Staring into
a crystal gaze
The throng is burning
purple haze

Music blaring
notes on fire
Crescendo glaring
demon ire

Staring into
a crystal gaze
The faces foreign
voices bade

In unison
their screams demand
Encored tribute
— to save the band

(Dreamsleep: September, 2024)

Tis a witch out of season,
on the seventh day

And you hear reasons chanting,
while running away

from you
from you

In her brew stirs an answer,
where memories lay

And the last fancy dancer
burns, looking to play

with you
with you

Your destiny boiling,
a cauldron of doubt

With fear running over
her coven to shout

at you
at you

Until spells of transcendence,
a broom handled waltz

Free dreams that start dancing,
through dungeons of fault

for you
for you

(Las Vegas, Nevada: January, 2020)
‘Rock Lyrics #122

Told over and over,
the lie became true

As memory inverted,
the falsehood imbued

My cornerstone crumbling,
sticks piled with straw

A last self-deception
—the fantasy law

(Rosemont Pennsylvania: February, 2021)

Outside the backdrop of the given world,
the emptiness fled
And deep in the recesses of what’s never to be,
contradiction fed
Far beyond meaning and stated intent,
all reasons turned to dust
With nothing to prove and less to embrace
—the laugh at last on us

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2019)

Drowning
in the tides of thirst,
the dam opened wide
—for better or worse

(Dreamsleep: September, 2021)

Playing defense with terrorism
—another name for suicide

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

Wandering alone
atop Mount Nittany
his claws long retracted
his teeth filed down

The last of his breed
once reigning so proudly
his lair far distant
no food to be found

Strange noises he hears
far off to the West
in the canyon of beavers
a struggle beset

He knows that this Winter
most likely his last
the future reclaiming
—a glorious past

(Lemont Pennsylvania: November, 2023)

Smiling the same smile
Making the same mistakes
Walking the same path
Singing the same songs

Dreaming the same dreams
Loving the same girl
Breathing the same air
Righting the same wrongs

Signing the last truce
Reaching the last fork
Holding the last hand
Casting the last line

Waltzing the last waltz
Humming the last tune
Paying the last bill
—rhyming the last rhyme

(Dreamsleep: July, 2023)

Bury the hurt
to get over the pain
As memory relines
with forgiveness again

Bury the past
for new light to break through
With darkness abandoned
—your spirit anew


(Las Vegas: January, 2022)

Ichor running through her veins
All blood is pushed aside
Her eyelids shut, her heart on ice
My fate she would decide

Wilted romance, rotting vines
Garden left in thorns
A lonely rose from last years bloom
Bent over in her scorn

New seeds unplanted, sterile lay
Her cold impounds the soil
To blow within a fallow lust
Abandoned there to toil

With one more look, beyond all hope
My vision love impaired
Her verdict guilty, poison laid
—in blindness I despair

(Longwood Gardens: February, 2022)

He defeated his family…
this battle was won

The war still in doubt,
a General shunned

The casualties lingered,
fatalities mount

Old reasons to fester,
in spite of the count

His Grandmother’s death,
the last coup de gras

The love of his life,
he held her till gone

But after her funeral,
his troops on the run

Tents folded and burned
—the last setting sun

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

Who among us
will write at the end

Who among us
the last to contend

Who among us
will capture goodbye

Who among us
won’t wither then die

Who among us
will stare it all down

Who among us
our destiny found

Who among us
will proffer the word

Who among us
demand to be heard

Who among us
will write the last song

Who among us
—will bridge the beyond

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)

Time regresses
images blur,
memories detained

Tokens injected
into the madness
—forever to remain

(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)

A warrior can be an artist,
but can an artist go to war

Can the craftsman ever breathe the fire,
that tempered the blade he forged

The warrior-poet not the poet-warrior,
the difference in the score

All fury do his words inspire
—to bridge the liars fjord

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

Return to the sky,
our moon, Bakunawa

Masked Haliya has been called,
the tree circled again

Balyana is dancing,
the heaven’s in darkness

By the goddess of moonlight
—you’re condemned to the sea

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2020)

Dodging a bullet
the Pet Scan loomed large…
results both good and bad

"Nothing today
to panic about "
tomorrow left unclad

The moment secure
the future unsure…
prognosis under siege

The lights of the O.R.
calling his name
— with hope the last reprieve

(University Of Pennsylvania: September, 2020)

Dodging a bullet,
the PET Scan loomed large…
results both good and bad

“Nothing today
to worry about,”
but tomorrow left unclad

The moment secure,
the future unsure…
prognosis under siege

The lights of the O.R.
calling his name
—with hope the last reprieve

(University Of Pennsylvania: September, 2020)

Neurotechnology,
a gift or a bane

With thoughts simply neurons,
case structure our brains

Is humanity destined
to merely plug in

Will all beauty and truth
be a programmer’s whim

And what of our history
that starts to rewrite

Will all paradox suffer,
conversation contrite

From Plato to Sartre,
one thing is the same

The essence of man
—will a mystery remain

(St. David’s Pennsylvania: March, 2021)

Can you save it in a poem,
as you free the words out loud

Can you write it as a picture,
softly drifting to the clouds

Can you fill the lines with music,
as the verse begins to score

Can you leave a troubled listener,
feeling better—wanting more

Can you deem the time now timeless,
with your message in the wind

Can you find yourself left breathless,
as your ending then begins

Can you defend the sacred question,
for those who came before

Can that poem with its gentle hand
—release the lions roar

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Between his tent and his horse
—a man divines his legacy

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

Deception of reflection,
each mirror so enthralls
Calling in our timeless hope,
frozen in its pall

Its backing silver plated,
to seal the ego’s dream
Lending what cannot be bought
—deadly in its gleam

(The New Room: June, 2022)

When given the moon
don’t ask for the stars
Light when reflected
—from Heaven afar

(Dreamsleep: May, 2023)

…when there’s no one left to protest
…when there’s no one left to blame
…when there’s no one left to target
…when there’s no one left to name

…when there’s no one left to barter
…when there’s no one left to pay
…when there’s no one left to reason
…when there’s no one left to pray

…when there’s no one left to matter
…when there’s no one left to care
…when there’s no one left believing
…when there’s no one left to share

…when no one’s left to pass it on
…when no one’s left unbled
…when no one’s left to sing the songs
—forgotten are the dead

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

Consumed within my writing,
devoured in the verse

A sacrificial empty draft,
waiting for the hearse

Buried just below the line,
a dead unwritten verb

A victim of tomorrow
—whose pen has lost its nerve

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

The music trying to catch up with itself
as I sit here in the dark
—a figment of a lost dimension
—a remnant of some other duality
This place becoming a steppingstone
to what is now already gone
and the melody so close, so distant, and so far,
passing through itself to what might have been

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2020)