Is your house built out of certainty,

are the walls made thin or stout

 

Is your mind filled up with questions,

do you live in fear or doubt

 

Is your spirit free or servile,

is your will unchained or slave

 

Is your heart the trowel you build with,

and love

—the bricks you lay

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Senses untamed,

spaces to reign

 

Bodies that die,

spirits to fly

 

Length or by width,

time is a myth

 

Dimension aground,

essence refound

 

Eyes looking forward,

eyes looking back

 

Eyes looking inward,

soul reattached

 

All that was spoken,

providence sings

 

Grand sublimation

—last bell to ring

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Labels…

crutch for the unenlightened

 

Support system

for the crippled mind

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Would you rather die

than be embarrassed

 

Rather destitute

than shamed

 

Would you rather set your heart on fire,

than barter out your name

 

Does your reputation matter,

will your legacy endear

 

Does what others think,

release the pain

 

That haunts

—and drives your fear

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

I rode a painful trail,

because not doing so curtailed

 

Biting hard on Areion’s bit,

all else in life assailed

 

With blinders on I forged ahead,

whose route my will complied

 

Its ledges steep, all fear below

—my destiny astride

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

 

 

 

“The exhaustion of passion…

the beginning of wisdom”

 

A souls inner vision

—the true meaning of life

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

‘Answering James Hilton’

Have you murdered the future

by destroying the past

 

The present to judge

—sentenced at last

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

 

Is there a higher art

than Martial Art

 

To live or to die

—all wounds bleeding free

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

Wrestling with time,

an illusion supreme

 

Its trinity empiric,

three masks to deceive

 

Past, future, and present,

our dreams undefined

 

Outside of their stricture,

new presence unrhymed

 

Rejecting convention,

short sighted and slight

 

Imprisoning our vision,

with capture and fright

 

In seizing this instant,

its moment sublime

 

All truth flowing freely

—unfrozen in time

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)

 

 

Does your past

inhibit the meaning

 

Does a smile work

 to cover your pain

 

Does today lie in wait

for tomorrow

 

Your messages cleft,

forever the same

 

Do you write before feelings

have woken

 

The letters pretty, in cursive

review

 

When your words leave the pulpit

unspoken

 

Do you retreat to the very

last pew

 

Taking refuge,

as twilight approaches

 

All windows shuttered,

any truth to mime

 

Those orphaned moments

 to hold you captive

 

And a victim

—the prisoner of time

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)