Your voice like smoke,

 it calls from the distance

 

Luring your enemy into

 winds of deceit

 

The clouds of your fathers,

hiding hailstones above

 

Disguising the truth

—as you lie in wait

 

(Devil’s Tower Wyoming: September, 1990)

Shadows of tomorrow,

reflections of yesterday

 

Images of the moment

—in whose Trinity we pray

 

(Devil’s Tower Wyoming: September, 1990)

Remembering to forget,

the road opened in front of me

 

Remembering to forget,

the past drifted away

 

Remembering to forget,

my today my tomorrow

 

Remembering to forget

—my tomorrow today

 

(Devil’s Tower Wyoming: September, 1990)

 

The road is your only

companion

When the memories won’t kill you

—but the lingering will

 

(Highway 93 Lolo Montana: September, 1990)

Letting go not holding on,

the closing act of life

 

To make the crossing burden free,

past vestiges of strife

 

Letting go not holding on,

from years that pile high

 

The greatest weight the last to leave

that final one—goodbye

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

I do believe in therapy,

but of a certain kind

The type anointed on oneself,

and in yourself to find

A strength to make decisions,

the will to see them through

To best ignore what others say,

while benefiting you

These words are not capricious,

recovery zero-sum

With judgment not to praise or blame

—its cure the only one

 

(Philadelphia International Airport: December, 2016)

Vacuous dreams

and stolen joy

 

Shadows at dawn,

lost girls and boys

 

Promises broken,

tears deprived

 

Light excepted

—truth denied

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

The thicker the spirit,

the thinner the bars

 

That tiger once captive,

now roaming afar

 

His eyes stalk the distance,

between hoping and fear

 

Preying deeply inside us

—eternally near

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2021)

What is a poem,

be it long or then short

 

When in service to others,

to agree and consort

 

And be it objective,

to run with the pack

 

Its identity loosened,

its rope to go slack

 

What is a poem,

when written to please

 

Each word second-guessed,

each phrase to appease

 

The critic, the pundit,

the dilettante sure

 

Your blood for their letting

—your words but a score

 

(The New Room: March, 2021)

 

To become what you look at,

to say what you know

 

Your eyes to retract,

your wisdom to grow

 

To live by a credo,

to die only once

 

Your soul to take flight

—your spirit to hunt

 

(Martha Browns Woods: March, 2021)