Release the hasp
Pull back the mask
The key has turned
Your face to learn

Remove the lid
Reach down amid
What’s hidden deep
—as secrets sleep

Confront the lie
The souls new stye
Wash clean the pain
With loves refrain

Commit your faith
In God remake
The time is now
—all time is now

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)
      From 'The Book Of Prayers'

Poetry a journey…
  each word a life’s misstep

When placing them together,
  one voice to bind and set

Its map within a puzzle,
  to point beyond the wind

A road that’s never ending,
—all travelers within

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

If the memories in the present
  are of the past

And the aspirations of the present
  to the future are cast

Then memories aspire
  for only today

The only time extant
   —and all we can say

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

Writing for the ages,
—not for the agent

Answers became questions,
—all wonder returned

(James River Writer’s Conference
  Richmond Virginia: October, 2016)

Poetry…
Conduit
Of the truth

Speaker
Of the almighty
Silence

Last synapse
Of a feeling
Lost

Nerve ending
Of a forgotten
Dream

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

Poetry…
Conduit
Of the truth

Speaker
Of the almighty
Silence

Last synapse
Of a feeling
Lost

Nerve ending
Of a forgotten
Dream

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

Do all relationships
  come to an end?

Through death or disorder
  both stranger and friend

What life doesn’t alter
  does dying reclaim?

Alone in the vacuum
  —alone once again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)

I was walking in March
  when from under the snow
  —Spring reached up and grabbed me

In my path was a stem
  pointing up from below
  —a lone daffodil reaching toward me

My darkness was gone
  a single robin in song
  —with the cold still freezing the air

As my mood had been changed
  all life rearranged
  —my steps treading nary a care

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

I see the world in shades of gray,
  where has the color gone

My faith erodes with each new day,
  a weakness growing strong

I sense a feeling deep within,
  it spreads and reaches near

And tighten my coat against the wind,
  a buttress to this fear

I hear your voice, the inflection slight,
  its meaning still reveals

And reach for you in the waning light,
  under cover that conceals

No longer red, or blue, or white,
  prism distant and askew

I call once more in the cold dark night,
—alone, in search of you

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

Are those thoughts you put in
  what I once valued more

Or would what I put out
  be the end winning score

Did I need your ears
  for my voice to become whole

Or would I rather them deafened
  words deep in my soul

In my twenties your opinion
  carried some weight

In my thirties I listened
  but asked you to wait

In my forties I turned
  and walked slowly away

Now alone in the twilight
  —to carry the day

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Aloneliness,
  thickening fog
  haze to look out of
  safe in your bog

Aloneliness,
  creating the space
  for Laura to fill
  her words to embrace

Aloneliness,
  time and again
  taking me places
  love’s never been

Aloneliness,
  message so clear
  thundering wasteland
  silence in tears

Aloneliness,
  faithful in pain
  ever so near
  my eyes close again

Aloneliness,
  most trusted friend
  you that I count on
  —there till the end

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

Using words to create feelings
  not feelings to create words

The letters but a footprint
  —along the path to being heard

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

If lights great speed
  is but a myth

And darkness not empty
  as it seems

What’s true then false,
  what’s false conscripts

Our need to know
  —a cursed dream

Has discovery
  made us better

Have our souls
  or spirits changed

As logic brags
  with ethics blurred

To win
  —a losing game

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)

When we all get to heaven,
  do we pray in one voice

Or keep our wills separate
  to still have a choice

When we meet the almighty,
  will our thoughts be our own

Or is identity sacrificed
  —on His altar unknown

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

The words come as brothers,
  their sister a song

With mother a feeling,
  and father headstrong

Relation internal,
  all melding as one

Each needing the other,
—a lyrical sum

(Train From New Hampshire: May,2017)

Prose and Poetry
  came together

In a marriage of
  infusion

—each wanting from the other
     what they could not bring

—each vowing to the other
    words they longed to sing

Birthing a new music
  of epic proportion

In an infant now timeless
  beyond simple refrain

—with a message for the ages
    wrapped in lyrical rhyme

—in a melody of sages
    defying space and time

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

Can you be distracted by the critic
  or the public acclaim

Can you see through the fire
  and renew all that’s burned

Can you look past the signposts
  and those messages fixed

Can your heart stay undamaged
  as the world tempts your soul

Can you run through loud voices
  with yours still unspoken

Can you make it to tomorrow
  without leaving today

Can you give love to those hateful
  with vengeance recalled

Can you carry your grandfather’s words
  into the land of the unborn

Can you hang up your spear
  inside the enemy camp

Can you live to see the beginning
  and the end die at last

Can your voice remain pure
  neither bartered nor loaned

Can you listen through the smoke
   —for a melody unsung

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Can you be distracted by the critic
  or the public acclaim

Can you see through the fire
  and renew all that’s burned

Can you look past the signposts
  and those messages fixed

Can your heart stay undamaged
  as the world tempts your soul

Can you run through loud voices
  with yours still unspoken

Can you make it to tomorrow
  without leaving today

Can you give love to those hateful
with vengeance recalled

Can you carry your grandfather’s words
  into the land of the unborn

Can you hang up your spear
  inside the enemy camp

Can you live to see the beginning
  and the end die at last

Can your voice remain pure
  neither bartered nor loaned

Can you listen through the
  smoke
   —for a melody unsung

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Georgia O'Keeffe is one of my biggest artistic influences.

Fearless, determined, and fiercely independent.

Two famous quotes ...

"You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare"

"Instead of words — there it is"
​
I've visited her Ghost Ranch and home at Abiquiu many times.  They're great places to write.

Wishing you all a great week.

Kurt

The power of dissent
  —a true measure of our freedom

(Flagstaff Arizona: February, 2019)

It may be poignant,
  at its best sublime

But not remembered,
—if it doesn’t rhyme

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)
            To ‘Don McClean’

Living vicarious…
  the most important attribute
  of an effective Poet

Never consumed by your
  subject
   —consuming it in verse

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)
          ‘Dedicated To Emily’

Wandering into the tall grass
With shears not meant to cut
I pushed and stepped
And stepped and shoved
My direction the only thing dashed
I wandered left
And wandered right
As the weeds took over my path
They seemed to know me
As I tramped them down
I heard screaming with each
One I smashed
“It’s always the grass,
“It’s always the grass,”
One of them cried
Disappearing under my boot
“They abandoned their brothers,
“To live in the open
“Among people that cut at their roots”
I got to a clearing—the path widened out
Ahead did a tractor invade
And for the first time it hit me
For the first time it mattered
Before me,
  —lay a million dead blades

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)

Looking into my face,
  I see my father’s eyes

Staring back with contempt,
  through a thousand why’s

Looking into those eyes,
  trading fear for pain

My birthright rejected
  —paternity’s shame

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2017)

A motorcycle and leather bag,
  life seemed so perfect then

When everything I cared about…
  my backseat was for them

The world was such a smaller place,
  ideas grandiose

To wander aimlessly I did,
  and never be morose

The road became my staunchest friend,
  new places passing by

Those girls I met, the love I spent,
  the promise in their eyes

That special place my memory held,
  for years now time sets free

A motorcycle—a leather bag,
  and all that was to be

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Visionary’s promise,
   what’s never seen

Believers die invested,
   in lives that wait

Junctions of immunity,
   and sweeter air

A mutilated oneness,
—we call the truth

(West Philadelphia: January, 1973)

The light burns brightest,
  that burns within

The embers warm,
  as memory dims

That final verse,
  an Angel’s hymn

The light burns brightest,
—that burns within

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)