There’s something more valued
than dollars and cents…
humanity trumping pretend

Your mantra has been
that “winning’s enough”
losing yourself in the end

Each attempt to be clever
and self-aggrandize
takes you away from what’s real

The most treasured of things
to be loved and endeared
—your actions can’t borrow or steal

(The New Room: September, 2021)

Love is incapable of honor,
desperation of all that’s unfair

Desire unleashed to roam and to prey
—tomorrow for others to bear

(Dreamsleep: June, 2021)

Dying the slow death of political infection,
it hides within our words

As we try to run, and try to hide,
its plague a constant scourge

Poisoning the water, despoiling our thoughts,
all freedom it commands

Directing the folly, conscripting all joy
—our blindfold it demands

(Dreamsleep: August, 2019)

Preferred indifference,
the Stoics say

The arm’s length model
where choices stray

In for a penny,
in for a pound

The shield left naked
—when outward bound

(Dreamsleep: May, 2021)

Fire burns hottest
that burns below
Centuries rage
heartache’s grow
The coldest cold
blows just above
A gripping blizzard
—wrath ungloved


(Dreamsleep: August, 2021)

The last day of vacation,
you told me things had changed

The last day of vacation,
each word seducing pain

The last day of vacation,
a new look in your eyes

The last day of vacation,
unveiling your disguise

The last day of vacation,
your back to turn away

The last day of vacation,
our future gone astray

That last day of vacation,
the sun had left the sky

That last day of vacation
—hello became goodbye

(The New Room: November, 2021)

Before I knew the answers
life was one big question
Wonder hid round every turn
laughter as my Muse

As answers came the questions left
each day like that before
Laughter but an echoed wish
wonder lost — unfound

(Villanova University: April, 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)

Real poets don’t make lasting friends
they shun fraternity
Their truth like gritty sandpaper
abrasive when intoned  
The reader may be gratified
with what the words uncover
More likely though the pain involved
— will cut them to the bone

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)

The best of the worst,
rules amidst chaos,
honor amongst thieves
—brothers in blood

(Dreamsleep: May, 2021)

The knife edge of verse…
a verbal incision,
whose sharpness cuts both ways

Its blood groove runs heavy
with truth dripping free
—to mark the words unsaid  

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2020)

Humanity is destined
for being at war

Attacking tomorrow,
its fate still unsure

New conflict resharpens
the dullest of blades

Where written in blood
—new history is made

(Valley Forge: November, 2020)

Through struggle
one can justify life
Losing the battle
enhances the view
Blood on the rails
all markings assured
Death as the prize
— recurring anew

(The New Room: June, 2025)

I shun the words you long to hear,
my heart and spirit cry

The votive candle burning down,
its flame a dimming lie

My pen to struggle against your will,
and scribe the message owned

That blood has drafted and pain rewrites
—not borrowed nor then loaned

(Valley Forge: January, 2021)

Compelled to fight *****,
in attempts to stay clean
The shadows conscripted,
clandestine and mean
Surprise as an ally,
you stalk and you spy
To vanquish the monster
—declawed and defied

(Villanova Chapel: December, 2021)

You thought that you could skip a stitch,
the thread provided free

You thought no one would ever notice,
just one small opening

The seam then weakened steadily,
threads loosened left and right

Excuses now unraveling,
Old Glory taking flight

The sinew given strong and taut,
to seal the danger out

But that one stitch you failed to close,
won’t mute the nightmare’s shout

Miss Ross is now in mourning,
as the stars have left the field

That one stitch you’ve forsaken
—draining blood that wouldn’t yield

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017) On-Line 3/22/2017

Leaving the place you’re going to,
my ultimate regret
a thorny road of promised dreams
I fled but can’t forget

Leaving the place that claims my heart,
still beating—buried deep
your pathway marked with blood I shed
whose wound this distance weeps

(The New Room: November, 2021)

Innocence a foreigner
if beautiful or dark
No one who can lead the way
— has purity of heart

(Dreamsleep: November, 2024)

Saying
something witty
while having nothing
to say

Is like
spitting in the wind
to stay out
— of the spray

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

A lotta times
it ain’t good
and it ain’t bad
— it’s what it is

(Blue Front Café: August, 1969)

Good
ain’t good enough
When bad
— is better

(The Uptown Theater 1967: Philadelphia Pennsylvania)

Nowhere
ain’t nowhere
when it’s where
— you belong

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)

Where would we be without the matter
of emptiness
What space would we reside in,
all things by degree
Emptiness as real as the matter
it contains
Perhaps even more
—as it first came to be

(Dreamsleep: May, 2021)

If being and the world
are one and the same
Then thinking and thoughts
are together to name
With freedom and consciousness
semantically fused
All judgment and will
—symbiotically cued

(Baldwin School: March, 2021)

My life is a Poem,
not one chosen line

And travels within me,
each mountain I climb

It dwells symbiotic,
between body and soul

To hearten each moment
—keeping me whole

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2019)

I swore
over and over
and
over and over
Forever
to love her
no matter
the whim

But time
after time
as each siren
would call  
I rambled
and left her
my nose
— in the wind

(Dreamsleep: December, 2024)

People
surround
but I’m always
alone
In naked
seclusion
fleeing
the throne
Caught in
the snarl
of their
consonant rhyme
Shunning
all
overtures
— fields still unlined

(Gardiner Montana: August, 2025)

Some words forever born inclined,
others bred in shadows

Verse conceived and left unread
—to wander lost and fallow

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

Leaving tomorrow
starting again
Moments resplendent
free of the din

Touching a sunrise
kissing the rain
Hugging a moonbeam
— joy preordained


(Dreamsleep: September, 2024)

Reincarnation
eternity’s myth
You’re incarnated
only once
Though many transitions
are stamped with time’s pretense
As it was in the beginning
— it will be at the end

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Rejected by parents
forsaken alone
One choice left to make
forever to roam  

The cost ever paying
their wages of sin
Steps of abandonment
traipsing within  

To beg or to borrow
the future on loan
The price of tomorrow
each moment unknown

With fate chasing after
both fortune and shame
A waif born to wander
—in search of a name

(Dreamsleep: July, 2023)

The air I breathe,
the blood that flows

The light that shines,
the voice that knows

The question asked,
the answer ******

Tomorrow sold
—today on loan

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)

Ability to free,
impossible to seize

The moment but on loan
past-future to deceive

(Dreamsleep: November, 2019)

Holding on tight
to each moment before

The test results come
forever unsure

Reprieved for a day
condition unchanged

“Your numbers are stable
— but cancer remains”


(Ronald McDonald House: Phila. Pa, October, 2024)

Borrow from a liar
  —but steal from the truth

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)

Do you want education,
or just to get high

To reach your potential,
or pie in the sky

If it’s learning you want,
then take off the mask

That laptop you worship
—deceives future and past

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)

Stricken with blame,
enamored by praise

My words caught between
—to travel both ways

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)