Answer with Poetry…

tempted by Prose

Passions arousing,

feelings exposed

 

Silence your dialog,

 parry in verse

Now more than ever

—quenching your thirst

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)

Money for today

but not for tomorrow

Bees in the bonnet

cows in the barn

 

Poverty lessens

the weight of ambition

Our wishes and dreams

back burner to warm

 

Love for today

but not for tomorrow

Feelings with shelf lives

 spoiled by date

 

The moment usurps

each hour an orphan

Whose bird in the hand

—neither early nor late

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)

Writing the final chapter…

the bells in the tower ring for me

Once for each phrase unwritten

twice for each grievance atoned

 

—as—

 

“Schoolchildren rise

pulling back the covers on the flowering meadow

Singing my words

blessing the fields as they run

 

“Memory half gone

released into the cradle of times rebirth

Taking what I gave

and leaving what I could not forgive

 

“The reasons, the seasons

melding together, flashing lost images

Redeeming their promise

christening new moments forever endowed

 

“Yesterday and tomorrow

I am free of their deception

My last words to stay hidden

—in the laughter of a child”

 

(The New Room: June, 2022)

Hearing it again

for the thousandth rhyme,

still within the present

More inherent, more alive,

each reading

more resurgent

 

Hearing it again

the words still new,

reborn as they’re recited

Bleeding the moment

away from time

—no longer unrequited

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)

Anarchy upon us

in less than ten years…

Nothing can stop it

neither hoping nor tears

 

The Founding Father’s

warning to ring…

“Revolution calling”

Jeffersonian brings

 

The mop or the handle

our floor will be cleaned

The face of new patriots

living unseen

 

Blood will be sacrificed

discord to reign

But out of its torrent

—freedom reclaimed

 

(Independence Hall: June, 2022)

 

The time for words near over

a curse upon the land

The devil plays his organ loud

in chords of dark command

 

The age of understanding

lay withered on the vine

What man had once embraced of man

new curses now opine

 

The gales of change blow deadly

the sun no longer sets

But sinks below our darkest fear

where hate forever nests

 

For those who can remember

as Arthur knelt to pray…

“Once was a time when Kings were boys

—and winds of war at bay”

 

(The New Room: June, 2022)

There are truths

that follow deep into the grave…

The ones you disagreed with

—and the ones you ignored

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)

Sleep

—the required reading of all dreamers

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)

Today is the gift

that tomorrow hides

Alive in the moment

that scripture describes

 

To live deep inside it

a blessing ordained

To capture this instant

—forever proclaimed

 

(Radnor Pennsylvania: June, 2022)

Drowning in whisky,

drunkard of time

Toasting the losers

—dying unrhymed

 

(McGarvey’s Saloon-Annapolis: June, 2022)