Do you have to become what you observe
to really understand
To claim a new identity,
your psyche contraband
Must you pass straight through the mirror,
reflections left behind
To truly know what lies beyond
—whose essence you must find
(Bryn Mawr College: January, 2021)
What you ask me to deny,
I in many ways affirm
The truth will not belie
what your apprehension spurns
Believing in myself
and the voice that speaks within
I cast new seeds into the air
—and beckon the four winds
(Haverford College: January, 2021)
I shun the words you long to hear,
my heart and spirit cry
The votive candle burning down,
its flame a dimming lie
My pen to struggle against your will,
and scribe the message owned
That blood has drafted and pain rewrites
—not borrowed nor then loaned
(Valley Forge: January, 2021)
With one pen in the inkwell,
eternity got wet
The words to dance and laugh and pray,
phrasing’s still unmet
With one pen in the inkwell,
the future kissed the past
The moments now, the moments then
—Siamese at last
(Haverford College: January, 2021)
The immediacy of time,
its reference untold
The beginning repeating,
not young—and not old
(The New Room: January, 2021)
Spending the future,
saving the past
Tomorrow debentured
—moments that last
(The New Room: January, 2021)
The poorest among us
only have money
The richest endowed
—with nothing but time
(The New Room: January, 2021)
In the currency of dreams
—you can never make change
(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)
Music can only be heard one way,
words have a different refrain
Melody imprisoned by note and score,
what’s written when read apt to change
The ear a prisoner to the composer’s delight,
to listen—a captive within
But reading the lines that a poet inscribes
ever changing—each time you begin
(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)
The drums have restarted,
the chanters proclaim
The dancers with coup sticks
in shadows remain
The flames burn in tribute
to death songs before
Because only the dead
—know the end of war
(Radnor Pennsylvania: January, 2021)
