Why then poetry …
why not prose
the answer prescient
to those who know
On wings of light
it comes unsought
abrupting time
on breezes caught
Why then poetry …
the world in verse
within whose lines
the Bards converse
The oldest questions
age sublime
within its torrent
—within its rhyme
(Dreamsleep: June, 2023)
A voice that still haunts me
and lives in my dreams
The first time I saw her
a boy of sixteen
She lived just a mile
from where I am now
A treasure so hidden
to whose memory I bow
The Samba and Rio
she took me along
Yet barely a man
making love to her song
My eyes can still close
and return to that beach
where my heart she first captured
—and never released
(The Day Astrud Gilberto Died: June 5, 2023)
In rhythms of today
the silence of tomorrow
Where promise lies waiting
—for hope unfulfilled
(Dreamsleep: June, 2023)
In the beginning …
the past and future
were orphans
Lost in a silence
unnamed until
spoken
Waiting in anticipation
their birthrights
in limbo
The present expanding
its moment
—christened free
(The New Room: June, 2023)
The smallest possible infinity
divorced from first and last
A black hole caught inside itself
—time lost in future’s past
(Villanova University: June, 2023)
An Old-Man-Child
in an adult world
Alone in their gather
of cocktails and swirl
Again but an alien
as when he was eight
The steps to acceptance
he’s loathe to retrace
The pomp and the patter
falls deaf on his ears
Each slap on the back
reinforcing his fear
An Old-Man-Child
in an adult world
shunning their presents
—midst diamonds and pearls
(The New Room: June, 2023)
Living within the madness
the echoes come and go
Channeling everything left unsaid
in phrases yet to know
Time suspended, barriers down
the walls come crashing in
Each voice a memory which haunts sublime
—that unforgiven sin
(Dreamsleep: June, 2023)
Trapped between two hells
we flee from one …
as we manufacture the other
(Dreamsleep: May, 2023)
The divinity of art
hiding in the folds
Draping o’er the multitudes
placing time on hold
Its pristine encumbrance
so gently it calls
Speaking to our purity
transcending the small
The divinity of art
in all of its forms
Its music seeks to woo us
its canvas adorns
And once it gains entry
our emptiness hides
Eternity surrenders
—and Heaven presides
(The New Room: May, 2023)
No matter who you vote for
the government gets in
Left or right, day brings night
with colors gray and thin
The better parts of nature
get worse as time goes on
Bilateral infection
whose cure is woebegone
As hubcaps change in order
the wheels forever spin
Tomato or tomatto
that same old song to sing
A baby leaves its mother
new brick to build the wall
Ramparts trapping all inside
—beyond which prescience calls
(The New Room: May, 2023)
An Anthology Of Perception 