Kurt Philip Behm: Poems

Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2018

Always in rhythm
  quite often in rhyme

The verses hold constant
  Lords over time

A perpetual beginning
  the perpetual end

Their structure intones
  —what the meaning portends

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

Loss

Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2017

Loss

The only winner in a war of attrition,
—is loss

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

Loss

Kurt Philip Behm May 2019

Loss

The only winner in a war of attrition
—is loss

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

Lost

Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2024

Lost

In days of wonder
I wander alone
Lost in the transition
of being myself
Lost in the memory
of all that I’ve missed
Lost in the reasons
that chase me from sleep
Lost in the moment
today would deny
In days of wonder
— I wander alone

(Dreamsleep: April, 2024)

Lost

Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2018

Lost

Writing should be
like making love

If you have to be taught
—you’re lost

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

Lost Between

Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2024

Lost Between

The backside
of tomorrow
The frontside
of today
Every look
retelling
Of what the past
betrays

Caught within
the doldrums
All time fades
in the mist
Until that day
that ends itself
And nothing more
— exists

(Dreamsleep: June, 2024)

Lost Bondage

Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2019

Lost *******

When meaning becomes enslaved
by abstraction
—your Poem is lost

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Lost Bondage

Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2017

Lost *******

When meaning becomes enslaved
by the abstraction,
—your Poem is lost

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Lost Candle Of Time

Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2019

Lost Candle Of Time

Can time survive in purer form
  devoid of reference
  future—past

Can the present become
  a bible
  for every sage

Like a black hole
  compressing within itself
  imploding front to back

Its enigma leads
  to an eternity dark
    —lost candle to the flame

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)

Lost Forever

Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2018

Lost Forever

Music…
drowning the words
in false harmony

Honesty…
lost forever
inside the verse

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2013)

Lost & Found

Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2020

Lost & Found

The bridge to belief
spans a river of doubt

Whose rapids are raging,
whose questions cry out

Each step that I’ve taken,
each tread that I cross

Brings me much closer
—to what I once lost

(Montrose: November, 2020)

Lost & Found

Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2022

Lost & Found

It’s definitely maybe possible
that she hated to love me so much
Her affection found everything missing
—and distressed her elation nonplussed

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)

Lost Grace

Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2019

Lost Grace

Oh, to be good
  at something I hate

Oh, to be bad
  at something I love

To lose what I love
  to gain what I hate

Ill tempered indifference
  —lost grace from above

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

Lost Horizon

Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2019

Lost Horizon

In her clouds of mystery,
souls recalled

Where voices cry out
—from Shangri La

(Dreamsleep: September, 2019)

Lost In Abeyance

Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2024

Lost In Abeyance

Immersed in the quagmire
of finding yourself

The search tunnels deeper
through canyons undwelt

Absorbed in the moments
your fear would disdain

Time lost and abeyant
— in search of a name

(Dreamsleep: June, 2024)

Lost In A Dream

Kurt Philip Behm Mar 28

Lost In A Dream

Try to define
consciousness
you haven’t
the tools

Try to define
instinct
the same kind
of fool

Try to define
reason
misusing
the words

Try to define
wonder
unseen
and unheard

Try to define
sleep
when lost
in a dream

Try to define
presence
with space
— unforeseen

(Rosemont College: March, 2025)

'Lost In A Masquerade'

Kurt Philip Behm Jan 28

'Lost In A Masquerade'

The DNA of Illusion
— is Time

(Thank You, Leon: January, 2025)

Lost In Dismay

Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2019

Lost In Dismay

Do you spend twenty percent of your time
  acquiring your beliefs

And eighty percent of your time
   in defense

Do you have blinders on
  about what you conceive

In fear of the critics
  pretense

Are your views narrow focused
  and then watered down

As the truth disavowed
  slips away

Is your memory tainted
  in times left to waste

As your efforts
  —retreat in dismay

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2019)

Lost In Jericho

Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2022

Lost In Jericho

Without death
life loses all beauty
Without death
life loses its way
Without death
life’s value diminished
Without death
life reasons to pray

Without death
life’s years lose their value
Without death
life’s seething refrain
Without death
life loses its prescience
Without death
—life dearth to explain

(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)

Lost In Memory

Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2022

Lost In Memory

Passing each other
on the cusp of goodbye
A prayer of forgiveness,
a desperate last sigh

Feeling the emptiness,
hearts gone to stone
Lost in the memory
—of love we had known

(Dreamsleep: April, 2022)

Lost In Motion

Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2024

Lost In Motion

So much of the time
we’re in transit
Mindlessly going
from place to place
Lost in a limbo
not here and not there
Ignoring the moments
— that set us all free

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)

Lost In Refrain

Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2019

Lost In Refrain

Do you have enough stories,
have you told enough tales

Is your life overflowing,
with a need to regale

Have the roses you’ve smelled,
lined your heart or your mind

Is the path that you’ve chosen,
ahead or behind

Is your life worth a novel,
or even a poem

Are the years all connected,
or scattered and broken

If you leave only money,
or fortune, or fame

The last chapter unwritten
—and lost in refrain

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2019)

Lost Inside

Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2020

Lost Inside

Those who betray their dreams
are forever old

Living between denial
—and what might have been

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2020)

Lost Interment

Kurt Philip Behm May 1

Lost Interment

Prate is to
poetry
as death is to
life

Dilletante
graveyards
lie marking
the site

Where words
never weighted
whose wings
couldn’t fly

Unmarked
without headstones
condemned here
— to die

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Lost In The Rubicon

Kurt Philip Behm Jun 3

Lost In The Rubicon

Looking back
speed is warped
looking forward
it slows
Each memory
a racehorse
that goes
and it goes

Intuition
the truant
in what it
will bring
When time
is reversed
and the Jester
— is King

(The New Room: June, 2025)

Lost Jewels

Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2019

Lost Jewels

One can be too many,
a hundred not enough

When truth battles fear
—all diamonds in the rough

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2019)

Lost Memories Define

Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2020

Lost Memories Define

Traveling the world in my mind,
ghosts linger behind

Traveling the world in my mind,
each flashback a sign

Traveling the world in my mind,
space harder to find

Traveling the world in my mind
—memories define

(Presbyterian Hospital: January, 2020)

Lost Moments

Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2020

Lost Moments

Wasting time,
life’s greatest pleasure

Wasting time,
life’s greatest pain

Wasting time,
beyond all measure

Wasting time
—bittersweet refrain

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)

Lost Moments

Kurt Philip Behm May 2024

Lost Moments

How do you start over
consumed by the end
Beginnings aborted
as judgment portends
Desperately hiding
alone and distraught
For all of those presents
time wasted — and lost

(Dreamsleep: May, 2024)

Lost Or Found

Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2020

Lost Or Found

I write prose so I can write poetry,
and poetry so I can write prose

Never prose that calls itself poetry
—or poetry that’s lost within prose

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)

Lost Pawn

Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2019

Lost Pawn

The past and tomorrow
—from today only borrow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

Lost Petals

Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2022

Lost Petals

Intention outstripped
his power of reason
Leaving him naked
—a meadow deflowered

(Dreamsleep: February, 2022)

Lost Sounds

Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2018

Lost Sounds

Written fragments
Broken songs
Stepping stones
To hope beyond

Music absent
Long at bay
Vagrant notes
—last wish to play

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

Lost Sounds

Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2019

Lost Sounds

Written fragments
Broken songs
Stepping stones
To hope beyond

Music absent
Long at bay
Vagrant notes
—last wish to play

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

Lost Stitches

Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2022

Lost Stitches

If you can’t stand the criticism
put down your pen
Instead take up knitting
but caution the thread
Too thick and your stifled
too thin and your bare
As needles purl over
—what hides in despair

(Dreamsleep: October, 2022)

Lost Swans

Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2019

Lost Swans

Apollo en garde,
my prose to re-verse

Where Swans freely play
—the Raven in search

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Lost To Love

Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2022

Lost To Love

Your memory found me wordless,
too mute to carry on
Trapped between old verbs and nouns,
silence for a song

With love a distant haunting,
we mime a tragic vow
What once we had… the good, the bad
—this quietude abounds

(Dreamsleep: January, 2022)

Lost & Unclaimed

Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2021

Lost & Unclaimed

Standing in
baggage-claim,
watching belongings
go round again
waiting for something
that will never come,
an army of strangers
grab their bags and run
leaving me distant
adrift and alone,
as the carousel stops
—my location unknown

(Shangri-La Airport: January, 2004)

Lost—Unfelt

Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2019

Lost—Unfelt

Beyond all critical thinking,
above what’s right or wrong

There’s a different understanding,
where words turn into song

With a deeper sense of freedom,
light shines upon itself

All reasoned dialectic,
left abandoned, lost—unfelt

(Rosemont Pennsylvania: June, 2019)

Lost Voices

Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2020

Lost Voices

What versus why,
each millennium cries

Man on the run,
all truth in disguise

Modernity reels
from an ancient ideal

Until time the thief
—reveals

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2020)

Lost Words

Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2018

Lost Words

Those thoughts not adopted
and orphaned alone

To never have surnames
—all ******* enthroned

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December 24, 2014)

Loud And Wild

Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2019

Loud And Wild

The power of the written word…
  the spoken word supreme

Ink to recommission,
  what only breath can glean

Soldiers line up back to back,
  letters ranked and filed

The command to march just given once
   —its war chant loud and wild

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Loud And Wild

Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2018

Loud And Wild

The power of the written word
  the spoken word supreme

Ink to then commission
  what only breath can glean

Soldiers line up back to back
  letters ranked and filed

The command to march just given once
  —its war chant loud and wild

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Love As Wings

Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2018

Love As Wings

You can take the verses with you,
but false riches stay unrhymed

With love as wings, to heaven brings
—your gold all left behind

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

Love Demands

Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2020

Love Demands

****** when we do, ****** when we don’t,
the end works out the same

As love demands its pound of flesh
—the lion never tamed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)
‘Inspired By Daniel Turner’

Love Disowned

Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2019

Love Disowned

As days split off
and drift away,
their dreams remain with me

Words as jewels
and treasured pawn,
whose tickets cancelled—flee

The nights adopted
orphaned suns,
those times you woke and lied

My heart left bare
myself to wed,
your wound still deep inside

From spells you cast
upon our gift,
and conjured into stone

The past is black
all future gone,
and present—love disowned

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

Love In Ashes

Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2019

Love In Ashes

A distant scream,
the future cries,
our past to burn
unclaimed

Predictions simmer,
forecasts stir,
denials rage
enflamed

All promise broken,
hearts on fire,
reasons singed with
pain

With love in ashes,
hope to scald,
and freedom left
—in shame

(Dreamsleep: October, 2019)

Love It Or Lose It

Kurt Philip Behm Sep 4

Love It Or Lose It

The ***** laundry
of democracy
Near impossible
to clean

You bask in freedom
until it’s gone
Whose nightmare kills
the dream

Warts and pimples
in plain view
Perfection
for the sage

To govern
as the Lord decrees
Our liberty
uncaged

To make those choices
for yourself
And pay the price
be ******

Instead of letting
tyrants rule
To serve
— at their command

(Villanova University: September, 2025)

Love On The Run

Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2017

Love On The Run

There once was a time
  when you lived on the inside

When you pierced my veneer,
  and saw what I saw

You knew what I knew,
  and felt what I felt

Your thoughts were my thoughts,
  your words finished mine

There once was a time
  when our circles were one

Two spirit's concentric,
  our soul's overlaid

That time has now passed,
  the feelings have gone

Both circles left broken,
—with love on the run

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2017)

Love Our Fate

Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2018

Love Our Fate

If the world would only stop on cue
  all promises made would return anew

The seasons would rearrange their order
  and lines we’ve drawn—no longer borders

If the world would only dance on cue
  and kick up its heels for me and you

Then what a show we all could make
  to merengue together—with love our fate

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)