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Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2024
Not an academic
Poet
Not a tenement
Poet
Not a beat or a blues
or a church Poet
Not a famous or infamous
or celebrity Poet
Not an Irish or Basque
or Welsh Poet

Not a formal
Poet
Not a casual
Poet
Not the kind that takes
to the stage Poet
Not a tenured or membered
or club Poet
Not a for profit or glory
or fame Poet

… just a Poet

(The County Line: April, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2018
The greatest Poem I ever wrote…
  the one I just laid down

The one to last a thousand years
  deep in the lost and found

With words familiar, feelings stained
  in blood from echoes past

My pen left bleeding on its page
   —as quietude repasts

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2018)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2021
The fleeting comfort of her silence,
rocking his troubles to sleep
All noise has abated, the bats have gone out
—till dawn o’er the belfry to greet

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2019
You have existed now
  —forever

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2022
A hole that can’t be filled
an ocean that can’t be crossed
a phrase that can’t be spun
inhaling your exhaust
The measure off the scale
the truant thrice reclassed
the memory twice forgotten
the die that’s never cast
A spider web unwoven
a future distant past
a God beyond religion
a sail without its mast
“To Trip The Light Fantastic”
to burn the bridge uncrossed
to fasten moments end to end
—to find what time has lost

(The New Room: February, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2018
The light burns brightest
  at journeys end

     “Radiant Epiphany
       Seraph's descend”

Its blaze to enrapture
  the love that you give

     “Celestial applause
       for a life well lived”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2019
For those who love the concept of power,
but hate its execution

A raging tiger has just left its cage
—to feed on your confusion

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2017
For those who love the concept of power,
   but hate its execution

A raging tiger has just left its cage,
—to feed on your confusion

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2020
The Gypsy jumped from car to car,
never getting off the train

In Davenport through morning fog,
the old town looked the same

The prairies waited in the dark,
the Rockies far beyond

In Denver’s wind he heard the words
to an oft-forgotten psalm

The engine roared, the distance called,
the rails went on and on

The desert lit the night on fire,
to burn the right from wrong

A Reno stop to take on water,
drowning in the past

Through farms and fields and countryside,
to Stockton now at last

His feet stepped down to touch the earth,
and genuflect once more

Before reboarding, headed East
—perdition his true lord

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: April, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2020
Everyone else has gotten off,
how long am I to stay?

The train unstationed, tender gone,
its engine writhed in pain

Did I miss my stop on the journey down?
“an express” the porter screamed

All light afire, ticket burnt
—satanic nightmare dreamed

(Drexel University: February, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2023
Geometrically
Progressing
Each Day
Valued more
The closer
The end
The sweeter
The lure  

(Dreamsleep: November, 2023)
The greatest obstacle
to discovery
— is discovery itself

(Dreamsleep: January, 2025)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2019
Dimension,
Stretching itself
Reaching the unknown
Feeling what can’t be felt
Unnumbered
Not counted or named
Para-atomic
Time abandoned
Intention free
Returning without
Returning within,
Dimension

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2021
What purpose Poetry,
if not to transcend

The mundane, the broken,
those roads with no end

With every feeling
new words are reborn

To speak to Creation
—and live readorned

(The New Room: January, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2020
Why would I question,
why would I care

Why would I venture,
why would I dare

Why would I set out
for places unknown

If not to find something
—my life has unshown

(Dreamsleep: October, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Dec 2023
Foothills

The physics
of metaphysics …
the part I like the best

Where symbols yearn
as planets turn
—new twigs to build the nest

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)




A Picture

Imagery and symbols
are worth a thousand words
Why poetry is lauded
but prose routinely heard

To paint each word intrinsic
as dawn brush strokes the day
Each verse leaves time uncanvassed
—mortality at bay

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)


To Heaven And Back

If birds couldn’t fly
they wouldn’t sing
The world would stop spinning
and bells wouldn’t ring

Wings are their freedom
the sky their excuse
To heaven and back
—all hearts are infused

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)


The Road Less Traveled

Does the truth
of the world
lie in common
experience

Mathematics
and philosophy
forever
say no

Innovation
and discovery
fight shared
understanding

One should always
be wary
or forever
—forgo

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)


Bearing False Witness

Death by omission
death by nature
Where evil misleads
—deception grows

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)




Lock Step

Poets
miming
poets
The blind
leading
the blind
Mud
stirring up
from the bottom
Concealing
a likeness
—in kind

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)


****** Dreams

Creating something
as yet undiscovered
Consciousness battles
—as memory attacks

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2018
Stop changing…
And you will come to
A most unsavory
Form of death

Neither here
Nor beyond
Your spirit trampled
  —by a thundering heard

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2018)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2021
Are you a servant
to creation’s lord,
every word indentured trope

In towers of despair
each phrase a step
—on the stairs to love and hope

(The New Room: March, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2023
You can’t infringe on greatness
it always needs its space

To stand apart and stand alone
an island in its place

You can’t lip sync a legend
the lyrics never come

Whose price is paid in distance laid
—all glory zero sum

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2023
A broken wing
in death’s chicane
Where pigeons fall
unending pain

A blinded flock
to circle down
As fangs await
both wolves and hounds

While far above
a falcon stalks
Vision prescient
it never balks

A broken wing
once clipped in fear
the raptors chase
—with canids near

(The New Room: October, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm May 2019
I’m a two-winged poet
  not just single-wing

And would never clip one
  to fly into this wind
  
As one wing goes up
  the other comes down

Until both work together
  when flying most proud

A zero-sum landing
  with talons not right

Only shortens the glide path
  —and ruins the flight

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2024
Rays Of Light

Information contextual
never absolute
Naked in isolation
relative and moot

Inspiration celestial
gifted from the throne
Sending rays to light the dark
— truth to stand alone

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)

Science

One step
forward
two steps back

Look around
you
see the facts

Sky scraped
cities
health care gods

Obese
on drugs
gender fog

Ghetto
masters
children ******

War
a plaything
religion owned

Information
but a mask
to hide us from the truth

DNA
and quantum theory
— kills the Golden Goose

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)


Dreamsleep

No words into boxes
all Muses set free
Not quatrain or sonnet
or limerick for me
The feeling’s unleashing
the verse as decreed
Whose words birth inside me
— unspoken in dreams

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)


Feelings

They come to
me vacant

No plans
to deceive

In silence
they wait

My words
— to conceive

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2024
Embrace your entitlement
to thrive
Hell freezing over
the moment alive

Protect what’s inside
of your heart
Transcendence embodied
— Divine from the start

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2022
Have I finally truly said it all
running out of words
Thoughts and feelings too remote
my pen a blunted sword

The doors revolve and seasons change
as Winter calls my name
Whose grammar laced with period ends
and fingers stricken lame

A final time my eyes shut tight
to fall into a dream
Just one more word—new phrase to grace
reaching for the cream

(Villanova University: July, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2022
Skeletons rule the attic,
rooks have left the board
emptiness I can’t explain,
darkness untoward

Lapses in my memory,
lyrics left unsung
chasing all those things I’m not,
orphan on the run

Monday turns to Thursday,
Tuesday, Wednesday lost
time on fire, burning fast,
sanity the cost

One last chance for freedom,
pathway to the cliff
to jump into my deepest fear
—or sink in this abyss

(The New Room: February, 2022)
The loss of
each simple
thing
hurting the most
When drama
subsides
and time slows
to its worst
Your shadow
still living
inside of my
pain
To darken each
heartache
again
— and again

(The New Room: May, 2025)
Kurt Philip Behm May 2020
They just want to feel something…
the audience again new

They just want to escape time,
for a moment then, or two

They just want to know you care,
after what the past has cost

They just want you reaching out
—touching something that they’ve lost

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2019
You call it a particle
He calls it a wave
They call it energy
—I call it light

You’re locked in physics
He’s locked in quantum
They’re trapped in theory
—blocking all sight

Let go the dissection
Let go the mechanics
Let go the empirics
—your eyes then to see

Reach out for the music
Reach out for what’s timeless
Reach out with your spirit
—set yourself free

(Villanova University Monastery: June, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2017
The inside looking out,
   the outside looking in

Two sides of the same mirror,
—reality a twin

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2019
Repetition inversing,
   black hole in my head

In perpetual silence,
  words collapsing unread

Reality bending,
  rescinding the end

The beginning left ******
  —repeating again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm May 2019
Be-bop, shu-baby-bop,
  the blues on fire

The strings an accelerant,
  the harp but a pyre

The melody unseen,
  its heartbeat within

Be-bop, shu-baby-bop
  —reality’s hymn

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2021
Saying goodbye to all that’s past,
tomorrow slipped away

The moment cherished, the instant pure
—living for today

(Dubois Wyoming: September, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2018
Worry and strife
  never really leave

They just change
  direction and form

When one plant’s watered
   another wilts

Your heart no longer safe
   once torn

Trouble that’s papered
  over with wealth

Set fire
  by money and fame

Is a sadness you try
  so hard to lose

Hiding re-armored
  —and waits to reclaim

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2018
Sometimes the words mean what they say,
  and sometimes they don’t

Sometimes the feelings rot and decay,
  and sometimes they won’t

Sometimes the vision is based on your sight,
  and sometimes it’s not

Sometimes your hope is based on a dream,
  and sometimes forgot

Sometimes the face is someone you know,
  and sometimes it’s different

Sometimes a home is where you must go,
  and sometimes it’s distant

Sometimes the flag is meant to be waved,
  but sometimes you can’t

Sometimes your anger you try to enslave,
  but sometimes you rant

Sometimes the meaning gets caught between lines,
  and sometimes it doesn’t

Sometimes a verb will ****** a noun,
  and sometimes a dozen

Sometimes the day surrenders to night,
  when nobody’s watching

Sometimes the night forces sinners to pray,
   as destiny’s stalking

What’s old again new, all time to eschew,
  both past and then future

As reasons demand what excuses command,
   the ending unsutured

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2018
Do I reach for understanding
  or is knowing quite enough

Or deem then that important
  if the difference smooth or rough

Do I understand a mountain
  or the bear that lives within

Or just know that it belongs there
  and the mystery that it brings

Do I understand the Ocean
  or the waves that break so high

Or just hear its thunder crashing
  and not need to wonder why

Do I understand what time is
  its symbols and what they mean

Or understand a life laid down
  in battles unforeseen

Do I understand a memory
  or just smile whenever it calls

Or understand tomorrow
  when today my life befalls

Do I understand the anger
  or just control it when it barks

Or understand the danger
  sometimes lurking in the dark

Do I understand the words I write
  when the Muse shakes me from my sleep

Or understand the excuses loaned
   —the reasons mine to keep

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2019
Living in the present
past—future
combined

The excuses get
cornered
—reasons sublime

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2016
Lost,
  in what is still to be forgotten,
  —reawakening again

(Crazy Horse/On The Bike: 7:40 p.m. Yellowstone, June 17th, 1991)
Kurt Philip Behm Nov 2021
Standing hidden off to the side
naked and alone,
his aura too imposing,
his cover all but blown

A target of those dilettantes,
consummate poseurs,
his space they had surrounded
—his legend to procure

(The New Room: November, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Aug 2022
To **** the dreamer
not the dream
Each wish reborn
—all hope redeemed

(The New Room: August, 2022)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2020
The older I get,
the younger I become

Each word a rebirth
—my dreams to outrun

(Dreamsleep: January, 2020)
Kurt Philip Behm Sep 2023
Continue to do
only positive things
Humanity’s outcome
your choices will bring
The darker the cloud
that brings on the rain
The fairer the meadow
—for Spring to reclaim

(Dreamsleep: September, 2023)
Kurt Philip Behm May 2017
“Messages,
   trapped in the wind

Words,
   burrow deeply within

Voices,
  emerge from the past

Memories,
  and dreams overcast”

Leaves fall,
  branches reach for the sky

Winter clouds gather,
  snow starts to fly

Furloughed—the seeds
  march distant and free

The season long,
  its transients flee

Vision impaired,
  past futures to fade

Acceptance—rejection,
  a choice to be made

The first Nightingale sings,
  its call from beyond

A feeling unfreezes,
  old words to a song

The hills begin thawing,
  new tracks to reveal

Salvation once promised,
  no longer concealed

Winds from the west,
   bring rebirth and enthrall

The sun melting lies,
  —and winter recalled

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2024
Basking
in tomorrow’s shadow
Transported
on yesterday’s whim
Open
to the moment’s calling
Born
again, again — and again

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)
Kurt Philip Behm Jan 2021
You don’t have to abandon previous beliefs  
to embrace what presents to you now

As windows long open whose portals of light  
wrap around each new vision—enshroud

Those messages ancient and all messages new  
interlock like the fingers of God

The truth by dimension delivering you whole    
—new lightning reclaiming the rod

(Villanova University: January, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Feb 2019
Is life about how many
  or then about how much

Is the truth in computation
  or in what those numbers touch

Is the measurement empiric
  with a final answer shown

Is salvation in the lyrics
  with the word count still unknown

Is there faith inside the mystery
  that mere reason can’t abide

Is there something deep inside you
  that excuses cannot hide

Is there a wind that blows indulgent
  carrying an echo from before

With a voice that speaks the loudest
  the one you listen to—reborn

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2018
Is life about how many
  or then about how much

Is the truth in computation
  or in what those numbers touch

Is the measurement empiric
  with a final answer shown

Is salvation in the lyrics
  with the word count still unknown

Is there faith inside the mystery
  that mere reason can’t abide

Is there something deep inside you
  that excuses cannot hide

Is there a wind that blows indulgent
  carrying an echo from before

With a voice that speaks the loudest
  the one you listen to—reborn

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2018
The window open
  weathered and worn

My soul releases
  —spirit reborn

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2014)
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2021
Running away from cancer,
chasing after health
Tomorrow in sight, beyond the twilight,
living—the greatest wealth

(St. David’s Pennsylvania: April, 2021)
Kurt Philip Behm Jun 2019
As my body stoops with age,
youth lulls upon the page

Where words forever young,
cry willful to be sung

As daylight quickly passed,
I greet night a friend at last

With memories deeply grained
—reborn in verse again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2020
With eyes that see and ears that hear,
but hearts that look away

Each child unkept—all life bereft,
to rue these mournful days

(Children's Hospital Of Philadelphia: March, 2020)
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