Is someone profiting on your wishes and dreams,
renaming your parade

Like a thief in the night they steal every wish,
their own life at best a charade

Is someone else cashing the check you just wrote,
to pay for their larcenous schemes

Has your good name been kidnapped, indentured, enslaved
—as you curdle in search of the cream

(Rosemont College Pennsylvania: March, 2020)

Conscripting my dreams
attacking my doubts

Each wish is a soldier
whose loyalty shouts

Enlisting new feelings
with hope as my guide

A liege to the future
— where time will abide


(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)

Disguising his attack,
concealing his intent,
deceit comes calling
as a friend

Smiling to your face,
fangs in your back,
the wolf approaching
as a lamb

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2020)

Morons and liars,
all facts to mislead

Their wool to disguise
—the truth unperceived  

(The Mainstream Media: November, 2020)

Stranded on the island
of your professed beliefs

Anchored in the promise
of a new tomorrow

Each wave a stark reminder
of the choices that you made

Your faith inside a bottle
—the tide unclear

(Haverford College: January, 2020)

The past is a forgotten country,
tomorrow a foreign land
traveling inward I leave today
—free of times command

(Dreamsleep: October, 2021)

Last night
I was able
to outgrow myself …
again
for the very
first time

Life was unspun
in the moment
relayed
where tomorrow
and yesterday
rhyme

Competing with
the future
the sky
and the moon
my wandering
complete

Turning my
destiny
inside out
my nature
expanding
—replete

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)

Is the distinction between
science and philosophy
nothing but
illusion
Affirming what it wouldst
certainly and firmly most deny
Proponents of formulaic truth
require a defense against critique
judgment unrelenting
as their proof is self-inured
Science thus infallible
because its findings are collective
Their community not disposed
to answer
questions they will
— never ask

(Amtrak R5- February, 2025)

Keeping it new,
beginning again
clearing my eyes,
avoiding the din

Keeping it new,
the present untold
the past but a weight,
the future on hold

Keeping it new,
returning at last
to what never leaves,
and never contrasts

Keeping it new,
tomorrow on loan
yesterday pawned
—eternity owned

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)

Indelible the writing…
each theme enslaves the words
The weight placed squarely on their backs
to bear the message heard

The meaning what’s important
four ruling two plus two
Verbs forgotten, nouns erased
—their insight still imbued

(Villanova University: June, 2022)

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)

The Universe had
a beginning ...
something caused it
to begin
Measure
with the measured
stones and
stepping akin
Cause and effect
logicians praise
Thomas’ words
like a gun
Space and Time
adopted twins
creating creation
— from zero sum

(The New Room: March, 2025)

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)

Wishes from the mountaintop,
dreamers from beyond

Shadows in the wind
—trapped in memory’s song

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)

A man can walk farther
than a horse can run

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

(Dreamsleep: December, 2019)

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)

I learned many things from him ...

That the trackless path
is gifted
to those
who believe
That the distance
between thoughts
can only be connected
by words
That the idea itself
is worthless
without the thing
it expressed
That tomorrow
is no more important
than yesterday
or today
That the bullfighter
must never die
with the bull
still alive
That revolution
is the truest place
where death
is reborn
That real courage
is only measured
by the one
sorely lacking
That to love her once
is better
than to love
her again
That you must
when you must
until the bugles
have stopped
That worshipping
oneself
is life’s fatal
devotion
That the jungle
we chase
is the jungle
we live in
That the willingness
to say it
frees a willingness
to act
That each great new
adventure
begets a greater
new ending
That in the tears
of a stranger
bleeds the heart
— of a friend

(Key West: January, 1994)

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)