Making sense of it all…

our grandest myth

 

Wisdom born of age,

bleeding youth’s betrayal

 

Questions dry unvarnished,

cold naked in the night

 

Darker darks reface the cliff,

all edges sharper cut

 

Two images, clearer than before,

preying in deadly contrast

 

Wonder imprisoning the day

—fear stalking the night

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Is a poem ever finished…

or a song completely sung

 

Does today end with tomorrow

—is love forever young

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

My ticket punched, the fares been paid,

a train sits waiting, rails now laid

 

My ticket punched, the past on hold,

a future scorned, the present bold

 

My ticket punched, the whistle blows,

its light shines distant, truth aglow

 

 My ticket punched, a burning thirst,

a heart to quench—new tracks in search

 

(Villanova Station: March, 2017)

Closer to words

than I am to people

 

Meaning,

in place of love

 

Heart felt recital,

 truant revival

 

In script

—to rise above

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2019)

You don’t have to die

to linger in hell

 

You don’t have to go hungry

to starve

 

You don’t need the darkness

to find yourself blind

 

While the devil

—his shadow endures

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2019)

 

Writing…

 the only suture

 

When the truth

 starts to bleed

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

You want to define Poetry,

behind the safety of your bars

 

Open the door to your cage,

a world awaits, whose feathers tar

 

Dusty journals and how-to books,

no longer serve you here

 

The price of your admittance,

an acknowledgement of fear

 

With words only as strong

as the impression they leave

 

And feelings only as sacred

—as memory retrieves

 

(Seattle Washington: March, 2017)

Tonight,

I had a date with the mountain

 

Tonight,

I made those promises impend

 

Tonight,

behind the shadow of my fear

 

Tonight

—the devil smiled at me again

 

(Seattle Washington: March, 2017)

Is your memory a circle,

or a trip straight out and back

 

A beginning and an ending,

or one continuous track

 

Do you see the same things going up,

that you pass when coming down

 

Is retention sealed and programmed,

by things going round and round

 

Without an ending where you stop,

or perhaps just one last verse

 

You rewind backwards to square one,

the past again rehearsed

 

This flux of motion holds you tight,

your perception never free

 

Serving both to mislead and to lie

—in a false infinity

 

(Seattle Washington: March, 2017)

Trapped inside a wasteland,

dying inch by inch

 

Slave inside a rusted heart,

feelings chained then lynched

 

Later now than yesterday,

earlier than goodbye

 

Spooled like thread that can’t be sewn,

the needle asking why

 

But time contorts, reversing,

trumpets call you home

 

Eyes unspoken, voice untouched,

senses all atoned

 

Words on fire with freedom stirred,

reasons scorched and bare

 

A silence brewing louder,

new light burns through the air

 

Eleven Angels fly as one,

and twelfth, you join their throng

 

With wings now soaring inward

—time’s grip left dead and gone

 

(Airplane To Seattle: March 8, 2017)