The gentlest soul

springs from the hardest heart

—when the fighting is over

 

(Stonehenge: March, 1981)

The world is becoming

impossible to govern

Each person that island

Donne warned us about

 

All sense of belonging

in mirrors bespoken

The strength of shared values

—our vanity flouts

 

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

Questions

Unanswered

The Heart

Of Existence

 

Wonder

Unbridled

The Key

To Within

 

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

Enter me

like a cathedral

Turn all my pillars

to salt

 

Love me like every last

pilgrim is watching

Empowering

—passions assault

 

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

Trapped in the moment

escaping with rhyme

Words to my rescue

—time after time

 

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

I hated her

as much as I loved her

 

And loved her in ways

my telling would shame

 

Emotion embroiled

in deadliest combat

 

Choosing not one

—but the other to blame

 

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

 

 

Distinction

without difference

 

Where shadows

defame

 

Laughter

without smiles

 

Embodied

in shame

 

Each story

redundant

 

Whose print

stays uninked

 

As eyes

search for mercy

 

That last

—missing link

 

(Las Vegas Boulevard:  February, 2023)

The road to paradise

begins in hell

 

If you long for peace

—embrace the war

 

(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)

What is the substance

of nothingness

 

With nothingness the substance

of thought

 

Where is the truth

in indifference

 

Apathetically frozen

when taught

 

How then to measure

reluctance

 

With action the villain

of time

 

Seeking to baptize

the vacuum

 

Where consonants hide

—from the rhyme

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2023)

You can’t burn out

if you’re not on fire

 

Jim roaming wild

pyre to pyre

 

The only way out

the only way in

 

Flaming the moment

—death rebegins

 

(Las Vegas Boulevard: January, 2023)