Shadows of tomorrow,
reflections of yesterday

Images of the moment
—in whose Trinity we pray

(Devil’s Tower Wyoming: September, 1990)

My mind now passes through
—what my heart must leave behind

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017 )

Able to take change
in smaller increments …
the total overwhelms

The pieces digested
in tiny fragments
absconding from the realm

— Breaking it down —
taming the maelstrom
hail turns into rain

The whole reemerging
inside my becoming
transforming me again

(Dreamsleep: March, 2024)

When the world was small
my heroes were big
living on a 12’’ screen
the telephone operator knew me by name
when the party line was open and free
on Tuesdays it was the bread man
on Wednesdays came meat
Friday mornings the Fuller Brush man rang twice
Saturdays were baseball, bleacher seats for a buck
and on Sunday to church on my bike
when on Monday the Nun asked where the black eye was from
I smiled and said “ran into a door”
while all the while knowing this was the time of my life
—a time when the world was so small

(Conshohocken Pennsylvania: March, 2021)

Another truth, another lie
—another day that ends in why

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)

Can nothing extend
beyond something…

Can never be
possibly where…

Can dreamers awaken
the insomniacs sleep…

Can no place
ever be there…

(Dreamsleep: January, 2023)

Leaving the things we need the most,
we come back for what we love

A circle squared from inside out
—the cream to rise above

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)

From the top of Penn Center
he chose his first victim
Twenty stories up
as the train rolls below

A solitary pigeon
breaks free of the pack
Its eyes focused downward
for scraps that might show

His wings ever silent
with talons extended
At over a hundred
he drops from the sky

The prey in his clutches
a nest on the spire
where eyas sit waiting
—their mouths open wide

(16th & JFK Boulevard-Philadelphia: May, 2022)

Morning, bright morning,
your promise has come
Morning, bright morning,
new birth of the sun

Into your arms
I bathe in reflection
Into your warmth
I strip off my fear

Into your heart
I surrender the darkness
Into your strength
I lay down my spear

Morning, bright morning,
your promise has come
Morning, bright morning
—today rebegun  

(Local Train From 30th Street Philadelphia: May, 2022)

Think it
Write it
Say it
—believe it

(repeat)

Las Vegas: July, 2022

The True Cost

You can’t have choice
unless you have doubt

The price of freedom
— seeded to sprout

(Dreamsleep: June, 2024)


Living Now

A mouthful of salt
a fistful of memories
Choking tomorrow
— on the joy of today

(Dreamsleep: June, 2024)

Mankind
was never meant
to survive the future
Technology
a trap
their greed as bait
Generations
sacrificed
in self destruction
On altars
of indenture
— their natures gone

(Calvary Cemetery: May, 2024)

**** the nor’easter
hold the wheel steady
Waves from the Kraken
over the bow
Darkness ahead
charts plot the demon
Into the fury
—doubling down

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)

When routine things
start to look typical
The typical
—becomes routine

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)

Unwriting each poem
word by word
My thoughts again
—pristine

(Dreamsleep: August, 2022)

The end layers over the beginning
in contours of time
Blanketing the middle
in consorts of connection
Rescuing the lost from themselves
—saving the foundling’s parade

(Dreamsleep: September, 2022)

The Emperor jailed in wishful thinking,
where only he could be

As I escape inside myself
—a prisoner running free

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

The path to eternity
weaves and turns
As choices deceive
and judgment burns

Its labyrinth changing
and mirror lined
Voices in transit
new order unrhymed

Pursuit often folly
refusal is death
The push is internal
escaping your breath

Beginnings unending
the past in refute
Each moment unfolding
—beyond all repute

(Dreamsleep: October, 2022)

You’ll never find out
where you might have gone
If you don’t leave
where you’ve been

You’ll never approach
who you might become
If you change
with every whim

You’ll never discover what’s
over the hill
With both feet stuck
in the sand

You’ll never discern the
right from the wrong
Indecision
—your command

(The New Room: January, 2024)

Words left borrowed
heavy on the heart
Actions defaulting
stillborn and dark

Pawning the foundling
orphan on loan
Love unbequested
— dying alone

(Dreamsleep: April, 2024)

I love it so
but stay away …
the mountains
prairies and streams

Each morning
the magic unveiling again
each night
a sky covered in dreams

I love it so
but stay away …
the cry of the wolf
in the snow

A warning to transients
skimming the top
of a landscape
— they’re never to know


(Leadville Colorado: March, 2021)

Diametric …
art and commerce
Twining symbols
colors adverse
Yin & Yang
divergent segues
Each stigmatic
bloddy payday
Fraternal image
Louvre / Montmartre
Black tie bidding
cobbled heart
A poor man sings
a rich man vies
On bartered canvas
—truth defies

(Dreamsleep: November, 2023)

Tweedledee
and
Tweedledum

The fairytale of George W. Bush
and
Barack Obama

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

What you first come to learn
when emotions are raw

Bakes time eternal,
old men to recall

Before holy baptism
and the mirrored decree

Lasting impressions
—of what’s meant to be

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2020)

Roaming the prairies and fields
of confusion
Coursing the oceans and lakes
of delusion
Resetting my compass by the
northernmost star
Journeying inward
—where near meets the far

(Dreamsleep: October, 2021)

We make the truth we need
to worship gods of time
And love in spite of hate
whose conjure ill defined

We set the past in stone
to keep tomorrow chaste
And travel inward free of both
—whose presence we displace

(Dreamsleep: January, 2023)

In the middle of nowhere…
the center of it all

Coming back to my beginning
—one choice to recall

(Fargo North Dakota: August, 2019)

You’re supposed to know
the people you know,
and not the people you don’t
You’re supposed to feel
the things you can feel,
and not the things that you can’t
You’re supposed to be
what your nature portends,
and not what convention ascribes
You’re supposed to love
without borders or fear
—those moments forever alive

(The New Room: August, 2021)

Water takes on form
determined by the container
Its main characteristic
forever to move downward

An army’s defenses
should act like water
Filling in the empty spaces
of the attacker’s weakness

Where mind and spirit meet
darkness turns to daylight
Once you luminate the battlefield  
you can counter at any time

When your will pierces
the enemy’s fear and turns it against them
You swallow their spirit
digesting it whole

Advancing as one
withdrawing as one
Victory of great consequence
knows no other way

Winning flows in torrents
through the heart of the commander
Whose soldiers fight through strength of hand
—in currents to define

(Dreamsleep: November, 2023)

Collective self-consciousness,
the well where I draw
old voices and struggles
lie deep in its craw
What’s shared but unstated,
reflexively pawned
to borrow ungiven
the right to what’s wrong
Collective self-consciousness,
polarity’s friend
unspoken meridian
between fact and pretend
To wait in the memory
of what’s yet to come
released by the moment
—humanity won

(The New Room: February, 2022)

Distance
is different
spurning
direction

The miles
a marriage
time
has divorced

Spaces
concurrent
flowing
together

As coming
and going
fade in
— remorse

(Dreamsleep: April, 2024)

When you find yourself sheltered
in your own little corner,
it’s time to move on

When you find yourself buying
what your echoes are selling,
it’s time to be gone

When you find yourself spinning
in a circle redundant,
it’s time to step out

When you find the beginning
detached from the ending
—your future in doubt

(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)

Conation

Have you tilted the axis
on a new tomorrow
Have you changed with intention
— the direction of time

(The New Room: February, 2024)



Round Peg — Square Holes

The poetry of mathematics
— oxymoronic at best

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)





Robert The Bruce

War is won
before the first battle fought
Willful intention
the enemy caught

Decision a crossbow
empowered by choice
The spirit retracting
— a conquering voice

(Stonehenge: March, 1987)


Apate

Captive of emotion
— prisoner of deceit

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)


Crossing Over

Attending his own funeral
no tears were exchanged
No grieving or mourning
— but memory remained

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)

In Memoriam

People won’t remember you
because of your money
The human spirit bereft
by your dollars in vain
History won’t revere you
because of your tokens
Your legacy built upon
— prescience ordained

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)



Blood Trail

Don’t get ****** into choosing
both sides are bad
The Left or the Right
their massages sad

The Right tries to promise
what Leftist’s sublate
Two sides to a trap
— where lies are the bait

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)


“What Simple Folk Do …”

Only inside ordinary things
is the extraordinary released
Baptized new day after day
eternity unleashed

Only by embracing what’s common amongst us
as Arthur knew so well
Can we move on to where it starts
beyond heaven — beyond hell

(Memories Of Camelot: February, 2024)


Making Our Bed

The silence of death
lives in the future
Sleeping with memories
— of yesterday’s past

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)

Cheap art
or excellent craft
You decide
what floats the raft

Good intentions
hell repaved
Choice emboldened
—heaven saved


(Dreamsleep: August, 2022)

The Pharisees vengeance,
unleashing again

To **** a ‘false’ prophet,
their fear redescends

The cross is made ready,
like ages before

The nails though still rusty,
hammer deep and secure

Their memories short sighted,
rejecting the fact

The last one they crucified…
alive and intact

A new Resurrection
they’re about to ensure

Through hatred and envy
—damnation procured

(For Sister Marcella: January, 2021)

The Art of Creating,
the Art of Living
—YES

(Dreamsleep: May, 2020)

The laws we need most
stay unwritten

As tyranny runs wild
without sanctions in place

Minus shared common values
can we ever regroup

From this polarization
—and dog eat dog race

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

Do you play inside the Corn Flakes,
or are corn stalks more you game

Is that Hersey Bar the answer,
or the cocoa or *******

Do you clerk for someone’s feelings,
inspiration to be ******

Your legacy an afterthought
—another’s contraband

(Grantham New Hampshire: February, 2017)

The difference between
poetry and prose
Whose words live together
under your nose
With prose you can finish
last page period end
But poetry boundless
— to forever extend

(The New Room: January, 2024)

Once free of the body,
into the soul
Majestic reversal,
the minstrels have told

A crown made of virtue,
death in the past
Whose regal foretelling
—a message to last

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2020)