Political correctness…

  the new dirty word

Meaning perverted,

  excuses now heard

It masks and it covers,

  what it most tries to hide

As it preys and then smothers

  —with the vilest of lies

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

Let the thoughts simmer,

  let the words breathe

Phrases gone fallow,

  passions reprieve

Leave the ink arid,

  keep the page clear

Treasure the silence

  —that only you hear

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

Are they waiting for me patient,

 as I’m caught up in the game

Are they counting down the moments,

 till I breathe my last refrain

Do they wonder why I dawdle,

 with an opening so wide

Do excuses stoop to waddle,

 as my tardiness contrives

Is that light beyond my tunnel,

 to burn forever long

Is the torch that lights my funeral,

 one to mark and count upon

What now keeps me in this moment,

 as new paths have cleared away

Is it something that I haven’t said

 —or wishes still to pray

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

The joy in the writing,

  all reading to construe

Spoken loud with one’s own breath

  —a vanity so true

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

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)