Being close to the right thing

Is farther from the right thing

Than the wrong thing is from

Being right

 

To see and not believe

To look and not touch

Much better to be blind

 —and in charge of the night

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)

 

 

 

 

I don’t need flowers
  to have a garden

I just need seeds
  where promise blossoms

I don’t need pieces
  to solve a puzzle

I just need words
  their teeth unmuzzled

I don’t need time
  its grand illusion

I just need space
  re-entry’s fusion

I don’t need liars
  defying reason

I just need truth
—my faith in season

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2017)

The older I get…

  the more exclusive I become

  with distant mountains to climb  

 

The older I get…

  the shorter the moods swing

  and the longer I can laugh out loud

 

The older I get…

  the more vivid the memory

  of what we almost became

 

The older I get…

  with feelings that burn, the future ablaze

    —the older I get 

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

Disappear into your smart phone

 the world outside is doomed

 

Your few remaining human traits

  have long since left the room

 

Disappear into your smart phone

 all life beyond is lost

 

Your feelings truly virtual

 you’ve paid a mighty cost

 

Disappear into your smart phone

 while others stand beside

 

And just like you they tap their screens

 faint proof that they’re alive

 

Disappear into your smart phone

  as time is winding down

 

All spirit tapped, emotion strapped

 your history lost, unfound

 

Disappear into your smart phone

  that bed you’ve left unmade

 

Your spirit cries as memory dies

 whose LaLa land you crave

 

Disappear into your smart phone

  its power now supreme

 

Your knowledge mapped and future trapped

 —your destiny undreamed

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)

What’s that you’ve settled for?

What’s that you say?

From the library of excuses

You reason away

It seems almost this

But never quite that

As the present escapes

And you look further back

No comfort to take

In that notch on your gun

As you fire in vain

And continue to run

But you say it’s enough

It will then have to do

You repeat what’s been spoken

Never anything new

And you look for a club

Others thinking the same

To plead their excuses

Blaspheme and profane

But alone in the vestibule

A soul fires away

And speaks about life

And its maxims today

His message reoffered

But again you look back

The last sinners you follow

Leaving motherless tracks

Your death now committed

To the lies that you’ve told

And your headstone engraved

With letters that scold

Once eternity beckoned

With your eyes looking up

And drawing strength from it

You drank from its cup

But that story’s been told

You’re alone in the ground

Scant little reminder

You were ever around

As your bones become dust

To be reclaimed by the wind

Those excuses you trusted

  —your original sin

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)

 

We are often the

  most critical

 

Of what we are the

  most guilty of

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2015)

My words the result

 of the times I’ve lived

 not a classroom exercise

 

My feelings all paid

 with the blood of my fears

 not a rambling diatribe

 

My trail has been lined

 with each tear and misstep

 to mark the way ahead

 

My life a memory

 telling a tale

  —whose direction my soul has led

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2018)