The script of experience,

endorsing our wills

banking our choices,

paying our bills

 

Crediting our memory

for what lies ahead

debentures of faith

the black and the red

 

A ledger retallied,

both columns in sync

the plus and the minus,

indelible ink

 

Its summary left open,

all errors erased

with loans to push forward

—new funding in place

 

(Rosemont College: December, 2021)

The cold dripping silence,

day after day…

 

Washes the future,

past floating away

 

Drop by drop,

filling up with regret

 

Drowning the moment

—caught in its net

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)

Keeping it new,

beginning again

clearing my eyes,

avoiding the din

 

Keeping it new,

the present untold

the past but a weight,

the future on hold

 

Keeping it new,

returning at last

to what never leaves,

and never contrasts

 

Keeping it new,

tomorrow on loan

yesterday pawned

—eternity owned

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)

Wise and in love,

be there never the day

 

Where reason and passion

—together will lay

 

(The New Room: November, 2021)

He burned the book on the second day,

its truth not till the third

but in between–his memory screamed,

forever to be heard

 

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: December, 2021)

Church always sides

with canons and might,

preaching of dawn

while blessing the night

 

Holiness shines

among diamonds and gold,

the battle unwon

—till redemption is sold

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)

After the diagnosis,

each moment a dream

of years and then months

and days in between

 

After the surgery,

the dream became real

time again captured

—the sentence repealed

 

(The New Room: December, 2021)

Don’t let the poetry

weaken the poem

 

The structure a servant

—for what’s to be known

 

(The New Room: December, 2021)

The Baltimore Catechism,

mornings at eight

Sister Marcella,

don’t ever be late

 

Its message didactic,

the devil to run

Each question, each answer,

with God zero-sum

 

Who and what made me,

and why every day

Resistance was futile,

dissent not displayed

 

An altar boy’s memories,

his sacristy torn

Still missing the process

—where freedom was born

 

(Saint Thomas of Villanova Chapel: December, 2021)

 

The hooker had saved a piece of herself,

a part kept new not old

 

As pure and pristine as a fresh running stream,

never bartered, never sold

 

The johns came and went, the money got spent,

each trick relined with pain

 

But in one sacred place, her past is erased

—where sun blocks out the rain

 

(The New Room: December, 2021)