My ego lost virginity,
upon the critics throne

Pregnant with doubt ectopic,
its embryo disowned

With labored forced delivery,
and fetus left unsired  

A chastised ***** mother
—giving birth to words bemired

(Ronald McDonald House: February, 2020)

Shifting into tomorrow,
today passing through the exhaust
The RPM’s marking time and space
—direction all but lost

(Dreamsleep: February, 2021)

Our mistakes are paid
in generations of denial
Old footsteps defaulting,
new judgments on file

The future in debt
to invoices past
tomorrow debentured
—arrears mounting fast

(Dreamsleep: April, 2022)

Beauty and truth
forever embark
Born of the moment
together apart
To mountains unclimbed
and oceans unsailed
Beyond the horizon
— where prescience unveils

(Dreamsleep: September, 2024)

All possibility is endless
in time

Extending the moment  
—forever defined  

(Dreamsleep: July, 2023)

Most miserable
when she’s happy

Most shameful
when she’s proud

Most prescient
when unconscious

Most distant
in a crowd

Most forthright
when not speaking

Most giving
when denied

Most secret
when she’s telling all

Most dead
—but still alive

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)

Requesting
forgiveness
from the dead
My will
crossing over
no longer misled
Requesting
forgiveness
my debt was set free
Destiny
reckoned
—atonement complete

(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)

Colors
resplendent
when making
a sound

Vibrant
and dancing
their palette
resounds

Colors
transforming
with richness
imbued

Visual
and sonic
merging
— the two

(The New Room: July, 2024)

Wishing in colors
Painting the wind
Singing a fragrance
Sculpting within

Tasting a memory
Touching a dream
Hearing the moment
Feelings redeemed

(Ronald McDonald House: April, 2022)

Musical and painted phrases,
dance around my memory

Reds and Blues and vivid Gold’s,
rush across my bridge of dreams

Colors streak into the sky,
their song a magic portrait

Clouds chanting in vibrant hues
—as the light sings palette free

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Don’t pick it up
if you can’t put it down

A little bit pregnant
—the world turned around

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

Poetry’s spoken armor
repels the pointed spear
warding off tomorrow’s scars
enemies in fear
Each word thus protected
as phrases form anew
to vanquish what the darkness brings
— new battlegrounds in view

(Dreamsleep: May, 2024)

Wings in abeyance
motion untracked
Monarch in shadow
—darkness is back

(Dreamsleep: March, 2022)

Apology
not good enough
Intention
still to blame
The road to hell
left burning red
its deviance
in flames

Excuses
rolling off the tongue
with lie
compounding lie
A higher power
judgment bound
the devil
— in denial

(Bryn Mawr College: July, 2024)

When lost inside a world of dreams,
the Muse becomes my guide

As days and nights stand juxtaposed,
the sun and moon collide

And though my eyes desert me now,
the past and future blind

My parting wish is not to wake
—this sleep forever mine

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

If just one person understands,
if just one troubled soul

The effort and the pain involved
—small price to make them whole

(The New Room: April, 2021)

There’s nothing objective about spirit,
in that lies its strength and its truth

Unable to measure, only to feel,
its critics profane and uncouth

Science declares it the enemy,
its formulas explaining away

Why love has no bearing and within it we’re lost
—God’s execution unstayed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

I’m going to watch you die…
but before I do
I will foretell your story

The story of the White Bird
The Great Mystery
and the Silver Seed

The White Bird carries
in its talons
the Silver Seed of all mankind

A seed that will allow you
to move past what you have been afraid
of for so long

When the White Bird
passes overhead
it will drop the Silver Seed

You must be dead
before the seed
touches the ground

Then, the White bird
will turn into
the legendary Hawk of Thunder

And carry you off
into the land
of the great Wakan Tanka

The decision to leave
being yours
and yours alone

Passing beyond
what time has frozen
—passing beyond what then has been

(Pine Ridge South Dakota: August, 2011)

Losing my mind
to capture my soul
Memory repurposed
—unbroken and whole

(Dreamsleep: November, 2023)

If words were notes upon a score,
would the melody play beyond…

Each phrase a chord, each line a hymn,
each paragraph a song

If words could sing harmonic,
  as their letters drift away

Would music take you past that place
—words now force you to stay

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

If words were notes upon a score,
would the melody play beyond…

Each phrase a chord, each line a hymn,
each paragraph a song

If words could sing harmonic,
  as their letters drift away

Would music take you past that place
—verse forces you to stay

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

If words were notes upon a score
would the melody play beyond …
Each phrase a chord, each line a hymn
each paragraph a song
If words could sing harmonic
  as their letters drift away
Would music take you past that place
— verse forces you to stay

(The Book Of Prayers: March, 2017)

A stitching of parables,
a weaving of psalms

Whether ancient or modern,
the truth plaited long

The story we tell,
with one pattern beset

A patchwork of tailors
—whose needles profess

(Villanova Pennsylvania, December, 2019)

Come to me Achelous
river without tears
Carry me distant
away from my fears

Direction is onward
Olympus bestows
Hermes in orbit
directing the flow

At home in your waters
whose currents surpass
Defining my history
from first to the last

Your torrent unbridled
the eye of the storm
I drift in your motion
—alive and reborn

(Dreamsleep: October, 2022)

A laughingstock of history …
America right now
Fifty years of turning left
leading further down

Words alone can’t fix it
so little time remains
Freedom anything but free
—with liberty in flames

(The New Room: December, 2023)

The timid
find courage
in the well
— of another’s fear

(Valley Forge Park: February, 2024)


Call Me Ishmael

Mediocre writing
spawns editing
The Great Works
— born unchanged

‘Thoughts of: Bob Dylan, Laura Nyro, John Lennon, Steve Winwood, Kris Kristofferson’
(February: 2024)

Lost in the city,
floundering alone
caught on the hook
of an abandoned dream
fighting in vain
against modernity’s pull
living the lie
—of eternity’s pain

(The New Room: July, 2021)

The currency of time
—is blood

(Dreamsleep: January, 2020)

Dying invested
dividend high
Selling tomorrow
presence to buy  

Feelings compounding
destiny’s rate
One final moment
— blessed in His Grace

(1st Book Of Prayers: August, 2024)

Hope is not a strategy,
wisdom not an end
Moment to moment we live the truth
—borrowing to lend

(Dreamsleep: January, 2022)

Impress
with your meaning
not with your word choice
‘Labyrinth’
dallies
when ‘Mazes’ will do

Build
toward an ending
the shorter the better
The Bullet
strikes deepest
—straight fired and true

(Dreamsleep: September, 2023)

Sleep
—the required reading of all dreamers

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)

We make the beds we lie in
—to sleep or not

(Dreamsleep: January, 2020)

We make our beds and lie in them
—whether we sleep or not

(Dreamsleep: November, 2020)

Pulling the curtains
down on today
Shutting the windows
doors locked from the street
Putting the cat out
trouble abeyant
My house becomes quiet
—the past is asleep

(Dreamsleep: Ocotber, 2023)

Destiny sold
—eternity lost

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)

You try to mask your given voice
in what’s perverse and then profane

But truth speaks only for itself,
your costume tattered—seamstress blamed

This great parade, a grand charade,
your song a flattened chord

Its final line to seal your fate
—perdition now assured

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Running away
from the impossible
Truth,
the last thing that’s caught

(Dreamsleep: May, 2021)