The anguish of death

  is before and not after

Its portal one sided

—abandoning time

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)

From deep in the current it comes out of the river…

the Mississippi

the Mersey

 Blue Danube

and Nile 

The music living in the spirit of its flow…

the Blues

the Classics

the Tribal

and Jazz

Its waters a baptism for the wandering soul…

 listening

searching

hoping

and praying

Finding ourselves in the rhythm of its passing…

heartened

enlightened

rebirthed

and set free

(Cairo Illinois: September, 2007)

Clouds hovered

the sky wept

grief as thunder rolled

Ripping the sky

lightning warned

—prophecy foretold

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)

Life is creation 

not a discovery

Distant horizons

the palette we choose

Painting and singing

loving and dreaming

Memory a servant

—time but a ruse

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)

“Life hurts more than any death”

say the martyrs—to the damned

(Dreamsleep: July, 2022)

Cigarette smoke and cheap perfume

linger in a dance of remembrance

An unmarried aunt who clerked in a store

her rummage sale pearls yellow with age

wrapped around my memories and my fascinations

I was eleven years old when she died

and I heard my parents say: “Floss was never really happy”

But to me, she always smiled and took a

nickel from her shiny black plastic purse when itwas time for

us to leave…

putting the coin in my hand and a big red lipstick

kiss on my cheek

Looking back, I think it was my parents who were

unhappy with who she was

There were whispers of past husbands and

maybe a child—but no one ever talked about it out loud

In a black and white 1950’s world Aunt Florence

was bigger than their disappointments

Living in the shadows of the post war mid-century   

 a ‘loser’ could slip into one and hang on

She has outlived almost everything

I was encouraged to forget

  and her life has become rich in my memory

 —growing richer with time

(Lansdowne Pennsylvania: 1959)

You can’t burn out

if not on fire

You can’t be hurt

without desire

You can’t be found

if never lost

You’ll never melt

without a frost

Your memory void

without a thought

You’re never freed

if never caught

You’ll never plant

without a seed

You need the words

to have a creed

The past depends

on present spent

The pawn shop thrives

on items lent

The morning lost

without the night

The truth abeyant

—wrong or right

(The New Room: July, 2022)

Those hidden lies

breed louder cries,

deception setting in

What’s birthed in darkness

kills in light,

exposing deeper sins

The poison fostered

regent’s tale,

its message civic spun

For us to swallow

not to chew,

inscripted zero-sum

(The New Room: July, 2022)

They don’t kill politicians anymore

though some might say they should

Those vermin breeding malcontents

all worms in rotten wood

To feast on dreams of hope and change

and sell what pain has bought

They rape our souls in daylight scorned

—no punishment when caught

(The New Room: July, 2022)

Orphaned by the distant wind

as darkness bathes the dawn

My wings have flown beyond my sight

to catch the cygnet swan

A brother to the foreign soil

lost father to the man

Hearing wisps of memories past

old promises remand

Alone upon a falling sea

in depths my heart bemoans

The water cold inside my veins

fresh images I’m shown…

To raise my spirit from its sleep

and chase the light above

The night relinquishes its grip

and frees the mourning dove

Returning messages of hope

to course before the sun

That shines upon my reclaimed self

—my flight at last begun

(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)