Harder vison

 softer rhyme

Lion tamed

—tomorrow thine

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2023)

With only twelve notes

the music commands

Some white and some black

their harmony grand

 

Scoring the melody

eternal and free

Whether Quincy or Frank,

Prince, Peggy, or me

 

Heaven the audience

 Angels out front

Truth for a drummer

Sandalphon conducts

 

All time in abeyance

the chorus in song

Both gates swinging open

—the silence is gone 

 

(The New Room: April, 2023)

God will never reveal

Himself

Until you reveal yourself

 to Him

Waxing eternal with

the Divinity he gave you

Reflecting the image

of His every intent

Reaching inside where His light

burns forever

Becoming the fusion

—of all He ordained

 

(Ardmore Pennsylvania: April, 2023)

 

We’ve abused our great freedoms

to reap the results

with school and church shootings

hate speech a new cult 

 

No respect for the flag

or sacrifice made

ignoring our veterans

despoiling their graves 

 

Our streets wait in ambush

where the enemy hides

to prowl in a wasteland

where evil decides 

 

The constitution a weapon

to pervert and inflict

traitorous courts

with laws nondescript  

 

And blindly we run

(toward the cliff)

 greed our marching song

narcissism the battle cry

—America is gone    

 

(Ardmore Pennsylvania: April, 2023)

Killing so much more  

than it ever saves

Religion the felon

—digger of graves

 

(The New Room: April, 2023)

Poets see verse in every moment

beauty with every look

Pain for every step misplaced

scars that words prebook

 

Poets see light within the darkness

music in the dread

Hope when wishes cross the line

—life to those once dead

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2023)

You say you’re in search of America …

go to the food court at the mall

 

If you can still eat after looking around

—you ignore the Ravens call

 

(The Court At King Of Prussia: April, 2023)

You can’t teach poetry pro forma

it’s the effort of a fool

You can’t gain sagacity from a book

or by the golden rule

 

You can’t be what you haven’t lived

the safety net misleads

You can’t bleed with another’s blood

transfused each phrase deceives

 

The dance floor or the balcony

true seekers get to choose

And write those words their pain has forged

—that dilettantes misuse

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2023)

The end of my life

brings newfound freedom

 wrapping around me

like the wings of a dream

 

Lifting me off

and carrying me selfward

dropping me prescient

—to depths once unseen

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2023)

The raw material of art

is pain

The grandest illusion of all

is time

Whether parchment, canvas,

melody or stone

Each breakthrough immortal

—creation sublime

 

(The New Room: March, 2023)