Turning down every invitation…

the invitations stopped

 

Ensuring the freedom I always craved,

alone inside my thoughts

 

Misunderstood and misrepresented,

my feelings misconstrued

 

And needing to live within myself

—no enmity toward you

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2020)

We live,

have lived,

and always will 

—live in troubled times

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

 

What’s written in the past,

the shadows capture

 

Those words saved for tomorrow,

fantasy

 

But what I write today,

to live forever

 

Alive unto itself

—time’s reverie

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

 

I remember art deco things,
  I remember peaches and wine

I remember sirens in the night,
  I remember waving goodbye

I remember the boardwalk on a cloudy day,
  I remember an elephant in pink

I remember the fire engine returning
  I remember my father—I think

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)
     ‘Memories of the Korean War’

Walking with giants,

each step getting bigger

 

The miles—the millennia,

the search beyond

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

The stairway to God

is music

 

Each step a string

on the Angel’s harp

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

In days of fancy,

you cared for me

 

In days of challenge,

I cared for you

 

In twilight moments,

our love renewed

 

In night’s betrothal

—our wishes free

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

When you become a victim,

the hunter turns to prey

 

And the wolves now beckoned

—call

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

As an artist,

you go where art takes you

 

As a writer

—you become the words

 

(Dreamsleep: April, 2020)

The Gypsy jumped from car to car,

never getting off the train

 

In Davenport through morning fog,

the old town looked the same

 

The prairies waited in the dark,

the Rockies far beyond

 

In Denver’s wind he heard the words

to an oft-forgotten psalm

 

The engine roared, the distance called,

the rails went on and on

 

The desert lit the night on fire,

to burn the right from wrong

 

A Reno stop to take on water,

drowning in the past

 

Through farms and fields and countryside,

to Stockton now at last

 

His feet stepped down to touch the earth,

and genuflect once more

 

Before reboarding, headed East

—perdition his true lord

 

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: April, 2020)