Only Hope

 

Some come by it

early

Some come by it

late

Some forever

waiting

Hope

— their only fate

 

********

 

Vanity Yields

 

Only as virtuous

as your

opinions

 

Only as

prescient

as today

 

Only as

righteous

as vanity yields

 

Only as

honest

— as honesty prays

 

**********

 

Alan Freed Remembered …

 

What better expression

or symbol of freedom

— than American Rock & Roll

 

**********

  

Not Without

 

No love

without hope

No hope

without faith

 

No faith

without credence

No credence

— without truth

 

**********

 

More

 

There’s more

to tomorrow

than chasing elephants

in the mist

 

More

to each moment

than history

 enlists

 

There’s more

to our joy

than lost sorrow

can deign

 

And more

to the truth

than facts

— can explain

 

********

 

Passage To India

 

Watching myself

transit

the future

and past

Lost in the

moment

transcendent

— at last

 

*********

 

New Verbiage

 

When you walk

different

You talk

different

Each step

a new high

To carry you forward

beyond getting by

 

Releasing

new verbiage

The vowels

in command

Uplifting

your message

That strutting

— commands

 

********

 

Piercing The Moment

 

Hearing myself

think

Sounds piercing

the moment

Staking each

memory

Deep into

— my heart

 

********

 

To Cover And Hide

 

Reduced

to adapt

with my life

on the run

 

Shade

blocks the light

my back

to the sun

 

Retreat

is my cadence

to cover

and hide

 

A fugitive

victim

of self

— genocide

 

********

 

My Lettered Vocation

 

With every mistake

the smarter I get

Those things that I gift

enriching me yet

The quietest moments

the loudest refrain

My lettered vocation

— new words to ordain

 

********

 

Walking The Divide

 

Between

darkness and light

truth often hides

Betraying

its motives

to walk the divide

 

Not daylight

or shadow

it lies in between

Our lost

indecision

and chasing

— the dream

 

********

 

Song Beatific

 

Silence

conscripted

Truth

to proclaim

Verses

on high

Forever

ordain

 

Angels

in chorus

Cherubs

to sing

A song

beatific

Eternity’s

— hymn

 

********

  

Windows

 

Words

 be expansive

New truth

to avow

Windows

to open

Affirming

— the now

 

********

Fouling The Air

 

A pox on the dilettante

gilding the weed

Fouling the air

— each breath that they breathe

 

********

Evidencia

 

Never explain

lost in refrain

The meaning inherent

— for readers to claim

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2026)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rattle

 

Sleeping in the same bed

with death

Hearing it breathing

close to my chest

 

The hours pass

slowly

From twilight

till dawn

 

The rattle

incessant

In dreams that

— prolong

 

*********

 

They Target …

 

Some say …

“People aren’t good

they want to be bad

 

“And dropping their vail

they prey

on the sad

 

“Vicarious evil

they spin

in the dark

 

“Entrapping the

weakened

— they target and mark”

 

*********

 

The Last Hope

 

Everything belongs

to those who will steal

Entitlement covets

the ones who straight deal

 

Ownership lies

in the will to invade

And take what another

has paid for in spades

 

History written

by winners and thieves

Who preyed on those weaker

 morality grieves

 

That final comeuppance

the Good Book contains

The only hope left

— when justice abstains

 

*********

 

Colors Of The Night

 

Memory ill-begotten

in this land

of broken dreams

 

Passion exists

in scant supply

heartache packed in reams

 

Feelings dark

and tainted

in colors of the night

 

Where here I sit

my soul remiss

— with no escape in sight

 

********

 

Sleeping Alone

 

At the base

of the bed

there’s a crevice

Hiding

every memory

of pain

That losing you

has caused

me

Where I sleep

alone

— again

 

********

 

Hope Returns

 

A new gift

every morning

Ain’t rich

but Lord I’m free

 

Hope returns

with each new

sunrise

— washing over me

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2026)

Truth Escapes

 

Each day shorter

than the day

before

 

Each word

sharper

and meaning more

 

Time compressing

the past

implodes

 

Truth

escaping

— life’s final throes

 

********

 

The Enemy Within

 

Everyone lives

with a cancer

deep inside of

them

 

Waiting

like a panther

striking

from within

 

If not today

tomorrow

on that

you can depend

 

Setting up

a sneak attack

malignancy

— portends

 

********

 

 

Within The Lines

 

Verse

is my mistress

Poetry

my love

Every line

my beating heart

Rhyme

sent from above

 

Feelings

wrapped in verbiage

Passion

leads the way

Stopping time

within the lines

Couplets

— on display

 

********

 

Words Rebirth

 

The leading edge

of prescience

A doorway to

beyond

Walking through

the past adieu

As words rebirth

— in song

 

(The New Room: June, 2026)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve

I have a friend

who has a head

we go places

because he is a magic giant

A magic giant

with a head

a heart

& a mind

which on occasion

climbs inside me

to work the controls

pointing me onward

the direction

of the up-elevator

robots stop and rust

without magic giants

with heads

hearts

& minds.

Mallory’s Bar & Grill

When I was young

I was truly young & spent my days

          on a sandblown dune

Answering the gulls

victim of the sun, gathering castoff wood

          by the foam till noon.

All my friends

from the other world, built their lives

          on a split-level hill

Amid two cars & a dog

feeding the brain, seduced by its speed

          forgetting the sky

Cursing the snow

cursing the rain, laughing & pursuing

          their ten-carat dreams

Climbing

the crushed-stone serpent’s back & damning it

          all at Mallory’s Bar & Grill.

Mallory’s Bar & Grill

cars lie rusting in stacks, rubber & oil stain

          the serpent’s back

Houses tumble

as a natural whim as brains glow bright

          & masters grow dim.

The dune shifts

before my eyes, hair graying, skin going leather

          but still the sea

Offers wood to me

the gulls cry, ‘Old man, our living was good.’

          our roof was the sky our house that sandy hill.

Laugh on my friends

of the other world, your house & stars

          were Mallory’s Bar & Grill;

Lift your glasses to the sun

lift your glasses to the sea, & gather at my gravesite

          as the wind & sand bury me.

New Years Eve

I arrived at nine

& already Ids lay

shattered and broken

in pieces on the floor;

They were dragging

the old man

kicking & screaming

out the door;

you would think he’d go willingly

A drink …

a kiss …

the blast of a horn;

no reason to suspect

this child to be any different

once it’s born

A Song For Judy

Judy always liked to dance

Most nights when I’d come over

I would surprise her pirouetting

Before the mirror

One yellow spring day

Judy fell in love with an accountant

Who only liked to dance

When he was drunk

I never saw Judy after that

But I would picture her longing

For the crystalline ballroom

And the hush of all those crinolines

Now when I walk alone through country fields

I imagine Judy spinning from my grasp

Dancing ever dancing waist-deep

In tall grass and yellow flowers

Then too I think of that accountant

In some gray convention town

Laughing and drinking with an overnight wife

While Judy comforts a crying child.

Selling the sizzle

and not the steak

Milking a lie

universities take

 

In debt-ridden wastelands

they prey on our youth

With worthless diplomas

— that mortgage untruth

 

*****

 

Whims That Betray

 

He sobs false remission

to skirt admonition

as his Guardian Angel

smiles …

 

“What’s with the tears

after so many years

and choices rejecting

denial

 

“You did what you pleased

without Heaven appeased

and lay prostrate

feigning regret

 

“This game isn’t played

at the whims of betrayal

And called you must pay

— for what tears can’t correct”

 

*****

 

Love Centered Circle

 

The things that I’ll miss

are the things I looked past

Those small hidden moments

in memory that last

 

Giving up little

to chase what had burned

Distracted I forayed

the magic unlearned

 

Now distant a loner

I look for those tracks

I made through greed’s sand

to find my way back

 

Because there in the center

holding all that we give

A love centered circle

— where joyousness lives

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2026)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The back room

of creation

where much of life

is spent

 

Victim to

the waiting game

where doldrums

reinvent

 

All dressed up

and ready

with nowhere

clear to go

 

Waiting for

that flash of light

to put me

— in the know

 

*****

 

Reality Preying

 

Not killing

time

Time killing

him

The hourglass

drains

As life

grows thin

 

Slaying the

dragon

A fantasy

still

Reality

preying

On folly

— distilled

 

*****

 

 

Stepping Out

 

More than a

lifetime

Unmeasured

by years

Enlightenment

prospers

No doubting

or fear

 

Stepping out

of the circle

And into the

light

Dimension

is truant

With reference

— contrite

 

*****

 

One Slip

 

Life

on the edge

where finality

threatens

Hope

meets disaster

both tightening

their grip

 

Never

look down

with redemption

above you

One slip

and the promise

 of glory

— submits

 

*****

 

 

Darkness Retreating

 

Writing

to a standard

new standards

are drawn

Light

disinfecting

a bevy

of wrongs

 

Writing

to a standard

the truth

is upheld

Darkness

retreating

deception

— expelled

 

*****

 

To Bask In Its Presence

 

Writers

have a double edged

courtship with time

Cutting both ways

past and future

defined

 

But the moment’s

unwritten

unspoken unrhymed

To bask in its

presence

— you live it sublime

 

(The New Room: June, 2026)

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s for the losers

what’s for those lost

 out of the spotlight

alone in the frost

 

What’s for those orphaned

from acceptance and fame

who live out their lyrics

— in search of a name

 

*****

 

Baby Steps

 

It’s amazing the things

you think you can still do

once you’re really too old to do them

 

It’s amazing the excuses

you cling to with dear life

 the facts dead set against them

 

With each new passing day

your vision conforms

to the fantasy growing inside you

 

Until time runs its course

with the hourglass dry

 and set free — baby steps in the queue

 

*****

 

Prescience Surrounds

 

Happening — slow

remembering — fast

Time’s rearview mirror

spins life in a flash

 

This minute in real time

the past is abridged

Those days in between

neither one will forgive

 

With every step forward

there’s two taken back

Where fate trails behind you

and poised to attack

 

Until the epiphany

of prescience surrounds

And frees you from both

— in this moment profound

 

*****

 

Arteries Free

 

An angering hemorrhage

of violence old

America needing

a tourniquet bold

 

A triage in process

new choices to make

To save what is reasoned

and lessen its fate

 

Defending each stitch

with sutures retained

No bandage is needed

when blood is contained

 

Once over the trauma

there’s hope in the wind

Its arteries free

— of the deadliest sin

 

*****

 

L’ Optique

 

Away from the

darkness

not into

the light

 

A glass when

refilled

halfway up

‘is what might …’

 

What might be

half empty

what might be

half full

 

One thing

or the other

a parallax

— lull

 

*****

 

 

A Reminder

                                                                                         

Tomorrow’s poem …

it dwells among us

Like the shadow

of a statue

Unsculpted

in the mist

 

Tomorrow’s poem …

implanted glory

That hides in futures

past unseen

A reminder of what

— we’re yet to know

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2026)