The bike broke down,
my money gone,
Beale Street calling
—Memphis in my dreams
The diner’s empty,
last quarter found,
the jukebox playing
—Memphis in my dreams
The waitress smiles,
she’s off at six,
her place a walk
—Memphis in my dreams
The kindness of strangers,
a baby cries,
the sun’s come up
—Memphis in my dreams
(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)
The Sage cried out these final words
as he rose from where he sat…
“There’s nothing beyond everything
—and everything beyond that”
(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)
“All you can be is all you can be,”
damning with faint praise
A lover, not a girl to wed
—left hand falsely raised
(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)
“Blood is thicker than water,
what we had thicker than blood”
All wounds long healed by memory’s salve,
divined from up above
Our bonding copper wire,
wrapped round a thousand times
Till fortune gets down on both knees,
and bows—our soul’s conjoined
(Listening To Bob Weir: March, 2020)
Do you wilt in someone
else’s shadow
Do you fawn in someone
else’s praise
Do you rise in someone
else’s dawn
Do you fly with someone
else’s wings
Can you break the chains
that hold you
Can you smash the mirror
of regret
Can you kill the demon
of envy
Can you end the bondage
—free at last
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)
They come to me phrases,
crying out to be whole
One last bridge to cross,
no fare for the toll
Prodigal wanderers,
not spoken or heard
My breath used as payment
—conveying the words
(Villaova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)
If you’re not willing to fight the fire
—you’re entitled to the flames
(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)
Reading poetry to enhance your own,
beguiling
at the least
An intention maybe well inclined,
but it’s bread
without the yeast
Only fire and ice can make the Bard,
to burn and melt
within
Your Muse to christen each child true born,
adoption
—not akin
(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: March, 2020)
Is a poem ever really done,
can the last word not begin
The Angels voting lines impearled
each phrase into a hymn
Is a poem ever given back,
to whom the words behold
Each letter turned into a string,
—a harp of heaven’s gold
(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)
Writing outside the body,
in the control room of the mind
The blueprints of our D.N.A.,
left for me to find
The root cause of the madness,
‘where thoughts and feelings meet’
No blood yet spilled, no demons killed,
free will lay sound asleep
The choices raw and waiting,
to be right but often wrong
My pen writes down today’s decree,
in the lyrics of a song…
“With eyes on fire you’ll see your way
through darkness that belies
“While remembering the sanctity,
this womb did once provide
“Decide with what I now endow,
your heart, and not your head
“To faith proclaim, yourself ordained
—and love your soul to wed”
(Rosemont College: March, 2020)
An Anthology Of Perception 