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Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2016
Love freely given,
  no heart denied

A soul in flight,
—Angelic skies

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2021
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’
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2018
The book of Solomon
  the Temple Mount

The ruler of winds
  —time can’t surmount

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2024
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)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2022
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)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2021
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)
Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2020
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)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2019
Poetry…
the music of writing

Written unspoken
—for Angels to sing

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2024
Like quicksand ...
the harder you struggle
the deeper you sink

(Dreamsleep: June, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2019
Irish by choice,
  the teachers did fail

Attacking my voice,
  as a group to assail

The structures they hammered,
   the forms they imposed

All lost to my whimsy
  —whose words I then chose

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2021
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)
Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2018
Are you obligated
To retain
The verses you write,
Or do you systematically
Release
What no longer can survive
Unnamed,
As they mark the trail
Of their exit
With letters penned in
Judgment
That you no longer own,
Memory forming
An ancient speech pattern
Waiting silent and distant
For new words to create
An even newer anonymity
  —where truth may be found

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2014)
Tall grass above
a sleeping dream
Hiding what
His promise deems

Embedded deep
within the blades
New whispers seed
as life conclaves

The sun to mirror
God’s new day
Each ray He grants
new hope in play

That rises softly
through night’s travail
An open petal
— as Grace prevails

(1st Book Of Prayers: May, 2025)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2019
I hide in the shadow
  of another’s fear
  so the voice may go away

And then left
  inside an orphan’s silence
  to recount every wordless day

To walk a path
  that another breaks
  under a dark forbidden sky

Crying those tears
  by another made
    —my pen bereft and dry

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2019
Refortifying myself…
I expected less and less
From you
My inner world unfolding
All window dressing cast aside
My spirit entrusted to
Those moments still to come
The truth now able to settle
And learn
My secret voice conscious of
What my curiosity and reflection
   —have yet to see

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2021
Leave me alone,
I’m deaf to your pleading

Leave me alone,
I can’t feel what you feel

Leave me alone,
my time not for owning

Leave me alone,
our history repealed

Leave me alone,
the bridges are burning

Leave me alone,
the entrance has closed

Leave me alone,
the pages are turning

Leave me alone
—another I’ve chose

(Dreamsleep: February, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2019
I like hitchhiking
because it’s clean…
Its ending not restrained
by false beginnings
The future more indentured
than the past
With freedom wrapped inside
this very moment
Each car another chance  
—to say goodbye

(Dreamsleep: October, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2019
Another day with a voice
  —one more glimpse into forever

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2018
Another day with a voice
—one more glimpse into forever

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2019
Will you
Or won’t you,
Can you
Or can’t you,
Another paradox
Unclaimed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2017
Do you play inside the Corn Flakes,
  or are corn stalks more you game

Is that Hersey Bar the answer,
  or the cocoa or *******

Do you clerk for someone’s feelings,
  inspiration all be ******,

Your legacy an afterthought,
—of another’s contraband

(Grantham New Hampshire: February, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2018
The string is broken,
  the past is lost

A road forgotten
—fresh winter’s frost

All memory erases,
new thoughts to spin

The distance thawing
—another Spring

(Court At KOP: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2019
The string is broken,
  the past is lost

A road forgotten
  late winter’s frost

Memory clearing
  new thoughts to spin

All distance thawing
  —another Spring

(Court At K.O.P: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2016
Delay success for as long
As you can
Living up to an image
Will only cloud your vision
Stealing what you can least
Afford to lose
Dragging you into the illusion
And myth
You have spent a lifetime
Railing against
Dragging you into the
Vicarious trap
Of another’s false and wasted
Dream

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2018
Walking around a
Mythical town
That doesn’t exist
Looking for what
I would never find
I trod those same streets
That I had been down
In my dreams before
The sky barren
Except for the sound
Of the exodus
Of wings
Hovering over people
All moving away
The backs of their heads
The only thing visible
As they marched off
Into the dark
With faces and eyes
Mortgaged….

    To pay for all the things
        that they would never do

    In debt to one last promise
        they will never keep

    The terms of their indecision
        written in the blood of repetition

     The movement of the hawk
        —another’s wind to blow

  (Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2018
Walking around a
Mythical town
That doesn’t exist
Looking for what
I would never find
I trod those same streets
That I had been down
In my dreams before
The sky barren
Except for the sound
Of the exodus
Of wings
Hovering over people
All moving away
The backs of their heads
The only thing visible
As they marched off
Into the dark
With faces and eyes
Mortgaged…

    To pay for all the things
        that they would never do

    In debt to one last promise
        they will never keep

    The terms of their indecision
        written in the blood of repetition

     The movement of the hawk
         —another’s wind to blow

  (Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2020
Both old and new thou must review,
changing pink to red

Those poorly formed, to stay forlorn,
hiding in their beds

Begin then end, begin again,
on chance the meaning fed

Whose banquet serves another time
—a feast eternal spread

(Dreamsleep: October, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2019
A pound of silver
will only rent today

What an ounce of hope
—can buy tomorrow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2022
Using the intellect
to understand God
A circle unending
no light in the fog

Our mind like a hammer
to pry and to nail
Constrained by our motion
and destined to fail

But deep in our essence
that we’ve named the soul
A voice is there calling
a bell waits to toll

To ring in tomorrow
with songs of today
Proclaiming the music
—our spirit’s ordained

(Beaupre: January, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2022
Each line,
each phrase,
each spoken word,
a step toward…
the One

(The First Book Of Prayers: January, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2021
Truth can’t exist
in the absence of courage

Words of appeasement
—freedom denied

(The New Room: March, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2022
At 11:05 the torrent came,
its current tainted,
its waters shamed

At 11:06 direction changed,
intention drowning
—redemption stained

(Dreamsleep: April, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2020
Expressions of grief,
the eyes of a child

An ending in sight
—all nature reviled

(McCarran Airport: January, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2022
A wagon wheel across the stones
—ancient sounds

The death of night, the birth of dawn
—ancient sounds

The blood of my enemy drips from my sword
—ancient sounds

A voice from beyond, heard from within
—ancient sounds

(Dreamsleep: March, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2018
Your head’s in the sand
  the canary at hand

The beggar inside you
  his kingdom commands

Mired in apathy
  lost in denial

One last Armageddon
  —the price of your wile

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2019
Your head’s in the sand,
  the canary at hand

The coward inside you,
  his kingdom commands

Mired in apathy,
  lost in denial

One last Armageddon
  —the price of your wile

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2022
To run from today
or hide from tomorrow,
the ultimate hunter,
time waiting downwind

Each day a stalking,
your tracks to betray you,
escape out of season
—the wolf closing in

(Sacandaga Lake, New York: January, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2020
Painting with words,
poetry my canvas

Hanging through the ages
—signed with my blood

(Ocean City New Jersey: June, 1969)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2024
Seeing — Unseeing
the words drift away
far into the current
of what’s left to say

Passing my cortex
far into the void
where blind recognition
awaits to destroy

Familiar or foreign
once stopped in their tracks
new meaning escapes
with no looking back

The Poet’s eyes squinting
as light filters out
transcendence recaptured
ascendance remounts

Through slivering darkness
a vision appears
and mocking the order
old images clear

Those words once discarded
reform juxtaposed
through eyes resurrected
— released from the flow

(Septa R5: July, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2019
The most precious gift a Poet gets
—true knowledge of himself

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2023
Does light exist
without an object
to reflect against

Are good intentions
worth the time
as latency projects

The cobblestones
that lead to hell
a long and one-way path

Without an act
of conscious will
—a future damning past

(Villanova University: March, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2021
The artist may tarnish,
but his art remains clean
His intention stays ageless,
his wishes pristine

Though rust covers over
what’s harder to see
The base is still there
—and the spirit still free

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2024
Winning the
war

Winning the
peace

Divided by
victory

Joined in
— defeat

(The New Room: December, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2023
The graves have been dug
all bugles away
Medals awarded
for valor displayed

The soldiers in transit
to homes once so dear
But where is the peace
—when gunfire you hear

(Opening Poem To My New Novel: ‘Approaching Storm’)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2023
From my new novel, 'Approaching Storm' ...


The winds of war have called again
courage summoned—to befriend
Through evil darkness blowing strong
we face the threatened coming dawn
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2023
A man clad in mystery
history would learn

The world in his debt
with fury to burn

Duty and honor
in marriage live on

With courage his mantra
—and battle his song

(Poem To End Chapter 20: February, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2023
Invisible in nature
it simmers within
To rise to the surface
when conflict begins

(Poem To End Chapter 32: February, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2023
The finger on the trigger
has destiny in its hand

(Poem To End Chapter 39: February, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2023
The bats in the tower
rats in the barn
Night befits cowards  
who run from the storm

(Poem To End Chapter 48: March, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2019
March
  brought me closer
  to the spoken word

March
  created thunder
  never before heard

March
  left forever its stamp
  and imprint

March
  so predacious
  April bleeding
     —in red ink

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)
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