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Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2018
Laid with words
   the writers stone
A fortress was columned
  my only real home

The poetry safe
  as it stammered and tried
As my feelings unbridled
  from the outsiders lies

Each year added substance
  to this home of the verse
My thoughts never silenced
  or my feelings there terse

All that’s needed to go there
  blind captured belief
All that’s needed to know
  is that time is the thief

My vision unshaken
  from this chair with two wheels
The advice from the experts
  to wither and yield

But my place more than sacred
  an invincible throne
Independent of body
  times seed now unsown

And the moment before
  I take my last breath
I will enter forever
  where before I had left

The trumpets will sound
  as immortality calls
To that space then my refuge
  the sum of it all

As the memories chase reason
  the facts storm again
But the tents of my solitude
  keep out their wind

For generations that follow
  and their children that ask
This place I now dwell in
  is for all hard and fast

Just believe in its message
  and its fortune to change
Just believe in transcendence
  with all things the same

Until the day that that final
  trumpet may blow
And everything seen
  is all there’s to know

Your message then solid
  as the door opens wide
And those things that are yours
  to the heavens arrive

And the joy that you feel
  thinking back on it all
From that place deep inside
—where first destiny called

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2021
The end, the beginning,
nearer than far

The middle a wasteland
—to banish and tar

(Dreamsleep: June, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2019
Truth…
the first casualty
of war

Love…
the last casualty
of truth

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2017
Truth, the first casualty
  of war

Love, the last casualty
  of truth

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2020
The first casualty of war…
truth

The last casualty of war…
death

Truth fighting death,
beginning to end

  Questions unanswered
—gravestones contend


(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2022
If you ever get to look into the light
—don’t ever look away

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2021
Forty years of turmoil…
the top of the heap
The head of the table,
but nothing has changed
Consensus of endorsement,
accolades of exhaustion
Whose tracks have long faded
—regret in the wind

(Dreamsleep: July, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2019
There’s nothing less,
  there’s nothing more

As time repeats…
  —once evermore

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2016
The first cut sharp and burning red,
  don’t edit away its fire

Keep the wound both fresh and raw,
never cauterize your ire

The horizon breaks just once each day,
  a new dawn—cold hearts aspire
  
Rays burning deep, first light to keep,
—its ashes to inspire

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2019
The first cut sharp and burning red,
  don’t edit away its fire

Keep the wound both fresh and raw,
  never cauterize your ire

The horizon breaks just once each day,
  a new dawn—cold hearts aspire
  
Rays burning deep, first light to keep
   —old ashes to inspire

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2018
I loved you with a first love
  no second love would ever replace

I loved you with a first love
  that when lost was forever to ache

I loved you with a first love
  when my words were fresh given and new

I loved you with a first love
  —my heart captive with feelings so true

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2024
It happened
once
It happened
forever
But never ever
— again

(Dreamsleep: March, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2020
The present in the future,
the future in the past

Each moment with a choice to make
—starting first or last

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2020
One brisk Saturday morn,
I left the house with glee

To find myself within the woods,
in perfect harmony


(Rosemont Pennsylvania: May, 1959)
Miss Annette’s 5th Grade Class
St Thomas Of Villanova Grade School
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2016
Release your mind from the
  drought of expedience

And harvest in the crops
  of your insanity

(Philadelphia, Woodand Ave: September 1972)

Note:  This is the first serious poem that I wrote as
            a struggling graduate student living in the
            bowels of West Philadelphia.
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2019
The gateway to good writing
—always tell your story first

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2019
Five strangers walked into my dream,
arm in arm, all different versions
of my deceased mother

They looked at me one by one,
with that look—her look,
that had been gone for so long

The first whispered to the second,
then the second to the third,
as the fourth and fifth just shook their heads

I tried to look away, but their presence
followed, and my eyes were frozen
in the judgment they proclaimed

My sleep now haunted by what I once knew,
a maternal affliction that my memory had cured
—returning again to infect my dreams

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2017
Five strangers walked into my dream,
  all male and all different versions
  of my deceased mother

They looked at me one by one,
  with that look—her look,
  that had been gone for so long

The first whispered to the second,
  then the second to the third,
  as the fourth and fifth just shook their heads

I tried to look away, but their presence
  followed, and my eyes were frozen
  in the judgment they proclaimed

My sleep was now haunted by what I once knew,
  a maternal affliction that my memory had cured,
  —returning again to infect my dreams

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2019
A sudden embarrassment,
  a moment of shame

A lifetime remembered
   —in flashbacks of pain

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm May 2018
Intuition is to reason
as a black hole is to space

A cistern of discovery
—void of distance, time, and place

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2018)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2024
True innovation
emerges
from disruption
The sparks
of collision
— lighting the way

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2019
Good and bad are truisms…
  a qualitative masquerade

Ideology trumping feeling
  —in flashes of joy and pain

(Las Vegas: January 23, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2023
Every second
an infinity happens
—in relativity

(West Philadelphia: January Archive, 1973)
Kurt Philip Behm May 2019
Thoughts ignite,
  and words burn

As everything considered
  —turns to ash

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2021
The immediacy of time,
its reference untold

The beginning repeating,
not young—and not old

(The New Room: January, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2016
Thoughts ignite
And words burn
As everything considered,
—turns to fire

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2016
Thoughts ignite,
  and words burn

As everything considered,
—turns to ash

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2023
Death …
when there’s no longer
something to believe in

(Dreamsleep: October, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2020
The idea of God,
eternal, complete

The knowledge of God
—elusive at best

(St. David’s Pennsylvania: February, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2020
Do you strive to be poetic,
while forgetting to be a poet

Your words when forced an epitaph
to what you never said

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2020)
A vessel
of transference
my doors
never close
All windows
stay open
where light
can impose
A constant
refilling
with verse
to the brim
Whose message
of hope
forever
— within

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2019
Does your writing leave room
for intrusion

With a space for those searching
to crawl in

Are your words like a sponge
that the reader can drain

Your verses to flow through
them again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2017
Does your writing leave room
  for intrusion

With spaces for listeners
  to crawl in

Are your words like a sponge
  that the reader can drain

Your verses to flow through
  them again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2021
My Pen
My connection,
My thoughts and
My prayers

My words
My extension,
My gift through
My air

My time
My gestation,
My daughters
My sons

My dreams
My redemption,
My river
—that runs

(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2020
The underside of dawn,
a promise ill remembered

Blue Hour turned to black
—as night devours day

(C&D Canal: June, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2019
My body ages…
as words stay young

Mostly written,
but often sung

Fond memory’s child…
youth starts to rage

All gray outside,
blue-blonde the page

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2017
My body ages…
as words stay young

Gentler written,
  more often sung

Fond memory’s child…
  youth starts to rage

All gray outside,
  blue-blonde the page

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2020
A bigger fish,
a smaller pond

A greater truth
alludes

The water shallow,
banks now void

Of fishermen
bemused

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2020
If not in memory’s service,
do we still write the words

To leave the past unledgered
—and by token paid

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)
We all become
stories
at the end
of the day

The true
and the false
the black
and the grey

The plot lines
will vary
the ends
in due course

As history
remembers
with joy
— and remorse

(Dreamsleep: February, 2025)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2019
A book with no cover,
  a man with no name

Vowels dormant and muted,
  as consonants reign

A plot with no purpose,
  an ending refrained

Its message in conflict
   —with footnotes of pain


(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2015)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2022
After midnight
the pendulum stalls
Chimes to deaden
as darkness calls
A clanking chain
the haunt begins
Till daylight threatens
—the shadows dim

(Dreamsleep: August, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2024
Eating everything
on the menu
Dylan asked for more

His hunger
reestablished
leftovers on the floor

A bite into
the future
yesterday a *****

A meal once paid
forever staid
— new rawness to procure


(The New Room: December, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2016
The Question I Posed ….

If your Poem is still
  an open wound

And you stitch it tight
  with editing

How…
  will it ever bleed free?

(James River Writer’s Conference: October, 2016)


The Actual Poem ….


          For All To Share

My Poem still an open wound,

unstitched by edits snare


Running free on a salted page,

—new blood for all to share

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm May 2017
This world an
  illusion

All faith to
  forbear

A friend of mine
  struggles

Whose spirit I
  share

I feel him inside
  me

He calls out my
  name

His friendship a
  blessing

Augustus,
—I pray

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2019
Committing to joy,
  committing to moonbeams

Committing to hope,
  committing above

Committing to sorrow,
  committing forever

Committing to heartbreak
  —committing to love

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2019
Married to only what’s on the page,
each word I wedded

The cheers and accolades silenced,
my vow applauded

Spoken or read each line was reborn,
within the covers

That blanket the fore and after of time
—betrothed to forever

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2020
I can no longer afford
what my folly has purchased

Return not an option  
—my bank account dry

(Dreamsleep: December, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2020
Fighting against you, attacking with words,
hatred my weapon inscribed

Fountains of blood each chapter exudes,
keeping you distant—forever alive

(Penn Medicine Radnor: April, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2023
The Taiji of life
may it ever be so
Driving the artist
and poet who know
The Yin and the Yang
to marry sublime
Truth as their offspring
—whose beauty defines

(Dreamsleep: June, 2023)
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