Are you everything you could have been,
the moments gone,
the wafer thin

While reaching out did you lose hold
of what defines you,
a broken mold

The chase elusive, running wild
into the darkness,
a ******* child

To reach old age before your time,
a broken bell
—that cannot chime

(Villanova University: July, 2021)

Call me darling
but never darlin
Call me lovely
but never cute
Call me warmly
from the snow bank
Call me your
forbidden fruit

Call me restless
dreams on fire
Call me once
when twice won’t do
Call my name
into the darkness
Call me
—as I wait for you

(Villanova University: September, 2023)

Straddling the candle,
too close to the flame

A fiery benediction
—a smoldering refrain

(Grantham New Hampshire: February, 2017)

Straddling the candle,
too close to the flame

A fiery benediction
—a smoldering refrain

(Grantham New Hampshire: February, 2017)

To be a true champion
—conquer yourself

(Dreamsleep: April, 2022)

“A vision into
your future

“A mirror
of your past”

(Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania: March, 1980)

It hurt so much it robbed her soul,
and drove her cross the line

The men she knew, the men she loved,
the pain thought once sublime

The last man in, the last man out,
now done with men for good

Her passion torn, her body *****,
a woman she now took

She lived her life on foreign lands,
with mirrors that denounce

She washed the staining from her hands,
returning count for count

And when she died the parson said,
upon this somber day

“A spirit pure but torn in half
—the best part cast away”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)

Have you murdered the future
by destroying the past

The present to judge
—sentenced at last

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

Don’t you love her as she’s leaving,
her memory still in place

The times she lied, the times you cried,
vacant and displaced

Don’t you love her as she’s leaving,
the pain her mission bell

Tolling far into the distance
beyond heaven—beyond hell

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)
‘Thanks Jim’

Through the bedroom window
in my Grandmother’s house,
shone three lights—far off and red

Vertically stacked,
representing the distance,
to a young boy fast in bed  

A distance that I
was born to travel,
my hopes as then conceived  

A distance that called my dreams
to wander
—whose voice would never leave  

(Dreamsleep- May, 2020)

When the world turns on a whisper
  —why do we insist on shouting

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2014)

“Cowardice often hides behind
        intelligence

"Until the strong winds of conviction
       —blow it away”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)
     'From My Novel- 'SOLD OUT'

Before dying alone,
our choices define us

To love and be loved
—to care and believe

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

That gear to move forward
is often reverse
The best choice of words
fortune hides in a curse
Our holiest blessing
an omen that warns
And friendship most sacred
in traitor’s reborn
Today frees tomorrow
once yesterday’s gone
Each phrase that escapes us
new words to a song
The time of the season
Fall Winter and Spring
A Summer of angels
— new devils will bring

(Dreamsleep: June, 2025)

A simulated consciousness
beyond our will to choose
Defying Einstein, Bohr, and Hume
where logic stands defused

The matter at hand can’t matter
when rules unwrite themselves
An order once thought preordained
—entropic and indwelt

(The New Room: August, 2023)

Tears…
watermarks of a dry tomorrow
Irrigant
—of hope’s despair

(Dreamsleep: July, 2021)

Your audience may not be able to listen,
  in the fashion that you speak

Your readers may not be able to discern,
  those meanings that you preach

Your lovers may not be able to hold
  your feelings in their hands

Your future may not be able to serve
  —what the present can’t withstand

(James River Writers Conference: Richmond: October, 2016)

Symptomatic folly,
the tail now wags the dog

Whose bark, it whimper’s drolly,
all teeth removed and gone

Reacting, never acting,
new victims every day

All courage has retracted
—the future in harms way

Jailed speech unto the warden,
mere words may not contend

Our patriotic burden,
its truth we must defend

With cowards grabbing power,
a swamp that we must cross

Lies from ivory towers
—to fell at any cost

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

Better to spend an eternity
in Hell

Than a brief fleeting moment
—in Heaven

(Dreamsleep: December, 2020)

Wrapped in surprise
—the greatest gift of all

(Villanova Chapel: February, 2021)

What is a man, what is a woman…
solved by the stroke of a pen

The genders now mix, the game has been fixed
—playing fields only pretend

(The New Room: January, 2021)

Tending anger’s
raging garden
seeds lie
burnt and dire

Each fiery breath
a vine ensnares
with thorns
of ****** ire

Tending anger’s
furrowed hate
with vehement
acclaim

A tirade lost
within the rows
of dark
— unending pain

(The New Room: December, 2024)

Writing the words,
owning the words

Prisoners and Minstrels,
sentences heard

Writing the words,
owning the past

Chains coming off
—freedom at last

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2019)

Lost within
the writing
Found
with each retelling
The universe
at my command
Time and space
—unveiling

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)

Boiling away the edges
letting the core expand
Limitations drifting free
clarity at hand

Horizon coming at me
sky and earth as one
Sunsets in my memory
answers on the run

A token for the master
a pittance bye and bye
Value placed in what is not
scientists decry

My width and breadth immortal
the universe set free
To roam forever in my heart
—your eyes too blind to see

(Saint David’s Pennsylvania: May, 2022)

Satan hides
within the shadows
Among your thoughts
his evil trolls
His masquerade
beyond the body
  Feigning silence
inside your soul

He takes up space
at God’s indulgence
The part he plays
unscripted low
In brimstone’s fire
he finds acceptance
From prodigals
his demon’s flow

The battle royal
lasts forever
Cast in darkness
waits his throne
To live in shame
while unrepentant
A trillion souls
—one more to go

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)