Collaborative Poetry…

give me a break

 

Words borrowed or lent,

the Muse to abate

 

What’s not in your memory,

what’s not in your soul

 

Can never be bartered, rented

—or sold

 

(Bryn Mawr College: February, 2020)

Poetic intention,

hiding in Prose

 

Misplaced and misspoken,

as every Bard knows

 

A narrative run on,

words littered about

 

Neither beauty nor truth

—masked in self doubt

 

(Bryn Mawr College: February, 2020)

We are what we do;

we are what we say

 

As day becomes night,

and night becomes day

 

We are twice begotten;

we are twice betrayed

 

Forgiveness in hiding

—redemption misplayed

 

(West Philadelphia: February, 2020)

Flying off the written page,

words leave their script behind

 

An inked stained palette of regret,

dark figures to remind

 

Voices soaring up and up,

released in open air

 

Imprisoned verses spoken free

—eternity to share

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

Forty years shopworn yet still taut,

the past a seamstress rare

 

Her words reknitted, stitched and purled

—to dress a future bare

 

    (Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

The curse of public opinion,

feigned history of the truth

 

Generations of self interest,

freedom—time abused

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

I’m a Poet

—I need no justification

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

How can you teach Poetry,

or breathe for someone else

 

Sharing what your soul has freed,

deep within yourself

 

Can you cross a bridge for others,

its toll not yours to pay

 

Squeezing blood from wounds long healed

—transfusion’s masquerade

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Must God stay beyond

understanding

 

His prophecy to conscript

and confuse

 

Are the Trinity and

Resurrection

 

Both miracles or only

a ruse

 

Building temples to

edification

 

Storing Icons that judge

and decry

 

Is the Bible fictitious

or sacred

 

Is Redemption the truth

—or a lie

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

The rusting of years,

the flavor of time

 

Calling you back

—patina unrhymed

 

(Ronald McDonald House: January, 2020)