We live in the shadows of your cursed survival
not being killed when so many of you were
the endless rows of benighted headstones
telling of memories never to be
where you wander among them
pledging your heart to what unrequited
condemns you to time
we walk together through years of separation
the voices of the dead confirming
the tryst of our silence
forever pretending that a lyric
can be written after the music stops
that its words can be sung by the Angel guardians
of those long departed
and ignoring my devotion
you embrace the rejection of  
the one who never loved you back…
the paramour who condemns you to live in misery
and to live with me
—jilted by death

(Watching ‘Hemingway’ On PBS: April, 2021)

I hate the ‘Body
Politic’

Whose wave blasphemes
and grows

I battle to swim against
its tide

Or be abandoned in its
flow

I hate the way it stunts
my voice

‘Old Dominions’ chosen
side

I hate the fact—it’s hate
I feel

With the truth a captive
lie

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)
Inspired By My Friend & Poet Neal Hall

Is your pathway to Heaven now structured,
  with words that your verse seeks to pray

Is your stairway straight up or diverted,
  remittance and debts to repay

Is your meaning construed or verbatim,
  intention set free of this world

Is your love what was given or taken
—your heart ill at ease or unfurled

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Dawn spoke to the darkness
in its language of light

Delivering tomorrow
—from the deafening night

(Bryn Mawr College: July, 2021)

What side can you judge infinity from,
  the front or then the back

If it’s never over, or never ends,
  how then can you protract

Can infinity stop and start again,
  would it be different or the same

Can judgment ever qualify,
  what it can’t even name

If generalizations are generally true,
  what can we really know

With the distance between our hopes and dreams,
  beyond what time can show

One step forward and one step back,
  micromanaging the present away

The ideas you profess, whose laws you tout,
   tethering emptiness—to illusions foray

(Dreamsleep: June, 2019)

The square root
of -1
whose forest drops
a tree

Where hearing
goes holistic
no longer
by degree

What's proven
first imagined
true power
of the mind

Conceptual
enlightenment
images
—divine

(Villanova University: August, 2023)

All those years,
you didn’t hear me

All those years,
you seemed so sure

All those days,
you laughed it off

All those nights,
I wanted more

All those lies,
that dug our gravesite

All those tears,
with feeling gone

Now at last
my closet’s empty

Love fell short
—I stayed too long

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

When emptiness
  replaces memory

The wind…
  forever ceases to blow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

A sword slices through empty space,
the air bleeding as sutures trace

To pierce not once but pierce again,
your breath scarlet, its stain portends

A breeze sharpens—all time erupts,  
seasons hemorrhage and flow corrupt

The wind incited—torn by pain,
truth the loser, impaled again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

Hiding in daylight
concealing his teeth
Flying at night
in flocks of deceit
When fortune demands it
he says he’s a bird
When birds are in season
a flittermouse heard
He courses the difference
of right into wrong
Impaling our psyches
— with fears to prolong

(The University Of Pennsylvania: January, 2024)

When your mind
has roots in poverty
all riches bend and wilt

The fleeting gold
the moment holds
— no more than fading gilt

(Dreamsleep: June, 2024)

What do the years mean
when they come to an end
their number a prison
if hearts cannot mend

A month or a decade
results but the same
when love is abandoned
—there’s nothing but pain

(Dreamsleep: August, 2023)

In the commercial age,
money captures time

Depleting awareness
—a prison unto itself

(Dreamsleep: August, 2019)

A jazz musician
wonders back
to his days at the keyboard…
each note over practiced
until melody pure
and magic releases

A poet in laurels
wonders back
to his primers and notepads…
each word placed in order
until imagery calls
—and syntax digresses

(Villanova University: October, 2021)

Do you have to become what you observe
to really understand

To claim a new identity,
your psyche contraband

Must you pass straight through the mirror,
reflections left behind

To truly know what lies beyond
—whose essence you must find

(Bryn Mawr College: January, 2021)

While safe in my corner,
so sure of myself

I criticized everything,
what’s thought and what’s felt

Secure in the fantasy,
my back to the wall

Returns to diminish
—the big to the small

(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)

Letting his past
determine his future

Old voices in charge
—all memory in pain

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

If there was no one
to believe
would there still
be truth

If there was no one
to tell
would silence
take root

If there was no one
to laugh
would smiles
be gone

If there was no one
to love
would all feeling
— abscond

(Dreamsleep: September, 2024)

The physics of poetry
—creation of the self  

(Dreamsleep: May, 2023)

Transmuting the past
denying the future
Reliving the moment
— time after time

(The New Room: March, 2024)

Through a distant awareness
all eyes unmasked
The answers vacant
and fading fast

The horizon changes
from front to back
All reasons caught
within its trap

Time despondent
its seconds tear
Whose reign dethroned
inception near

The weight uprooted  
a seedless fruit
The past, tomorrow
—and present moot

(Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania: November, 2022)

Being close to the right thing
Is farther from the right thing
Than the wrong thing is from
Being right

To see and not believe
To look and not touch
Much better to be blind
—and in charge of the night

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)

Space in meters,
words in rhyme

Life in color
—truth sublime

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

Intellectual emotion,
emotional logic

Distinct, or one and the same

The mind seeks control,
the spirit rebels

In conflict—prescience regained

(Dreamsleep: October, 2019)

Lies and the truth
both fade into memory
Time caring not
whether credence or farce

Married together
they drift into silence
Passing forgotten
—through legend and curse

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

Lies and the truth
both fade into memory
Time caring not
whether credence or farce

Married together
they drift into silence
Passing forgotten
—through legend and curse

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

Poetry...
barbell of the written word

Resistance exercise
—for the status-quo

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

The thrill is gone, but its memory remains
in flashes that come in the night

The names have all changed, but faces stare back
forsaken, denied by the light

The thrill is gone, but its price still to pay
whose absence weighs heavy and long

The reasons left truant, excuses to reign
in darkness—my soul to belong

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2020)

Denying the soul…
all words are in vain
a verbal inherence
—spirit proclaims

(Dreamsleep: October, 2021)

Money buys
freedom
when blood’s
overdrawn
Reality’s
greed
destiny
pawns

Money buys
freedom
its truth
to bemoan
Dignity
truant
the future
— on loan

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)

The encumbrance of peace
is war
Silence remortgaged
—as payments begin

(Dreamsleep: May, 2022)

Days and nights,
    all yes and no
     —indecision in my dreams

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)