Old age brings
delusion
Youth the vengeful
liar
Caught between
confusion reigns
As time restokes
the fire
Tweedledee
and Tweedledum
The Brothers Grimm
delight
What doesn’t rob
by light of day
Will steal from you
at night
Wisdom rots on
twisted vines
That choke
the palace walls
Where jesters climb
in ill attempts
To heed the
emperor’s call
Senility
humility
Where folly
once was young
The years have come
the tears have stayed
—tomorrow on the run
(The New Room: August, 2023)
Never able to break on through
caught in the time capsule
of yesterday’s tomorrow
he wandered alone …
Searching the darkened streets
of Santa Monica
hearing the music—chasing the words
dancing as demons followed behind
Channeling ancient voices
trapped outside a future closed
to his irreverent questioning
—lost within the storm
(To JDM: August, 2023)
The way they come to me
the way that they’re heard
And written in haste
whether rich or absurd
Each vowel from the anthem
of consonant rhymes
Pronouncing arrhythmic
with hopes to define
Religiously deigning
the blood from my pen
New veins on the parchment
—alive from within
(Dreamsleep: August, 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)
I have been wrong
more times than I’m right
Intentions misguided
in search of the light
Each time I have stumbled
each time that I’d fall
New chance for redemption
those voices on call
My pathway hard trodden
the ruts and the stones
Defining a journey
where wishes atone
Whose last steps once taken
though battered and torn
Emerge from the darkness
—my spirit reborn
(Dreamsleep: August, 2023)
What did I leave
my family
What have I left
to my kids
What did we share
together
Why would they ever
forgive
The things I kept
inside me …
The times I sat
alone …
The things I hid
in silence …
Those times
—that haunt me so
(The New Room: August, 2023)
Words are like paint
your voice is the brush
The image though spoken
both vivid and lush
Each page but a portrait
your canvas when bound
Today and tomorrow
—eternity’s sound
(The New Room: August, 2023)
A simulated consciousness
beyond our will to choose
Defying Einstein, Bohr, and Hume
where logic stands defused
The matter at hand can’t matter
when rules unwrite themselves
An order once thought preordained
—entropic and indwelt
(The New Room: August, 2023)
Pounding each key
like a Fender Rhodes
the computer bent and wailed
Bits and bytes
of encrypted language
messages derailed
Memory freezes
last chance rebooted
restart zero-sum
The riff uncapped
its printout fading
—typeface on the run
(The New Room: 8/6/2023)
Nothing more powerful
than speaking the truth
Pangs of deception
beguile uncouth
Spoken immortal
knighted profound
Today and tomorrow
—veracity crowned
(Dreamsleep: July, 2023)
An Anthology Of Perception 