Do you wilt in someone

else’s shadow

 

Do you fawn in someone

else’s praise

 

Do you rise in someone

else’s dawn

 

Do you fly with someone

else’s wings

 

Can you break the chains

that hold you

 

Can you smash the mirror

of regret

 

Can you kill the demon

of envy

 

Can you end the bondage

—free at last

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)

They come to me phrases,

crying out to be whole

 

One last bridge to cross,

no fare for the toll

 

Prodigal wanderers,

not spoken or heard

 

My breath used as payment

—conveying the words

 

(Villaova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

If you’re not willing to fight the fire

—you’re entitled to the flames

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

Reading poetry to enhance your own,

beguiling  

at the least

 

An intention maybe well inclined,

but it’s bread

without the yeast

 

Only fire and ice can make the Bard,

to burn and melt

within

 

Your Muse to christen each child true born,

adoption

—not akin

 

(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: March, 2020)

Is a poem ever really done,

can the last word not begin

 

The Angels voting lines impearled

each phrase into a hymn

 

Is a poem ever given back,

to whom the words behold

 

Each letter turned into a string,

—a harp of heaven’s gold

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

Writing outside the body,

in the control room of the mind

 

The blueprints of our D.N.A.,

left for me to find

 

The root cause of the madness,

‘where thoughts and feelings meet’

 

No blood yet spilled, no demons killed,

free will lay sound asleep

 

The choices raw and waiting,

to be right but often wrong

 

My pen writes down today’s decree,

in the lyrics of a song…

 

“With eyes on fire you’ll see your way

through darkness that belies

 

“While remembering the sanctity,

this womb did once provide

 

“Decide with what I now endow,

your heart, and not your head

 

“To faith proclaim, yourself ordained

—and love your soul to wed”

 

(Rosemont College: March, 2020)

Moments in the present,

hours in the past,

wishes in the future

—none of them to last

 

Seduction by the penny,

heartbreak by the pound,

rivers flowing memory

—waterfalls abound

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

 

 

 

Who you are

and

What you are

and

Where your are

and

When you are

  is

 Why you are

  and

 All you are

  and

 All you are

      and…

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

To love, to hate,

fruition waits

 

Which mood describes,

which mood defies

 

Those things you feel,

 those things you say

 

Before tomorrow

—beyond today

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

Will you die,

pretending to be someone you’re not

 

Will you live,

defending that someone you are

 

Will you remember

the last thing you tried to forget

 

Will you return

—to begin a new ending again

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)