From my new novel, 'Approaching Storm' ...


The winds of war have called again
courage summoned—to befriend
Through evil darkness blowing strong
we face the threatened coming dawn

How do you balance
the kind and the cruel

The good and the bad
of life’s golden rule

As reason pulls tightly,
treason pulls back

Living in conflict,
together intact

Tragic, comedic,
while often as both

Angels and Demons
commingle betrothed

A savior, destroyer,
calling our name

A garden of riches
—caught in the flames

(Haverford College: February, 2021)

Wasted broke in Kankakee,
  down from Montreal
I’m half way to Memphis,
  with no one left to call

Guitar strings bust or missing,
  motel clerk at my door
I’m half way to Memphis,
  bathroom window as before

The years have run their distance,
  all memories in default
I’m half way to Memphis,
  the songs all packed in salt

And one last time I’m leaving,
  the highway cold and black
I’m half way to Memphis
   —no way of turning back

(Memphis Tennessee: September, 1991)

Is your poetry now dusty,
abandoned on the shelf

Have your dreams become dismissive,
do you live for someone else

Is there mold inside your memory box,
questions all long gone

Do you walk that lonely road alone
—your heart to drag along

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Buying tomorrow
one day at a time
Each moment invested
in freedom sublime
The future remortgaged
all lien holders paid
The past earning interest
—on fortune today

(The New Room: July, 2023)

In the currency of dreams
—you can never make change

(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)

Forget the past
—and the future is lost

(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)

Polymath Siren,
her flower returns

New stirrings to write
new melody to learn

Renaissance memory,
its present announced

Freeing your psyche,
past-future recount

Polymath harlot,
  love pledged again

Petals now varied,
spread from within

Bouquet filled enigma,
here until gone

Leaving always one seedling
—to finish her song

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

To run from today
or hide from tomorrow,
the ultimate hunter,
time waiting downwind

Each day a stalking,
your tracks to betray you,
escape out of season
—the wolf closing in

(Sacandaga Lake, New York: January, 2022)

Music has a special taste
feelings lost in sound
Touching heard across the room
vision by the pound

References left unto themselves
choir boys in tune
Trading what they never had
tribute to the loon

One last chance to make the grade
masks come flying off
Darwin leaving Born in chains
climbing through the moss

Menageries have come and gone
kaleidoscopes diffused
Nomenclature chameleons
—confounded and bemused

(The New Room: January, 2023)

There are only two ways
  to become immortal

One is to become a warrior
  —the other a writer


(Villanova Pennsylvania:  Watching ‘The Last Samurai,’ October, 2014)

Roaming the prairies and fields
of confusion
Coursing the oceans and lakes
of delusion
Resetting my compass by the
northernmost star
Journeying inward
—where near meets the far

(Dreamsleep: October, 2021)

A therapist skirts the edge of lunacy
like a priest engages sin

An evangelist disavows poverty and fear
like a snake that sheds its skin

Together they paint the corridors black
with a promised light to come

Their patients and converts alone in the dark
salvation zero-sum

(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)

Harder vison
softer rhyme
Lion tamed
—tomorrow thine

(Dreamsleep: April, 2023)

Words serve the meaning
and not the form
To awaken the morning
in spirit reborn

Each phrase as created
each couplet of verse
In praise of itself
—the structure to curse

(Dreamsleep: June, 2023)

Were you invited
to the party
Do you paint
or write or sing
Have the voices
come to visit
Did new feelings
lodge within
Were you courted
by seduction
Has your soul
become entranced
As you sit alone
and wonder
Will this be
—the final dance

(Dreamsleep: October, 2023)

Most miserable
when she’s happy

Most shameful
when she’s proud

Most prescient
when unconscious

Most distant
in a crowd

Most forthright
when not speaking

Most giving
when denied

Most secret
when she’s telling all

Most dead
—but still alive

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)

The end layers over the beginning
in contours of time
Blanketing the middle
in consorts of connection
Rescuing the lost from themselves
—saving the foundling’s parade

(Dreamsleep: September, 2022)

Love entitled
hate defaults
—buying back the time

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)

The temperature frozen
Old sticks in the mud
New tracks are untrodden
Lost dreams from above
The raisins in darkness
All pits buried deep
The moon shines unfaithful
Recounting of sheep
The doctors watch broken
Your time shorter still
His prognosis a token
Beyond suture or pill
He asks if you’re ready
You say that you’re not
He asks if it matters
You ask if it ought
And into the night
You begin once again
To hurry the ending
To reach beyond blame
And all of the hate
You then leave behind
To warn all those jaded
Of what they’re never to find
"Partisan dreamer
Audience of one
Killer of grammar
Words on the run
Paragraph’s jilted
The undotted ‘I’
The meaning now freed
All language denied
Rhythm of opportunity
Children of hope
Seizing the moment
Not dropping the soap
Stretching the limits
Crossing the line
To beat a new cadence
Time begs to shine"
You want it to make sense
You want it to seem clear
As your feigned self importance
No longer precious or dear
But the only one caring
And that still in doubt
A mirrored reflection
Of what time has cast out
You head off to work
Your laser untagged
The morning unvetted
Coworkers who brag
The lunch break upon you
Again eating alone
The steak is served raw
Chewed right to the bone
The banter around you
Seems damning at best
The shroud that surrounds you
To defile or to bless
“You gain nothing by trying”
You gain nothing you say
As you then begin crying
For that one gone away
That girl in the tall grass
That girl in your arms
Went to be with another
When you bartered your charms
Her daughter is grown now
Some say looks like you
Could it be then you wonder
When the times were so few
You pay the cashier
As you walk slowly out
This bill had been dear
More than you had allowed
With the bone in your pocket
You head back to your desk
As the cry of a mockingbird
Decries and behests
Your pen running dry
As your mind starts to write
On your third eye a sty
Melding vision with sight
And its then that you notice
Hanging pink and in front
And you know that your future’s
A dog that can’t hunt
So you walk to his office
And sit down in the chair
You look at him soulless
And try not to care
He explains “That he’s sorry”
That “The timing’s not right”
He says that you’re valued
But be gone by tonight
As you clean out your desk
A new feeling partakes
You look up to the ceiling
Lost in all that’s at stake
And that feeling is good now
That feeling seems right
As the feeling then pushes
As the feeling alights
You decide now emboldened
To stop on the way home
At the house of that one
You left forever alone
You heard of divorce
You wonder how bad
The damage it left her
Was it worse than you had
As you slow down your car
She stands in the yard
As you speed up your heart
She says “Directions, how far”
She does not recognize you
Have you changed all that much
She looks at you puzzled
As you long for her touch
And you drive away empty
As you drive away cold
And you drive away blackened
From your heart to your soul
But your path is now clear
You’ve just one place to go
As those things that you feared
Have now falsely been shown
And you walk in her kitchen
The door never had locked
Standing there and still smitten
The one you thought had forgot
“Was that you in the car earlier
Was that you, really you
I couldn’t believe it
Because I still love you, I do”
A reward wrapped in burlap
The priciest kind
Where if never rejected
You are never to find
So make just one promise
To then promise again
To be true to your feelings
From beginning to end
"Sages and broomsticks
motherless pearls
Witches who threaten
fatherless girls
New curse of the ages
old grudges remain
A coven of stages
to hide from the rain
And the mark then of Satan
the touch of the Lord
To the death plated sunset
and the winner forlorn"
The trap in this quandry
which you must break out
As with all ***** laundry
to first burn and then shout
As the truth is not distant
a true word never feigned
And the peace that you’re seeking
still inside and unclaimed
So let go of the dogma
and the medals will melt
Your deck full of aces
all cards are redealt
But the moment is now
and the moment is clear
Once the moment is chosen
new joy spun from fear
So to those who will threaten
with eternity ******
Say “Away with your blasphemy
stop where you stand”
Your wings have resprouted
your eyes looking in
A new life has been started
—you’re blessed to begin

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)