Knowledge
Charisma
And
Violence ...
The
Triumvirate
Of
*******

(Dreamsleep: October, 2023)

Musing with Laura,
sleep is denied
Dreams wait unkindled
—darkness on fire

(Dreamsleep: January, 2022)

An apostle of verse,
  a peasant of prose

To inspire divine,
  to explain—Heaven knows

(Wayne Pennsylvania: June, 2019)

Life is the culmination
—of many small things

(Dreamslseep: October, 2020)

Academic Immune Deficiency,
the intellect under attack

Those powered to know, ivory towers enthroned,
dialectic—its meaning hijacked

(Bryn Mawr College: January, 2020)

Baiting
a feeling

Passion
is tracked

Luring
the moment

Setting
the trap

Eyes
look upon you

Cage
set on fire

Death
in the ashes

Preying
— desire

(The New Room: January, 2024)

A man can walk farther
than a horse can run

Fate not in the speed
—but in the distance zero sum

(Dreamsleep: December, 2019)

Wishes from the mountaintop,
dreamers from beyond

Shadows in the wind
—trapped in memory’s song

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)

Blue Collar—White Collar,
choking the same

Their difference endemic,
as time casts its blame

(Dreamsleep: May, 2020)

Are you a Poet or tactician,
or “A Rose By Any Other Name…”

Are your words stained with patina,
some would scrub and some would blame

Is your Kingly verse too rough for some,
finding safety in their books

Is your verse uncut with edges sharp
—all Princes in their rooks

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

First I write the story,
  then I write the book

Related but still different
—not to be mistook

First I write the story,
then I write the book

The first is in the telling
—the second in the look

(Barnes & Noble, Kansas City: June, 2016)

I would look through the window at feeble old men
and secretly smirk
and secretly pity

Now the window looks back and its message is clear
that old man is you
and the picture’s not pretty

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2020)

The best of Poets don’t explain,
their truth the readers judge


The best of Poets to remain,
what time will hate
—or love

(Dreamsleep: January, 2020)

Psychopath
Sociopath
Neuropath’s
remind

Every ‘path’
an open route
locked inside
our minds

Empathy
Antipathy
Pathological
liars

Waiting there
to mark the way
as circumstance
— requires

(The New Room: March, 2024)

Prisoner Of Language

Will time live eternal
or just its retelling
A prisoner of language
whose paradox mined

Dimension in contrast
ill-fated contrition
To look but not touch
—and hope they align

(Rosemont College: December, 2023)



Through A Vacuum

Biologically tethered
time is the demon
Your flesh and your blood
by nature defined

Each tic of the clock
your heart beats in cadence
Dogmatic in method
caught up in the brine

What if your consciousness
took a leap forward
Abandoning reference
erasing the lines

Polarity exits
its jail through a vacuum
Releasing reversing
—becoming sublime

(Rosemont College: December, 2023)

Starting Over

Dig up the foundation
requestion each premise
Wade through the bathwater
the baby must go

A leap when it’s quantum
still subject and object
Fly out of the portal
—rejecting what’s known

(Rosemont College: December, 2023)

God created distance,
so the wounded could go home

The searchers and the dreamers,
the ones born bound to roam

He then laid down the open plain,
below a towering sky

And set his voice into the wind
—for pilgrims such as I

(Villanova University: March, 2020)

There’s knowledge
in the world
for only
the captive

Insight
on the other
hand
prescient to roam

No ceiling
to happiness
but a floor
to sorrow

Direction
a vagrant
that goes
where it goes

Spoken
in cadence
our oaths
are rechanted

Carrying
voices
through moments
on loan

Traveling
together
in blind
expectation

Questions
awaiting
in freedoms
—unknown

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)

The history of Western Literature
is one recurring sympathy pain

(Dreamsleep: December, 2020)

Letting go not holding on,
the closing act of life

To make the crossing burden free,
past vestiges of strife

Letting go not holding on,
from years that pile high

The greatest weight the last to leave
that final one—goodbye

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

The bridge to Satan  
is paved with envy  
Voices collapsing
in currents below
Its height entices
the moment fleeting
Perdition waiting
—with gate aglow

(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)

To live non-affirming
to live not at all
To hide in the shadows
and creep down the hall

To live uncommitted
new doubts to contend
All time intermittent
repressed till the end

To live without friendship
alone on the rock
A wandering echo
reflections that mock

To live undecided
with doubt your best friend
a future derided
—the present pretend

(Dreamsleep: November, 2022)

Dreams, like orphaned water lilies,
float across the surface

Ferrying my last token wish,
adrift—this silver pond

The swans make way,
as faith glides freely upon the wind

Carrying my fervent hopes
into this moment, present sent

Their petals weaving in the breeze,
to spin and turn as one

Silhouettes change and soften,
as the mirrored distance calls

Arriving at the far bank,
two children play and laugh together

With pant legs high and feet immersed,
splashing to and fro

Smiling to each other, their laughter
churns a magic torrent

As they reach into its spray,
and take my dream into their hands

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Dreams, like orphaned water lilies,
float across the surface

Ferrying my last token wish,
adrift—this silver pond

The swans make way,
as faith glides freely upon the wind

Carrying my fervent hopes
into this moment, present sent

Their petals weaving in the breeze,
to spin and turn as one

Silhouettes change and soften,
as the mirrored distance calls

Arriving at the far bank,
two children play and laugh together

With pant legs high and feet immersed,
splashing to and fro

Smiling to each other, their laughter
churns a magic torrent

As they reach into its spray,
and take my dream into their hands

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)​

Long before title,
long before name

A wish was granted,
to begin again

Legacy ransomed,
escape from the night

A voice breaking through
—into the light

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)