep: October, 2021)

Poetry…
not about the words
but how the words were born

(Dreamsleep: June, 2021)

No power
can break a man's grip
on his own throat

Or offer redemption
with belief
unproclaimed

(Dreamsleeep: December, 2019)

The road to paradise
begins in hell

If you long for peace
—embrace the war

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

My life a poem, forego the count,
that comes in threes and fours

The space between to catch new breath,
that time may now allure

These moments gifted more than once,
constant in their prayer

Whose vow will cast the river wide
—new words to baptize there

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

What is the substance
of nothingness

With nothingness the substance
of thought

Where is the truth
in indifference

Apathetically frozen
when taught

How then to measure
reluctance

With action the villain
of time

Seeking to baptize
the vacuum

Where consonants hide
—from the rhyme

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2023)

Can you put the past
behind you
is there nothing left
to learn
Can you look toward
the future
your dreams no longer
spurned
Can you ask that
final question
that unanswered
sets you free
Can you step inside
the moment
to be or not
— to be

(The New Room: July, 2024)

A Romantic is always afraid deep inside
expectations will never come true

Chasing a mirage that stays beyond reach
waiting and hoping in lieu…

A Romantic betroths those lies of the heart
in amorous moments to roam

Wooing a dream that’s jilted by sleep
to wander, to wonder—alone

(Dreamsleep: September, 2022)

Deception comes richly,
new lies in its purse

Old wolves on the mountaintop
—Gideon’s curse

(Dreamsleep: February, 2021)

The fire’s gone out
in the last wooden hut
Fresh snow has been falling,
cold hunger abuts

The Red Coats emboldened
in far Germantown
The wind carries stillness,
with death all around

A General stands watch
on the farthest of hills
His heart never waivers,
his anger instills

The firewood gone
but the embers still burn
O’er forests and rivers,
to Paris in turn

The Schuylkill runs quiet,
Lenape scouts have returned
“Our enemy grows fat, Sir,
in taverns that burn”

The outcome awaiting,
its body count high
Where cabins though frozen
—the stars and stripes fly

(Valley Forge: November, 2020)

Closing his eyes
one last time
a man can finally see

Opening his heart
time undone
feelings Joie de Vivre

Moving beyond
future and past
returning to the source

Hearing that voice
bathed in the Light
—  love his Tour de Force


(The 1st Book  Of Prayers: February, 2024)

Take me
to Hell
Take me
to Heaven
Bless me
with kindness
Curse me
as leavened

Angel within
me
Devil
in waiting
Salvation
unseeded
Damnation
— equating

(Dreamsleep: July, 2024)

He died
the day before
his birth
the curse had worked again

Generations
in the womb
their feticide
a last amen

The garden path
a stepford trap
whose fruit trees
bear the scorn

Enoch built
to hide the curse
the Mark of Cain
— damnation born

(The New Room: February, 2024)

Better to be in Hell
for all eternity,
than in Heaven
—for a little while

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

Better to be in Hell
for all eternity,
than in Heaven
—on borrowed time

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

Prayer without indemnity,
prejudice, or blame,
weaponizing Diety…
a dogma-based refrain

Through Him our Divinity
rejoining heart and mind,
to truly know Who reigns supreme
last sacrament defined

Religion like the training wheels
discarded when we we’re young,
to free the rider in the wind
—His spokes forever spun

(Easter Dreamsleep: April, 2022)

Stealing fire from the gods
Prometheus would yearn
And pass it off to humankind
whose banishment interred

Their feet into the glowing coals
but faith out from the dark
Enlightenment a powder keg
—uncareful wishing sparks

(The New Room: September, 2023)

Victim of his own success…
the treadmill calls,
the hourglass broken
—casualty of what time denies

(The New Room: November, 2020)

Is your greatness unendorsed
by godly symbols old and new

Is your strength contained and held within,
as broth begets the stew

Is your message clear with no defense,
either martial or sublime

With freedom at your beck and call
—all stricture cast aside

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2019)

Today
I unlocked
a new window

One
I had never
opened before

Air
rushing in
calling me back

Voices
familiar
yet foreign to name

And
as I passed through
that new window

Leaving
behind
what used to be me

Losing
my shadow
to futures long past

Reaching
for something
—becoming the dream

(Dreamsleep: January, 2023)

I believe in Jesus
I believe in Buddha
I believe in Mohammed
—divinity shared

I believe in grace
I believe in epiphany
I believe in tomorrow
—the promise it bears

I believe in man’s ability
to rise above his nature
religion the jailer
—whose lies forestall

I believe that enlightenment
requires a commitment
to become the living embodiment
—of that One who calls

(The 1st Book Of Prayers: November, 2016)

You have to be young
to disappear…
and healthy enough
to fall into the cracks
of a new tomorrow

You have to be young
to isolate…
and strong enough
to brave the winter
of a new becoming

(The New Room: September, 2022)

Differing from our enemy,
in one way the same

Our conflict in common
— to praise or to blame

(The New Room: May, 2021)

Silence attacking
from deep in the hall
Damage inflicted
the metronome stalled
Blood in the orchestra
harmony thrawn
Melody slaughtered
— rhapsody gone

(The New Room: May, 2024)

True poets are poets
before picking up a pen

True poets are poets
before opening their mouths

True poets are poets
before their words are enshrined

True poets are poets
before…

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)