silent droplets on the pool’s surface
         motorcycle taxi twilight
               Bangkok beauty

Time is a moving image of eternity
At least that's what Plato thought

Time doesn't really exist, say the Buddhists
The ultimate is nought

Sometimes I miss the mark
Sometimes I do as I ought

I am not one who much won
But I am one who much fought.

alienation
from my own nation
not pleasant and not fun

intense
the isolation
rare the shining sun

I know
these puzzling people
and I have begun

to see
their self-deception
is a hypocritic one

do they intend
or is it ignorance?
do they know their day

                      is done?

Jesus didn't die for your sins or mine
He just got crucified

George W. didn't **** to protect your freedom
He killed because he lied

Silent nights, Empty tombs
Find a place to hide

UFOs, what are those?
Please stand at my side.

  Even Doves have pried.

If religion is not true
Why am I so drawn?

Because I am so serious.
And I need to greet the Dawn.

I cannot live with hopelessness
Time just tick tocks on

Four dear deer among the tombs
One of them a fawn.

I've got a monk in me
Somewhat Catholic
Somewhat Buddhist
Somewhat xie xie ni

Had a panic attack once
At a Trappist monastery
They called my dad
Psychiatrist for me

I spend much time alone
Movies, books
Little walks
Thai iced tea

In my solitude
Misty rain
Female pain
Can't break free

               Silently

Is there evil in God?
Amos 3:6
Hope against hope
Quinlin and Calyx

53 and fading
Blueorange twilight sky
Some good thing to do
Before my time to die

Vancouver. Toronto. Ottawa.
Lovely Life of Pi
Even doves have Pride

              Ay! Ay! Ay!

I'm unknown
But some of my heroes,
Dylan, L. Cohen, Springsteen, etc...
Are very, very famous

A few days ago
After thinking about Cornel West
On Franklin Street
Unknown me met unknown Amos.

Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley)
And his friend, Charlie, an Anglican clergyman
Are walking through streets in
South Africa
Discussing unjust laws
And unjust men
When they are approached
By a couple of thuggish whites
Who speak belligerently
And angrily threaten
Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley)

We've warned you, they threaten.

Gandhi gently smiles:  

           We've warned each other.

How can this be, seeing that I know not a man?

Said Father David Tracy.

Probably it doesn't make sense
But I still pray
At times
Even when I can't believe in God

I like Albert Camus
My favorite French atheist
Unde Malum?
North Africa. Berber Mother.

Me at JMU
Lonely as the rain
Her boyfriends studlier than I
Might place Life of Pi

The Shinkansen is impressive
Chesterton aggressive
I tend toward confessive
Like Augustine. But still shy.

               Thank you, Ry.

Harvard was founded in 1636
The University of Mexico - in 1551.

I'm afraid of life
Yes, I admit it

And I'm terrified of dying
When it comes my time to quit it

I've seen quite a few movies
Stories truly told

51 now. 51.
Is that middle age or old?

Loneliness unfolds.

As I write this, highly civilized people are flying overhead trying to **** me.

Wrote George Orwell.

No date for Marian Anderson will ever be available at Constitution Hall,
Said Constitution Hall.

Brown Russian Cathedral
Strolling through the city
       lovely sunlight

Georgetown from the bridge
Gives a little hope
Young women students
One day a Woman Pope

One day an Asian Pope
Hagia Sophia
Thank you for my dad
O please Destinia!

Grey can be beautiful
Statues. Students. Stone.
Garrison Keillor. Emily D.
Zero at the Bone

373
Strong Hallelujah's roll
Un Escritor
Bend it like Beckham goal

                    Fr. Tracy!

Salman Rushdie
Averroes

Ibn Rushd
Thomas Aquinas sees

Medieval Muslim
Similarities

Cordoba, Spain
Paris please

I have an Analogical Imagination
I can see connections
I also have anxiety attacks
A protector who needs protection

Chicago in the winter
Lady of the Lake
Stockholm in the summer
Please do not forsake

2037
But I am not sure
Tucson, Arizona
I think he knows of her

53 and falling
Jokic plays in Denver
She is the Director
I imagine Sweet Surrender

               Surrender!

Mabel Loomis Todd
Mary Todd Lincoln
Todd in Dead Poets

            me

Michael Clayton - St. John's
Arthur Edens - Milwaukee
                catholikos

Just an amateur poet
An amateur - one who loves
Music in the night
I walk the little way

Gatsby's green light
Coastal California
Rome on my honeymoon
My sons: callooh! callay!

                Yea, verily. Yea.

An amateur is one who loves
That's what I wish to be
Science fiction bookstore
By the beauty Baltic Sea

I'm tired but grateful
Tired gratefully
Gifts for my sons
Avatar for we

          Jake Sully!

One hundred and eighty different plants are referred to in Shakespeare.

Abraham Lincoln had less than one year of formal education.

Bach had 20 children, 9 of which survived him.

20.

The Americans are hypocrites
Their country is not true

They’ll do it unto others
And then they’ll do it unto you

Ignorant, violent, racist
An Empire in decline

On Saturday I play basketball
Sunday morning - bread and wine

                   Farewell, and be kind.

You old headless horseman Ichabod Crane

sins, faults, failings
always already present

sons, hopes, fine feelings
lift me above the evident

Dear God, I pray - we pray:
Please grant us a decent President.

                         Amen.

Land of the Lost
      pop culture attack
              Sleestacks

Phone call tonight
I sleep and wait all day

The Adventure of English
Interesting book, I must say

The Standsted Inn
Talked all night with Ms. Mughal

About female Muslim mystics
And Eliade with approval

I liked London
But it was a bit overwhelming

Westminster Abbey Mass
Train to Oxford as I'm telling

Wetheral with my sons
Up near the Scottish border

Leonard Cohen
I've seen the Future:  that's an order

I was a middle school teacher
Not a New York Times reporter

I like the Guardian newspaper
And Johnny Cash's Hey Porter.

Frodo Lives!
Even in the depths of Mordor.

Walking along the Champs Elysees
On my honeymoon
Wearing my Springsteen shirt

An American in Paris
Amazed, grateful, alert

A cook runs out of a restaurant
He stops me and in English he does blurt:

He:  I saw this man in concert here last summer.

Me:  Did you like the show?

He: No, No, No Monsieur
       I did not like the show.

       I loved it!

There is no joy in Mudville
Mighty Casey has struck out

I would rather not sing at all than not sing loud.

                       - Janis Joplin

A ******, brutal boor, wholly ignorant of political science, of military affairs, of everything else which a statesman should know.

Said a London journal of Lincoln at the start of the Civil War.

Melville left school at age 12.

Sure I posed. I was hungry.

Unfailingly given pause in recalling that Melville left school at age 12.

There is no joy in Trumpville
The racist Donald will strike out

Can't Donald Trump just go away?

consciousness in natural motion
      evolution of we devotion
        other minds not-other
                  analogies

Every bride is beautiful, said Rabbi Hillel.

Sophocles in old age
On finally being free of ****** urges:

Like escaping from *******
To a raving maniac.