Are we doomed to be unhappy,

or does it involve a choice

Do our feelings link externally,

giving outside forces voice

Do we choose the pain and misery,

as they cross our beaten path

Can they exist if our wills resist

—muted and outcast

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2020)

Either I’m right

and you’re wrong

Or you’re right

and I’m wrong

Or we’re both wrong

—but we both can’t be right

 

(St. David’s Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

 

Doubt is a troublesome occupation

—certainty merely absurd

 

(Radnor Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

The Veil of Perception,

what lies beyond

 

Our senses and memory,

all time put upon

 

Lying within

or lying without

 

Inherent by nature,

shadowed by doubt

 

Primary function,

will scholars proclaim

 

But second to that

—our reasonings change

 

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

 

Happy is he

who is content with the least

Whose hunger is sated

in famine he feasts

 

Happy is he

who begins at the end

And ends at the beginning

—his fortune to bend

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2020)

My last attempt

to circle the square

anger takes the throne

 

Isolated

no longer to share

servitude alone

 

Wandering unsure

things left unsaid

words to disappear

 

Into the dark

deserted forlorn

heightening my fear

 

The ladder broken

every rung

unable now to climb

 

Direction gone

a beggar’s song

—with nothing left to find

 

(Valley Forge Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

Given facts 

and reasoned truth…

 

Can’t marry each other

without changing their suit

 

Some things our intellect

tries to explain

 

Can you turn off a light

that turns back on again

 

The reasoning sands

and factual concrete

 

From thin ice to thick,
what’s now indiscreet

 

Decisions and choices

are still made the same

 

But to rent or to own

—real estate of this game

 

(St. David’s Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

Can you talk about good

without acknowledging evil

 

Could they ever

exist on their own

 

Can you go somewhere

without leaving someplace else

 

The answer

fairly shown

 

Simplistic by nature,

linguistic in form

 

Contrast

rules the day

 

Allowing for one
by embracing the other

 

Truth to each

conveys

 

(Wayne Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

Is something unphysical

in charge of this world

 

That lines every moment,

unseen and unfurled

 

Scientists say NO,

breathing fire as they shout

 

What is it then

that scatters atoms about

 

Darwin had his theory,

well accepted—unproved

 

That things change themselves

 on condition and mood

 

But somewhere deep

in the backs of our minds

 

A notion lay hidden,

firmly placed to remind

 

This proof we so revel in,

whose truth we revere

 

Has constantly changed

since the dinosaurs were here

 

So try to stay open

as new data evolves

 

Remembering the axioms

it now must resolve

 

And tune in to something,

not burdened by facts

 

The rock of all ages

—still blindly intact

 

(Radnor Pennsylvania: October, 2020)

Most of our lives are lived

in an in-between world…

yesterday and tomorrow the bookends

to what has happened

and what is yet to come

ordering the mayhem in an artificial attempt

at unity and control

escape becomes an option for the very few

who no longer believe in the prescriptive banner,

the forecasted promise,

the dogmatic challenge

—or the printer’s ink

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2020)