Thoughts ignite,
  and words burn

As everything considered
  —turns to ash

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)

Thoughts ignite,
  and words burn

As everything considered,
—turns to ash

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)

Thoughts ignite
And words burn
As everything considered,
—turns to fire

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Giving up the money
  for a chance at transcendence

The words became sacred,
  all time was disowned

Chasing that one thing
  that if caught defies memory

At one with the truth
  —forever at home

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)

Folding the past
  inside the present

Rolling the future in layers
  of perpetual time

Escaping from one then the other
  leaving all three in simulation

A dancer shrouded in mystery
—all things forever at once

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2014)

The voice of a Poet,
  the breath of a child

The curse of the Devil,
—forever beguiled

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

With prose…
I saw only with my eyes,
as the words left my hand  

With poetry…
my eyes were abandoned,
leaving only my heart  

But in the distance played a lyric,
freeing what my words
could never unchain  

And hearing its melody,
my heart forever carried away
  —in song  

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)

The light of remembrance,
  the will’s DNA

Entombed by dementia
—forever in shade

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

The light of remembrance
  the will’s DNA

Entombed by dementia
—forever in shade

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

Would you lease me your heart
  if I gave you a dime

Would you lend me your trust
  if I willed you my time

Would you seize my devotion
  with its mortgage in tact

Would you love me just once
  —or forever like that

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April. 2015)

Words pulling apart
Feelings smashed to bits
Memory on the run
Meaning cast adrift
Days repeat in darkness
Lonely with the dawn
Echoes haunt my musing
—nights forever long

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)

Waiting to seize a moment
  I knew would never come

The visions passed like storm clouds
  deception on the run

The light was all around me
  as I stood there in the dark

The shadows of misguided fear
  —my path forever marked

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2018)

If music is the soul of art,
  then what can writing be

Is it the eyes, perhaps the ears,
  in printed reverie

Is music the stage whereupon,
  all other art encores

For if it is, all words rejoice,
—to sing for ever more

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

A literary sociopath…
  Hemingway wrote

Both gifted and tortured,
  his words they provoke

A verbal combatant
  with battles foretold

His last the most fatal
  —all memory on hold

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)