Stating a positive
about a negative
Knowing nothing
—and sure of the fact

(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)

1: Be Yourself
2: Be Cheerful
3: Be Consistent
4: Be Spontaneous
5: Be Loyal
6: Be Courageous
7:  Be Grateful
8: Be Tolerant
9: Be Open Minded
10: Be A Friend

(The New Room: April, 2021)

Viewed from a distance
—we all fade to insignificance

(Dreamsleep: November. 2023)

From the beginning
we shake hands with death
At first as a stranger
when caught in its net

And last as a friend
bearing gifts from beyond
A bridge for one crossing
past futures begone

While leaving behind
the measure of fate
Transcending tomorrow
  we unlock its gate

What’s last becomes first
closing open interred
a singular journey
—not shaken but stirred

(Watching 14 Peaks: December, 2021)

I remember the smell of beer
going down the back steps
The keg under the dartboard
the men in long sleeves
Being carried by my grandfather
and each uncle one by one
Old Spice and English Lavender
as hugs and kisses were exchanged
The garage door open to the back yard
where music was playing
The bride throwing her bouquet
girls screaming with glee
I was six years old when they married
Eisenhower’s picture in the hall
The smell of the fresh cut grass
and cigarette smoke mixing freely outside
It was the best of all possible times
God and country held us tight
The best of all possible times
—as hope and laughter filled the air

(Family Wedding: June, 1954)

Swallowing
lightning
Teasing
the bear
Dharmic
illusions
Circling
a square

Trapping
a rainbow
Embracing
the clowns
Rewriting
language
Up
getting down

Stripping
the moment
Wishes
that fly
Summer
of love
Timeless
goodbyes

Alice
returning
Virtuous
sin
Lost
in the rhythms
Buried
—within


(The New Room: September, 2023)

California Dreamin…
Momma Told Me Not To Come
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Will Anybody Really Know What Time Has Spun

Hotel California…
Its Chain Gang wearing thin
Searching for an American Woman
Blowin In The Wind

Bill Bojangles Robinson…
preaching Fire And Rain
New York’s A Lonely Lonely Town
dragging Ball And Chain

Summertime Blues and Porgy’s drowning…
Riders On The Storm
Layla kisses Judy Blue Eyes
Stairway To Heaven scorned

Woodstock and a Big Bear Scrambler…
Who’ll Stop The Rain
Don’t Think Twice this Hard Day’s Night
Eli’s Comin again

Hey Jude, Moondance is calling…
It’s Too Late says Ms. King
Yesterday’s Hound Dog barking Crazy
—the Purple Haze begins

(Rosemont College: June, 2022)

Can God pass judgment
against himself

Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed
their essence the same

Faith in the vision, truth at the core
a Trinity expanded

Tomato, tomatto, all roads lead to Rome
—His joy forever proclaimed

(Dreamsleep: October, 2022)

When you’re out of options
—it’s no time to make a choice

(Dreamsleep: May, 2020)

Christened in the night
by rain
at the crossroads
Kissing each memory
that burns
—breathing his words again

(Hazlehurst Mississippi: October, 1975)

Raging flashes
time on fire
seconds flaming
moments pyre

Burning scepters
light betrays
torches fury
embers pray

Blind inception
blistered tongues
motion melting
boiled young

Bars of silver
chains of gold
locks of platinum
ingots stole

30 pieces
forged in lies
minted falsehoods
struck alive

Nights of crimson
skies of red
life has moltened
—ashes dead

(Dreamsleep: May, 2022)

Gather your false prophets
and sycophants
Bury your heads
in the deepest sand

Tell the same lies
as you sing to the choir
Slave to the mirror
—and sleight of hand

(Dreamsleep: May, 2023)

The end of my life
brings newfound freedom
wrapping around me
like the wings of a dream

Lifting me off
and carrying me selfward
dropping me prescient
—to depths once unseen

(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)

I could write a sonnet
or maybe a play
I could have gone epic
in hopes to relay
What snippets say better
in stations of rhyme
And carry within them
—a power sublime

(Dreamsleep: August, 2023)

(short version)

Science wants to father
—what nature mothers best


(long version)

Atoms in the void,
voices in the wind

Long to be connected,
where do we begin

Science wants to father,
what nature mothers best

A baby born beyond their reach
—the Muse to then contest

(St. David’s Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

The bike broke down,
my money gone,
Beale Street calling
—Memphis in my dreams

The diner’s empty,
last quarter found,
the jukebox playing
—Memphis in my dreams

The waitress smiles,
she’s off at six,
her place a walk
—Memphis in my dreams

The kindness of strangers,
a baby cries,
the sun’s come up
—Memphis in my dreams

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

We’ve popularized everything,
from the classic to the crass

In doing so, we’ve lost ourselves,
neck deep in the morass

If everything is AOK,
then what the hell is wrong

Those standards that we’ve built upon
—abandoned and now gone

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

I can’t cry anymore,
or mention your name

I can’t sleep through the night
with fury and shame

I can’t give anymore,
stakes gone from my claim

I can’t cry anymore
—tears salting the blame


(Dreamsleep: May, 2020)

Dylan got bitten
hard by fame
and though wounded
continues to tour

A thundering
majesty
in makeup and veils
jesters by the score

Divorced from
his wandering
a pilgrim of dreams
the past too great a cost

A caricature
of genius gone
eyes clouded over
—Camelot lost

(The New Room: June, 2023)

Running off with tomorrow
divorcing today
The moment left orphaned
— all time astray

(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)

Consensus…
the sum of like judgment

Judgment,
the tool of conjecture

Conjecture,
opined observation

Happening quite often
—with eyes closed

(Eastern College: October, 2020)

My last attempt
to circle the square
anger takes the throne

Isolated
no longer to share
servitude alone

Wandering unsure
things left unsaid
words to disappear

Into the dark
deserted forlorn
heightening my fear

The ladder broken
every rung
unable now to climb

Direction gone
a beggar’s song
—with nothing left to find

(Valley Forge Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

Without
your heart
open
emotion unspun

Without
the right feeling
the words
lie unsung

Without
the right words
the
verse to abate

The reader
in Limbo
awaiting
—his fate

(Dreamsleep: January, 2024)

Biting my tongue
the words choke inside me

Moments digested
—unable to rise

(Deamsleep: June, 2022)

More pressing matters call…
time enough for the truth

(The New Room: August, 2021)

Today is the gift
that tomorrow hides
Alive in the moment
that scripture describes

To live deep inside it
a blessing ordained
To capture this instant
—forever proclaimed

(Radnor Pennsylvania: June, 2022)

If you don’t write
everything down

Then at least take
everything in

Seeds once planted,
ripen and grow

A blind eye
—the killer within

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Suffering fools
comes with the territory
— any true writer to know

(Dreamsleep: April, 2024)

Tuning letters like strings
the words are reformed
The rhyme and the meter
the rhythm reborn

Each vowel and each consonant
together in line
No commas or periods
to block or confine

The meaning inherent
and left unexplained
restated once over
a blinding refrain

To put in the file
the future in bold
the verses in couplets
—the reading on hold

(Dreamsleep: May, 2022)

If consciousness is emergent,
where is it emerging from

The dualists say… the naturalists say…
but answers just won’t come

As the blue hour seeds the dawn,
before the new arriving sun

One question hard, the self must ask
—how consciousness becomes

(Dreamsleep: January, 2020)

I had you
once
before I lost you in a dream
A dream that I woke up
from
where you stayed beyond my grasp

Visiting me each
night
in the bartered hours of my sleep
Holding me beyond
hope
ever cradling my fear

Lending me back to
myself
inside this borrowed joy
Until the dawn reminds
again
—I had you once

(To Laura Nyro: March, 2021)

The mirror calling deepest
is the one that you avoid
Images run left then right
your back turned paranoid

Unwillingness to turn around
in fear of what you’ll see
Illusion as your proffered choice
—reflection waits unseen

(Dreamsleep: April, 2023)

Can our spirits pray
without God at the center

Can worship pay homage
to self

Can divinity reign
in each person ordained

Revering what’s hidden
—indwelt

(Dreamsleep: October, 2020)

Time,
a slave
to importance
when
all respect for it
— is gone

(From ‘Calling Me Home’: May, 2024)

Music is the highest art,
eternity its host

Time enraptured note by note,
transcendence dose by dose

Calling out and drawing in,
beyond all paint and stone

The minstrel frees the poet’s words
—and drives the feelings home

(Listening To Bohemian Rhapsody: September, 2021)

Somewhere West of where he was,
and East of where he’d been
The mountains called their distant cry,
a pleading heard within
The alpine air, the red-tailed hawk,
their spirits hail his name
To thence return, the past on fire
—his freedom to reclaim

(Chief Joseph Highway: September, 2021)

Mountains make poor receptacles
for dreams

Oceans are better at that

The elevation reminding of all
that’s forbidden

Primordial—the higher you climb


(Dreamsleep: December, 2019)