I shun the words you long to hear,
my heart and spirit cry
The votive candle burning down,
its flame a dimming lie
My pen to struggle against your will,
and scribe the message owned
That blood has drafted and pain rewrites
—not borrowed nor then loaned
(Valley Forge: January, 2021)
With one pen in the inkwell,
eternity got wet
The words to dance and laugh and pray,
phrasing’s still unmet
With one pen in the inkwell,
the future kissed the past
The moments now, the moments then
—Siamese at last
(Haverford College: January, 2021)
The immediacy of time,
its reference untold
The beginning repeating,
not young—and not old
(The New Room: January, 2021)
Spending the future,
saving the past
Tomorrow debentured
—moments that last
(The New Room: January, 2021)
The poorest among us
only have money
The richest endowed
—with nothing but time
(The New Room: January, 2021)
In the currency of dreams
—you can never make change
(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)
Music can only be heard one way,
words have a different refrain
Melody imprisoned by note and score,
what’s written when read apt to change
The ear a prisoner to the composer’s delight,
to listen—a captive within
But reading the lines that a poet inscribes
ever changing—each time you begin
(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)
The drums have restarted,
the chanters proclaim
The dancers with coup sticks
in shadows remain
The flames burn in tribute
to death songs before
Because only the dead
—know the end of war
(Radnor Pennsylvania: January, 2021)
The lack of humanity
drives zero-sum
Away from each other
a darkening sun
What science explains
its methods conceal
Frustration attacks
lost cogs on the wheel
Desperation in charge
its point ever sharp
To pierce into nothing
but leaving its mark
That human about us
left bare unatoned
Quantifying our passion
—stripped clean to the bone
(St. David’s Pennsylvania: January, 2021)
You don’t have to abandon previous beliefs
to embrace what presents to you now
As windows long open whose portals of light
wrap around each new vision—enshroud
Those messages ancient and all messages new
interlock like the fingers of God
The truth by dimension delivering you whole
—new lightning reclaiming the rod
(Villanova University: January, 2021)
