Not connected
end to end
each prayer
stands alone

The beginning, middle,
end of each
unleashed, untethered,
homage shown

But when
they find each other
in a prescience
most sublime

An Angel sings
their wedding vows
with Heaven’s light
—to shine

(The 1st Book Of Prayers: September, 2023)

To share in Creation
—is to become Divine

(Ist Book Of Prayers: February, 2017)

Drifting off untethered,
until caught by my soul

Redirected to providence
—anchored and whole

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

The older the prophecy
—the more desperate we hang on

(Dreamsleep: November, 2022)

Forever romancing
that lingering question…

Quixotic by decree
—windmills turning free

(Dreamsleep: April, 2021)

You’ll know when its time…
you won’t fight it
or struggle,
you won’t lie to yourself
—or try to hang on

You’ll let everything go
as it’s time to unburden,
your mind and your spirit,
your heart
—and be gone

(Presbyterian Hospital: July, 2019)

Love is the freest
most precious of things

To give without cost
and coveted sings

Love to be spoken
and heard unreserved

To harness the wind
—and fly like a bird

(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)

Satanic delusion,
pagan confusion,
the darkest illusion
—redeemed by His word

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

God is dead
your Divinity wakens
the Word incarnate
—each breath fortells

(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)

Is there truth without belief,
facts left on their own

Disconnected from themselves,
answers poorly shown

Can dogma live in vacuums,
when empty of itself

Will formulaic reasoned minds
—conscript what goes unfelt

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2020)

Dying the death
of eternity’s struggle

(while)

Living the life
of the moments rebirth

(Dreamsleep: May, 2022)

God is unquestioned,
therefore he has no answers

All questions for man
—looking outward in vain

(Dreamsleep: August, 2021)

Wannabees always seem to know
who the really tough guys are
Their carriage indefinable
though marked by every scar

The pheromones of conquest
carried by the chosen few
Who rumble through the tallest grass
—swallowing what they chew

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)

Reason
without evidence
Truth
without form

Burning
the ladder
Immune
from the scorn

Nuance
to sleepwalk
As reality
dreams

Proof
in the eye
Galileo
redeemed

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

When I’m gone…
throw my body on the tracks,
but release my words

The lifeblood of my
memory
—an echo to be heard

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

I do and don’t believe in God,
at exactly the same time

A paradox like the Trinity,
an unwritten verse that rhymes

I feel him inside me with every step,
while knowing he’s not there

I carry his joy within my heart,
though reason not to share

A metaphysical oxymoron,
incomprehensibly proclaimed

And while science tears him limb from limb
—I still call out his name

(Villanova Chapel: February, 2020)

Are all notions of time a trap…
The perpetual present
The greatest one of all
Are all capsules of existence
Just graves we dig for ourselves
Each shovel full of denial
Burying us deep
  —within an empty reference

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

Asleep in their nests
birds dreaming out loud
Just outside his window
new questions aroused
The moonlight not finished
what it started before
The church clothes still hanging
on the back of the door
What once he thought ended
returning again
What never befriended
new searching begins
The glass in the parlor’s
long myopic hall
Illuminates squalor
and all he recalls
The ringing alarm
signals all bets are off
As the birds start to sing
of eternity’s cost
The revelers revel
the sanguine proclaim
The church starts to fill
and they’re calling his name
Any proof in the pudding
has curdled and soured
As the chalice gets cleaned
and the vision devours
The mood is enhanced
and wine slowly drips
The light through the stained glass
distorted in bits
The reasons no matter
alone as before
And sanity worships
death closing the door
His dress shirt went on
white starched and unblessed
The sermon made ready
for those at behest
And what might he offer
where prisoners hide
Salvation most proffered
when funded by lies
The eyes looking back
fixed silent and low
The eyes looking back
from pews far below
Surrounded by neighbors
and men who’re once bold
His eyes were then only
but thirteen years old
The distance seemed fatal
the distance seemed slim
But now looking up
it was all about him
To one then so young
and so new and so fresh
Still wanting to believe
in not leaving the nest
Surrounded by elders
deceivers and friends
Dressed in his finest
his hair slicked on end
His eyes remain down
as his thoughts decontruct
His face never changed
as the sermon ramped up
“And what must the youth
think of me on this day”
The Vicar’s thoughts looming
praying mantis to prey
The height differential
the power sublime
The stairs leading up
for the blind then to climb
And once at the top
all so distant below
And once at the top
nothing new left to know
The birds dare not enter
the sparrow or dove
The belfry stark empty
devoid of all love
The peacock dismembered
in colors of blight
The peacock remembered
in times that were bright
The hand bills are placed
at the end of each pew
A message designed
for only the few
Caught up in the fable
caught up in the lie
To burn down the manger
lambs scream as they fry
The church social breakfast
has started out back
Hoping for: “Great sermon Parson
had to hold my tears back”
But the truth knows no teller
but what’s told in the end
Whose message stays mired
where all messages end
Belonging to no-one
to him least of all
But forever himself
as he must heed the call
The blamer blasphemer
the architect *****
Silent screams from the pews
that they need something more
And in silence he struggles
his collars’ too tight
For clerics who bombast
portend and then fright
The moral unlettered
the reason unschooled
The soul when unfettered
no one left to rule
He knew the time short
few stairs left to climb
That boy once malingered
to always remind
To start at the beginning
to restart at the end
To start where he stopped
as a stranger again
Overpowering reluctance
consumes him today
And with cryptic delusion
he parry’s and feigns
Beget not begotten
claiming unto himself
All virtue forgotten
all feeling unfelt
If it mattered whenever
if it mattered just once
The parson calls out
to approach and exeunt
Reversing his trust
shouting but to himself
“Betray now adroitly”
this ice cube to melt
Benedictions unburning
inside the unhost
All tides are returning
last turkey to roast
The *** is left thickening
ruination sublime
Intention most wicked
coming only from mind
The cowards stay victim
the bravest rejoice
A knave neath the roundtable
never his choice
The bend in the circumstance
the straightening lie
The clue that was missing
the unquestioned reply
Walk up to the pulpit
three steps that don’t end
The pride and the fury
pontificates rend
Looking out at the parishioners
their eyes staring down
He knows without speaking
rivers crossed, bridges down
As he takes his last breath
speaks his last final words
What once was a boy
separates from the herd
He steps down, turns and leaves
without once looking back
The parson stabbed fatally
his parsonage wracked
The breakfast is ransacked
left plundered and frayed
The devout are heard neighing
like a horse without hay
Heading straight down the lane
neither bowed nor *****
No breakfast for him
celebration dissects
Walking in through the back door
his Aunty Ruth smiles
Asking, “Is everything all right”
you’ve been gone quit awhile”
He says: “Everything’s fine
as his father distills
And closing the window
say’s: “I’m feeling a chill”
He walks up 13 stairs
and sits down on the bed
Looking straight up above him
childish images dead
Asleep before dark
in a dream meets his peace
Knowing surrounded by doom
he must tomorrow retreat
He is up before dawn
and back out on the lane
One sack over his shoulder
one orphan to claim
The walk to the harbor
is rocky and steep
His gait ever steadfast
a promise to keep
Signing onto the first ship
that’s ready to sail
Setting a course still uncharted
in a sea of travail
The clouds getting darker
the waves though they fall
His soul is on fire
his spirit on call
With the ship looming outward
beyond sight of land
His future to clear
his mission at hand
That first day on board
and first night below deck
Were the first that had ever
held him safe in their net
With dawn’s light he climbed
to the crow’s nest above
And said ‘Thank You” to providence
vowing his love
And he sat there for hours
his past to enshroud
New horizons were calling
— he never so proud

(Oregon Inlet: June, 2003)

Will you die,
pretending to be someone you’re not

Will you live,
defending that someone you are

Will you remember
the last thing you tried to forget

Will you return
—to begin a new ending again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)

Is mathematics a pre-school for searchers,
quantum physics grades two through four

Is what we now hold as absolute truth,
just a stairway to something much more

Are the numbers and letters so basic,
like the oils in Leonardo’s paint

Is time itself an illusion,
there to conjure and proffer restraint

But does music call out a new greeting,
as it flows past the thoughts in our mind

Is the act of our own recreating,
a new portal for what’s yet to find

And then will we ever relinquish,
YES or NO, the GOOD and the BAD

As the DNA of existence
—to those willing extends a new hand

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2019)

Standing alone
on the altar’s first step,
apprenticeship dethroned

Indentured anew,
my eyes turn inward,
disarmed, but not disowned

A quarter to forever
in the distance ahead,
blank meadows still to quote

The hour glass waiting
upon no man,
to deliver its last joke

Seeds scatter freely,
implanted anew,
words rising where vision bled

Each one a new stone
in eternity’s trail
—the unborn baby fed

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

What stirs within the buried heart,
what lies beneath the whim

What Seraphim have yet to pray,
what sinners yet to sin

What hides within those thoughts that stray,
what leaf remains unturned

What stirs within the buried heart,
what voice unclaimed—unheard


(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)
‘Tribute To Thomas Wolfe’

Hidden from perdition
disguising me again
Final thorn of life’s florescence
trapped within her pen

Darker than the madness
eternity cajoles  
The pathway to forbidden fruit
— her masquerade unfolds

(The New Room: June, 2024)

The sins of religion,
religion of sin
holding God hostage,
a prisoner within

An Almighty weapon,
inflicting great pain
heaven in *******,
redemption in chains

The politics of religion,
its dogma a curse
with guilt as the wellspring,
all heretics thirst

Angels conscripted
the devil awaits,
for those who would question
—with hell as their fate

(Dreamsleep: April, 2022)

Death is a journey
that’s taken alone

Released from the tempus,
our spirits to roam

Death is a servant
indentured to slave

A Master beyond
—new Angels at play

(The Book Of Prayers: February, 2021)

Welcome loneliness my old friend,
to mark the hours emptiness sends

In the middle of the cold and dark,
the vanishing call of a last meadowlark

leaving me stranded,
deep in the well

Counting the minutes where time has conspired,
lusting for something whose clock has expired

This silence a chorus of Angels on mute,
promising nothing, all vows to refute

left and abandoned
—deserted in hell


(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2020)

Poetry…
the music of writing

Written unspoken
—for Angels to sing

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

Like quicksand ...
the harder you struggle
the deeper you sink

(Dreamsleep: June, 2024)

I stumbled through each morning,
it was all about today
Dissolute and scorning,
of all that passed away
Wandering and faint of heart,
old promises unsworn
Living once then living twice
—the moment was reborn

(Dreamsleep: June, 2021)