You can no more teach poetry

   than a tiger to hunt

It must first be inside you

   from those things that you’ve done

You can no more teach poetry

   than an eagle unflown

If the words just won’t come

  —you’ve got further to roam

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015) 

How much is freedom

  worth?

How much will time

  bestow?

How many questions

    asked?

How many answers

  —known?

(Train From Virginia: April, 2015)

To be quiet with your friends

  and silent with your foes

Creates a thunderous quiescence

  which envelopes your soul

Your enemy weakening

  as truth starts to rain

His darkness expelled

   —by lightning proclaimed

(Train From Virginia: April, 2015)

The words are still perfect

  as speech becomes marred

Intention unblemished

  delivery though scarred

The memories embedded

  all flashbacks infirm

Escape now for others
—their light yet to burn

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Not grabbing

  but reaching

Not pushing

  but pulling

Not telling

  but listening

Not beginning

  or done

Not mad

  but then joyful

Not sad

  but then hopeful

Not before

  or then after

In this present

  —begun

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Is it the main course of the tale

  or the ingredients that count

Is it the entree served first

  or the dessert that surmounts

Is it the first that was last

  or the last then before

As the order indentured

  reverses once more

Was it the things that you said

  or the silence you kept

Was it the moments you starved

  or those times that you wept

Was it for honor and glory

  or a passion unseen

As your meal time resets

  —and old hunger now feeds

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

You’re interested in the idea

  of writing

   —I just want to write

You’re interested in the meaning

  of it all

   —the darkness and the light

You’re interested in the idea

  of writing

   —I don’t have the time

You’re interested in questions

  with answers

   —those one’s I’ll never rhyme

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

If I a man of simple mind

  and simple faith

Could hold your love within my heart

  for just an hour

On bended knees my arms would raise

  toward heaven’s gate

Like petals reaching out

  from a morning flower

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

             ‘To Kathryn’

Poetry’s sacred…

  prose not so much

One to be read

  the other to touch

The verse spoken freely

  in a nighttime array

Phrases eternal

  to outlive the day

The medicinal magic

  that hides in each line

Lifts my body to flight

  in a nocturnal climb

The prose gets pounded

  and pounded again

And its linear sense

  I find hard to befriend

As twilight appears

  from the corner of my eye

Each couplet on fire,

  and I look to the sky

With my very last breath

  not taken in vain

It’s with meter and rhyme

  —I call to heaven again

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

       ‘From The Book Of Prayers’

You can take away health,

   you can take away riches,

   you can take my ability to see

But it will only cause me to feel

  you more

   —as I cry from bended knee

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

     ‘From The Book Of Prayers’