When love commands
  —there’s precious time left to serve truth

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

I never wrote so you’d approve,
  I wrote what I believe

How you felt as you read those words,
—is not my wound to bleed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

I don’t make excuses,
  and won’t pretend

But I do attack,
  and will defend

If your argument's weak,
  with reasons thin

No mercy shown
  —or truce to win

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

The earth cracked in Nepal
  with fire and shame

And thousands lay dead
  on the mountains and plains

Its crust was ripped open
  its heart now exposed

And lives were then claimed
  from a heaven deposed  

The story for mystics
  a legend say some

The day nature demanded
   for things that we’d done

Her climate infected
  her sky ringed in black

Our future as payment
   —with no turning back

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Never asking for permission,
  always being sure

His head was held firmly,
  his mind had stayed pure

Never seeking your acknowledgement
  or umbrella against the rain

His words exploded thunder
  —truth pouring down again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2016)

The history of time
  a moments expanse

All memory set free
  —the present entranced

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)

Are those dimensional theories a trap
  for what your mind will never understand

Does your spirit lay dormant and fallow
  an alien within its own land

Does the math and the science betray you
  with the numbers piled outside your door

Is the time sliced and diced infinitum
  —deliverance calling now as before

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

It’s all been different
It’s all been the same
It’s all been anonymous
It’s all had a name

It all had a beginning
It all has an end
Its truth lost in winning
Its game of pretend

And we search for the answer
And we question profane
And we blame it on providence
And we smother the flame

As we look toward the horizon
As we look past the shore
As the waves crash with meaning
  —now as then, and before

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

Last night I received an invitation
to my own death….
Signed by my former self
witnessed by a past unspoken
Sealed with a memory
I had yet to live
And stamped by a future
—now denied  

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2018)

Blindly spending the
  bulk

Of my temporal
  capital

Hourly deficits
  started to climb

And piled into
  notes

I will never  
  repay

Stored in vaults
  that I’ll never find

Words lay
   uncashed

As I waste even
  more  
  
In my attempt to go
  back and re-sign

All those debts
  left untendered

Never forgiven
   now due

That fate
  has secured
    —and defined

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

“It’s almost time,”
  the Angel said

Last image dancing,
  in my head

“The gate unlocked,
  the pearls alive”

Both wings she opened,
  time proscribed

“Just one look back,”
  I asked in vain

“All past is gone,”
  her voice proclaimed

“Your place awaits,
  all time rescinds

My wings your gift,
—now fly within”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

At eighteen,
  I thought that I could write my way to heaven
  I’d waltz right in, announce my name, and sit
  down on its throne

At twenty-five,
  I sat in jail to rot in isolation
  my freedom gone, my will deformed,
  but worst of all alone

At thirty-five,
  I thought that I could write my way to riches
  the screenplay bombed, all doors were closed,
  and wounds there freshly mined

At forty-eight,
  I met a man who told me I was lost
“By Looking Out The Words Won’t Come,
  Your Truth You’ll Never Find…”

By fifty-five,
  my path was set—all trails converged as one
  the entrance closed, the exit marked,
  a road of denser stone

By sixty-eight,
  all verse within, the lines reset to music
  the darkness gone, my words set free
    —all light now heaven shone

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

My first breath every morning
   a thank-you to the Lord

My heart beats then in tribute
  single note in heaven’s chord

My last breath every evening,
  as I close my eyes to sleep

To thank him softly once again
—his grace now mine to keep


(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)
  From ‘The Book Of Prayers’
  Written for my Grandchildren:
  Kiley, Hunter, Braden and Parker

My first breath every morning…
   a thank-you to the Lord

My heart beats then in tribute,
  single note in heaven’s chord

My last breath every evening…
  as I close my eyes to sleep

To thank him softly once again
  —his grace now mine to keep

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

The light in the window,
  the candle down the hall

The torch in the jungle,
  all beacons that call

The voice in the distance,
  the one just next door

The whisper screams loudest
  when heard from afar

The light that once beckoned,
  the one that still shines

The rays once connected,
  new vision sublime

To see it and hear it,
  to know it once more

The key’s in the lock
—now open the door

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2017)

Where are the voices crying out
  from the din

Where is the blood you spilled
  from within

Where is that Siren who once
  called your name

Where is the fortune promised
  by fame

Where is the promise you made
  to yourself

Where is that demon unseen but
  still felt

Where is the beacon to lighten
   your ink

Where is the harbor this side of
  the brink

Where is the feeling,
  hearts lost in the fall

Where is the meaning
  —no words left to call

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

A Poet writes from experience,
  dilettantes rave and rant

The price demanded to feed the Sage,
—wishing and hoping can’t

Magic in wrapping a word around,
  place known or thing you’ve done

Beauty when lyrics belong to you,
  —in songs now others sung

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Twas once a time you owned my heart,
  then Laura stole it back

Through all those years our hearts on fire,
  she waited and she sat

She hoped one day our lives would part,
  to never meet, as then…

Her voice so soft had cried at night,
  “I want you back again”

“You need to promise me this time,
  you’ll never leave me cold

“And even if you dally forth,
  your Muse I will behold

“To heal you of this tragic drought,
  you brought upon yourself

“And give you back the future-past
    —whose presence now unfelt”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

Poetry...
the marriage of
raw emotion,
—and unbridled thought

(Las Vegas Boulevard: 3:15 a.m. August 3, 2016)

I want to write ***** and convoluted,
connected and wet
And in the mess of my words
Feel the stain run down  
Over the nice clean ordered objective, detached
From the structure you claim to know about
I want to write congested
And ingested,  
Not divested of that
Which causes me to feel and to think
The outpouring of what will not stop
And does not want to change, as you
Try to sever my relationship with
All the things that allow me to dwell inside
What I write about
Not often objective
But captive and subjected to
And part of the unholy unwashed
I want to sleep with the dogs of night
And if fleas are the only price I pay
I welcome them home
A gracious host that they may feed off
As the wounds stay open
Bleeding with all that is still unknown
Those things that I mention
Giving birth to what was not there before
And if death is the one that truly calls
I hear her voice
But she must wait
Until I make the translation of her words sacred
And of my own resolve
And if she takes me sudden
She risks my anger
As I will drag all new beginnings
Into what she seeks to end
Pushing her further from that monocled eye
And with one foot frozen
In the world behind
Refusing to leave
I curse the new regions with my words
Knowing that death, like life
Is to be passed beyond
Not staged or romanced
But catalogued once felt as
Forgotten turnstile
As her soulless call becomes
Mere lighthouse
For those places
--- I refuse to go

(Oak Creek Canyon: November, 2011)
______

The past faded
  as ideas came alive

Destroying with every thought
the status…
   —of the status quo

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

I never wanted to be famous,
   I only wanted to be great

I never promised you an answer
  even now as questions inflate

I traveled each and every highway
  as time kept changing once again

I never told you it was magic
  —just a wish blowing in the wind

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)