Category: Uncategorized

The Last Setting Sun

He defeated his family…

this battle was won

 

The war still in doubt,

a General shunned

 

The casualties lingered,

 fatalities mount

 

Old reasons to fester,

in spite of the count

 

His Grandmother’s death,

the last coup de gras

 

The love of his life,

he held her till gone

 

But after her funeral,

his troops on the run

 

Tents folded and burned

—the last setting sun

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

The Hourglass

I wish that I had cared enough,

to mention once or twice

 

That what I wanted now has changed,

old virtues turned to vice

 

The past left misbegotten,

and future long disclaimed

 

The present what I’m running from

—its hourglass in flames

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2020)

A Blue Dawn

If consciousness is emergent,

where is it emerging from

 

The dualists say… the naturalists say…

but answers just won’t come

 

As the blue hour seeds the dawn,

before the new arriving sun

 

One question hard, the self must ask

—how consciousness becomes

 

(Dreamsleep: January, 2020)

No Way Out

The journey kindled,

hopes ablaze,

a future now unseen

 

Moments of ecstacy,

moments of grief,

lost ashes inbetween

 

Cowling on fire,

time a slow burn,

the stationmaster cries…

 

“The tracks have melted,

locomotive’s in flames

—your ticket singed and fried”

 

(Dreamsleep: January, 2020)

The Music Stops

The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a ‘why’ unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an organ can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
As an old woman cries…
And a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There is no door”
—and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)