We were in love
but never at peace
Starving together
— choking the feast

(Dreamsleep: July, 2024)

Makeup never hides the truth
the camera sees it all
Sharply focused through the pain
each mask a futile pall

As clowns embrace the actor’s fears
in painted frozen smiles
The farce goes on in word and song
—a masquerades denial

(Dreamsleep: May, 2023)

Cathedral Mosque
or Synagogue
their masquerade
the same
Preaching what
they don’t believe
the Good Lord
to profane

Christians Jews
and Muslims share
their hate for
other faiths
Self-righteous ire
scriptures burn
as blood flows
through the gate

Colleges and
social networks
homes where they
blaspheme
Younger hearts
and narrow minds
starving
to believe

The clock ticks down
as options die
in zero sum
degrees
The vilest thing
to haunt the earth
breeds death
— with each decree

(Dreamsleep: April, 2024)

Prose on one side, verse the other
—distance in between

The bridge has burnt, the Muse now two,
each seeing only green

The breaths that flow are then contained,
no synergy allowed

The fathoms deep between their words
—whose river both endows

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Is consciousness different than having a soul,
reflection unhallowed—eternity trolled

Does the magic within us begin and then end,
finite conscription—one lifetime to spend

And if unrelated, then what lies between
what we feel and we ponder—perchance then to dream

Till that final unveiling where death at last shows
the truth of the matter—that nobody knows

(Villanova University: October, 2020)

Destiny knighted
—vanity scorned

(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)

Humanity + Divinity = Eternity

(Dreamsleep: February, 2021)

The closer we get
to the end
The bigger God
becomes
And the farther away
—he seems

(The New Room: December, 2023)

Numbers have a lasting smell
while figures have a taste
Shapes can make an ancient sound
whose feelings stay untraced    

Intuition grants a wish
to those who rebegin  
Dimension in the blackest hole
new dwarf stars from within

Counting up or counting down
deception stays the same
What you gain or what you lose
redundant in the game

Endings come and endings go
ephemerally despised
Until the sacrificial lamb
—bleats out the final lie

(Dreamsleep: January, 2023)

I lay dreaming as the yardarms howl with ghosts
  upon the wind,
screaming down: “Your crew is lost, it’s mutiny once more”

One voice to dare my choices strong
and shed that bitter sleep,
my past the drowning child of its dark and rocky shoals

As tears release and fall like rain the tiller
begs forgiveness,
old memories drift away in fear and sink within themselves

The time has come, as fate calls out to man the heavy sails
and chart a course into the swells
—one final storm to brave

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

Lobbying through Hell,
the politician remanded

To the Devil he stated:
“Your program’s too thin

“You need to refigure
and turn up the heat

“His word’s getting through,
and the Angels all sing”

“It’s not about numbers,
Lucifer cried from the furnace

“It’s not about losses,
but what’s mine to gain

“If only one soul’s
to be trapped here forever

“Your indenture my focus
—let the suffering begin”

(Dreamsleep: September, 2020)

My eyes explode,
  within the beauty of your image

My ears implode,
  within the magic of your words

My mind expands,
  within the thought of you inside me

My heart ignites
   —within the fire of your love

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016 )

Can you understand
without thinking

Can you know more than
your mind can learn

Can you overflow
without leaking

Can you see
—beyond the fire's burn

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

Avoid needless
complexity
Say it
straight out

Frost and
then Hemingway
Set the rules
down

Between meaning
and verbiage
The idea
is king

Sharpen
the point
The message
— the thing

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: January, 2024)

Finally hearing your own voice…
don’t ever, ever, ever
  —edit it away

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)

In the Spring
memories blow like wind
through the corners of my soul
replacing the dark winter
which time has now beset
Playing its distant lute
change is ****** upon me
rebirthing what fall had rightly claimed
and buried in the past

Visions of dancing June bugs
they fervently surround me
mating my wonderment with joy
as summer waits untilled
The whirlwind dharma
that so haunts my dreams
left comatose and vacant
freeing me for what’s to come
—and what has always been

(Bryn Mawr College: March, 2023)

You can only live  
in the time you’re given

The past and the future,
a false consorting

Looking inside and blinding
yourself

—to tomorrow and yesterday

The magic contained within
each fleeting moment

—until it’s gone

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2020)

High minded but low brow,
and living the contradiction
of a greater truth
I’m caught between transcendence
and pontification
my pockets ladened
with a traitor’s silver
—in search of gold

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)

Silence…
  the channel to my stream
  
Thoughts…
  the stream to my creek

Words…
  the creek to my river

Music…
the river to my becoming

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)

Desperation to breed contempt
the moment shattered
time illy spent

Choices bartered and freedom gone
the reaper chanting
old righteous wrongs

Panic stricken the nights repeat
the days long orphaned
abandoned sheep

One promise lingers in chastened air
the font of Angels
— baptism’s prayer

(Dreamsleep: January, 2023)

Don’t let the poetry
weaken the poem

The structure a servant
—for what’s to be known

(The New Room: December, 2021)

When verses
run dry
do you hide
in despair
When the Muse
is on fire
only ashes
you’ll bear
With silence
embedded
on each
empty page
Your fear
is the foundling
that kindles
— the rage

(Ronald McDonald House: May, 2025)

What is… inherent,
what’s not… implied

Epiphanous moments
—waiting inside

(Bryn Mawr College: January, 2021)

I deleted another poem tonight
and the Muse raged into fury
“You never asked for my permission” she said,
as her voice thundered deeply inside
“You’ll pay for this in sleepless hours
and nights when dreams are truant…”
Her promises kept, my nights defiled,
and days drag on untethered
As I write yet another “I’m sorry” to her
in verse both coarse and dry

(The New Room: May, 2022)

If the past’s
not alive
The future
is dead

With memory
starving
Hope’s promise
unfed

What yesterday
gives us
Tomorrow
awaits

All hope
in the transfer
Of destiny’s
— fate

(The New Room: November, 2024)

Moments of clarity stop the clock,
but time rolls on and on

Unrecorded, to stay embedded
in each wish unfulfilled

Tranquilizing the fleeting doubt
that truancy sets free

Returning with the future claimed
—to liberate the past

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2020)