Thank you for the confusion Lord,

    thank you for the doubt

Thank you for those unsure moments

   when I could neither whisper nor shout

Thank you for the people Lord

    who loved me or hated in vain

But thank you most for the girl I wed

   —who took away my pain

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

      ‘From The Book Of Prayers’

Do all relationships

 come to an end?

Through death or disorder

 both stranger and friend

What life doesn’t alter

 does dying reclaim?

Alone in the vacuum

 —alone once again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)

I most value today

 what I used to walk by

And stop to revisit

 what trailed from behind

Those moments once squandered

 when offered again

In joyous acceptance

 —I embrace from within

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)

I used to write early

  but now I write late

I used to seek love

  but now avoid hate

I used to be captive

  of what comes to be

Until time was destroyed

  —and its lies were set free

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Could or couldn’t

Would or wouldn’t

Should or shouldn’t

Can’t or would not

Does or doesn’t

Was or wasn’t

Has or hasn’t

Can or cannot

Must or mustn’t

Have or haven’t

Are or aren’t

Is or is not

Did or didn’t

Had or hadn’t

Do or then don’t

 —you will or will not

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

I don’t care where I’m going

  I know where I am

I’m not worried about the future

  I’ve never been to the past

I’m not sad about what’s missing

  only joyful for what’s present

I am here and not there

  —and my words make it last

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

The winter wind was blowing

 through an autumn of despair

A reckoning was coming

 and now carried on the air

The winter wind was blowing

 as the leaves began to fall

Revealing what was waiting

  —buried deep in nature’s call

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)

The wild talk of the wounded

 words pointed and sharp

The casualties mounting

 dead noted and marked

Each phrase a revival

 ink spilling divine

The wild talk of the wounded

 —dark shadows to rhyme

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)

Pain is the drug

On which many O.D.

Its mainline most fatal

All feelings to bleed

With birth its first victim

And death waiting last

Hiding deep in the shadows

 —of all memory past

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)

Everyone has to be somewhere

 the lucky get to choose

Fate can smile or fate can frown

 the tally win or lose

Everyone has to be somewhere

 unless they’re in-between

Places caught beyond now and then

  —with destiny unseen

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2019)