Quantifying Art…
  quality by the pound

Feelings like hair, part
  —separation profound

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2015)

Full contact Poetry
The ultimate fight
Death match supreme
The truth within sight
Pulling no punches
The ink bleeding free
The wound beyond mortal
A Fait Accompli

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

Purity weds corruption
—a marriage unrhymed

An Angel having fallen
  —damnation defined

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2014)

Our memory—the enemy
Remembering back
To when we were stronger
To when we attacked
But now in our weakness
Remembering when
Our tide was still rising
Our will stronger then

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

The darker side of morning,
  the drier side of rain

A memory left forgetting
  —a spirit uncontained

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)

Is your memory a circle,
  or a trip straight out and back

A beginning and an ending,
  or one continuous track

Do you see the same things going up,
  that you pass when coming down

Is retention sealed and programmed,
  by things going round and round

Is there a finish where you stop,
  or perhaps just one last verse,
  
Or a rewind back to square one,
  the past to again rehearse

This flux of motion holds you tight,
  your perception never free,

Serving both to deceive and lie,
—in a false infinity

(Seattle Washington: March, 2017)

Starting out with belief
  all that’s left is regret

Starting out with hope
  every wish then denied

Starting out with love
  at the end only pain

Starting out with a welcome
   —one last final goodbye

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2019)

Granting myself permission,
  I advanced into the sun

The rays now scorching by me,
  this journey zero-sum

Racing toward the present,
  all chains come flying off

Into a first beginning
—my dreams and wishes caught

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)

The nature of being,
  its whole and its parts

The nature of being,
  its fits and its starts

The nature of being
  the old and the new

The nature of being
  —to me and to you

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

Poet….
  Lone Wolf of the spoken word

Crouching in darkness
—one verse in the herd

Stalking his prey
  far into the night

Attacking with feeling
   —that forever bites

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

Every word not spoken
—the lost child of a forgotten wish

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

Never trying to cheat the reader,
  my words stay plain and few

The road direct, horizon vast,
  as truth comes into view

Each word unclaimed, a promise kept,
  the wait your reasoned choice

To breathe the future from the past
—this present freshly voiced

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

After Midnight
The narcissists fall
After Midnight
A new lyric calls

After Midnight
The bugles will blow
After Midnight
There’s more left to know

After Midnight
The lizards collect
After Midnight
All tales to reflect

After Midnight
The ticking won’t stop
After Midnight
The bottom has topped

After Midnight
A cancerous tome
After Midnight
Malignancy known

After Midnight
Betray and deceive
After Midnight
Alone in the siege

After Midnight
All footsteps fall deaf
After Midnight
Last palate uncleft

After Midnight
New story to front
After Midnight
A star for the dunce

After Midnight
The comets rebel
After Midnight
The coroners yell

After Midnight
A suit made of steel
After Midnight
Its melting reveals

After Midnight
The plain and the slack
After Midnight
There’s no turning back

After Midnight
A sacred oath sworn
After Midnight
All memory forlorn

After Midnight
The wheels bend and turn
After Midnight
Lost vision relearns

After Midnight
False birth is stillborn
After Midnight
Old vestments are torn

After Midnight
The here and the now
After Midnight
That one sacred cow

After Midnight
Past-Future unseen
After Midnight
—new eyes that believe

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

Never shout into the void
  —when you can whisper to the heart

(Richmond Virginia: April, 2019)

A poem is never truly finished,
   a song never finally sung

As words and lyrics age the silence
  —all time forever young

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

Unto a rose,
  a flower so sweet

Its petals like velvet,
  its fragrance discreet

It grows through the concrete,
  lining many a field

With a glorious welcome,
—deepest feelings revealed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

He never told me when he left her,
  I’d go through a Grandfather’s divorce

The kids remote and distant
  all contact scant and forced

My love sits idly waiting
  for the phone to ring again

Saying “Papa we want to see you”
  but Mommy’s mad at men

My heart left cold and broken
  warm wishes unreturned

As two children fight to understand
  —a world left dark and burned

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)

The gray dawn slaughters
the promise of spring
—with a desperate last goodbye

Its poisonous haze mocks
a sky forsaken
—with the sun again denied

Its blanket lowers
in a shroud of judgment
—its verdict darkly stained

To deluge its exit
in torrents of thunder
—as the light reflects in vain

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2016)

Money and wealth
  used to accompany class

Now more often than not,
  it tends toward the crass

There used to be style
  that went along with good luck

Now nouveau riche dogma
  just passes the buck

The internet minions
  and rappers galore

Litter our vision
  as they buy out our stores

This newest gold standard
  obsesses with bling

Their knowledge in tatters
  they read not a thing

All intention is focused
  on numbers that climb

Like lasers, they pierce
  the mercurial dime

But time marches onward
  for rich and for poor

Looking back, a past wasted
  —ahead nothing more

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

He died that night
In a cheap motel
In Maryville Tennessee
$35.00 Karma mixed with
The smell of curry
Coming from the front office
No one would ever understand
Why he chose to die here
Especially those few
Who claimed to know him well
The gravel parking lot
The towels
You could see through
And the lawn chairs inside
For furniture
Made the connection, and the
Endless search
Real
In a way it hadn’t been before
As he sat outside his room
Thinking about the end
The local construction workers
Remembered his name
As they called out to him
At the end of their day
Marking their time
By a weekly rate
In their rooms down the hall
They remembered the little things
His own family
Had forgotten
Or not so little

AND THEN HE DIED

In his $35.00 motel room
His fortune just buried memory
With its headstone forever blank

(Newport Tennessee: April, 2013)

Is heaven where you live out
  your dreams

Those fond wishes life never
  allowed

Is eternity that place
  not yet seen

Where you awaken
—a high flying cloud

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Living inside the base of a hollowed out tree
  since childhood, my dreams have been formed

Living inside a space where the walls almost touched
  kept me hidden, protected, and warm

Living inside a place that no others could see
  beyond privacy, I became lost in myself

Living inside the base of a hollowed out tree
  —where boyhood memories and wishes still dwell

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

A Lakota Sioux Elder
  once prophetically said…

  “We will be known forever
     by the tracks we leave behind”

That wisdom now marking
  a trail of tears
   —any hope still yet to find

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)

She’s familiar,
  aint that the blues

Sleeping beside her,
  everyone knew

Chipped beef on Monday,
  Thursday cold stew

Dishes piled high,
  paycheck gone through

She’s familiar,
  ain’t that the blues

Home from work early,
  today around noon

Mattress was creaking,
   my pistol I drew

Two shots in my brother,
—four more in the flooze

(Chicago Illinois: Performed with Clinton Mace at Cabrini Greene, 1985)
   Written at Kingston Mines- 'An Anthology Of Perception' Vol #1