Becoming totally involved
—while keeping your opinions to yourself

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

Becoming totally involved
  —keeping your opinions to yourself

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

A briefcase full of sorrow…
   the hiding place of tears

One trade to end all others
   excuse to lie and steal

The papers hide the story
  all documents in vain

As grief belies the glory
  —of a life that deals in pain

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2019)

‘Sermon to the choir….’
  the writers group sat motionless
  with their heads down

‘Sermon to the choir….’
  they listened for their instructor
  to announce—“your time starts now”

‘Sermon to the choir….’
  they tried to imagine what they had never seen
  while wondering about what they couldn’t know

‘Sermon to the choir….’
  the writers group then raised their heads
  and packed their grief to go

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

We can all think
  differently

While instantaneously feeling
  the same

We can politically straddle the
  great divide

While below loving the canyons
  and plains

We can put all prejudice and
  opinion aside

When the outcome is cast
  zero-sum

And in those moments our greatness
  calls loudest and true

With the blood of a freedom
  —hard won

(Grantham New Hampshire: March, 2015)

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 there
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 time by a weekly rate
In their rooms just 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 PASSING A BURIED MEMORY
  AND HEADSTONE FOREVER BLANK

(Newport Tennessee: April, 2013)

Did you wear your life out;
  did you use it all up
  —what are you saving it for

We’re all running headlong
  toward a hole in the ground
   —that the past and future insure

Are you stuck on tomorrow
  lost in wishes of things
  —hoping there’s still more to come

Will your headstone bring sorrow
  to those mourning your loss
  —inscribing what never got done

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2018)