Answer with passion,
  or don’t answer at all

Cauterizing my questions
  —as ashes they fall

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

A Season in Hell: Arthur Rimbaud 1854 –1891

A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing.

One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap.—And I found her galling.—And I roughed her up.

I armed myself against justice.

I ran away. O witches, O misery, O hatred, my treasure's been turned over to you!

I managed to make every trace of human hope vanish from my mind. I pounced on every joy like a ferocious animal eager to strangle it.

I called for executioners so that, while dying, I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called for plagues to choke me with sand, with blood. Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. I dried myself in the air of crime. And I played tricks on insanity.

And Spring brought me the frightening laugh of the idiot.

So, just recently, when I found myself on the brink of the final squawk! it dawned on me to look again for the key to that ancient party where I might find my appetite once more.

Charity is that key.—This inspiration proves I was dreaming!

"You'll always be a hyena etc. . . ," yells the devil, who'd crowned me with such pretty poppies. "Deserve death with all your appetites, your selfishness, and all the capital sins!"

Ah! I've been through too much:-But, sweet Satan, I beg of you, a less blazing eye! and while waiting for the new little cowardly gestures yet to come, since you like an absence of descriptive or didactic skills in a writer, let me rip out these few ghastly pages from my notebook of the ******.

Envy is a curse
  with the darkest shadow

Its yearning left unsettled
  in a greenish cast

Jealousy its evil twin
  beyond veracity’s purview

Coveting the burning torches
  —of all darkness past

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

Mistake in comparison,
  an error in the match

Your magic now rejected,
  another’s work attacked

The winner now the loser,
  the prize a vacant throne

The Jester flees the castle,
  —and envy sits alone

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

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)

Imperfection...
  —the DNA within every art form

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2018)

With one foot in the future
  and one foot in the past

Eternity hangs between them
—its prescience first and last

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2018)

There’s a poetry to life,
  that gets lost between the lines

A secret in each memory,
  that the future often finds

A stillness born of movement,
  that will last beyond today

Salvation in this moment,
—as eternity has its say

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

“You’re only as strong as your weakest link,”
  the Postman said out loud

“Space creates room to get lost or expand”
  he shouted out so proud

True wisdom appears when it chooses the time,
  it has always been that way

It’s the ear out-of-tune that hears only the wind,
  —when eternity has its say

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Tonight,
I was ready to die,
But death
Wasn’t ready for me

Tonight,
I was ready to die
From the past
And a future unseen

Tonight,
I was ready to die,
But the light
Of salvation rechose

Tonight,
I was ready to die,
But the door to eternity
—was closed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

Tonight,
I was ready to die
But death
Wasn’t ready for me

Tonight,
I was ready to die
From the past
And a future unseen

Tonight,
I was ready to die
But the light
Of salvation rechose

Tonight,
I was ready to die
But the door to eternity
  —was closed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

The present is in your future,
  the present in your past

The present a sacred mystery,
  its moment to unmask

The present is in your memory,
  the present in your dreams

The present neither begins nor ends,
  —eternity set free

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

Salvation rises,
  only from the depths
  of the unsure

Its light ablaze,
  exposing fear
  while pronouncing the cure

Redemption hovers,
  over death and its
  pestilence below

Casting all there reborn,
  in the warmth  
  of eternity’s glow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

A song yet unsung,
  my prayer in the wind

A blessing assured,
—eternity’s hymn

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

Can time be discarded
  by reading your work

Your wisdom a birthstone,
  eternity’s mark

With experience salient,
  thoughts never to age

A voice for all seasons
  —the words of a sage

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 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)

As of late,
  I have developed a new best friend

It’s my younger self coming
  to visit my end

I look in his face,
  and I see a new truth

I look in his face,
  and I see more than youth

Now more like my father,
  I more like his son

The beginning he carries,
  from whose ending I run

He tells me he’s followed,
  but I never looked back

Always looking beyond,
  what my fear could attack

He approaches me close,
  but we’re never to touch

The distance between us,
  life’s meaning as such

For most of my days
  I planned dying alone

But now in his presence,
  every memory reshown

He points to my heart,
  as his eyes fly within

His vision, my vision
  —eternity’s twin

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)

Touching the sunrise,
  immortality burned

Touching the sunrise,
  infinity returned

Touching the sunrise
  time left in the dark

Touching the sunrise
—eternity’s spark

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)