Religion…

Translator of spirituality

Interpreter of that never felt

Templar of the self-absorbed

Deceiver

—of those searching and lost

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

 

When the spirit listens

  —the heart forgives

My heart stays in Wyoming,

as Montana calls my name

 

My spurs and bits ‘a jingling’

my soul goes north again

 

Cody up through Beartooth Pass,

Cooke City just below

 

The Great Divide off to my left,

the glaciers ringed with snow

 

I stop to mourn the western tribes,

as dark clouds form above

 

The war call of Tasunka-Witko,

crying out with love

 

My spirit loose to roam the land,

the great Oglala’s words I hear

 

Two kindred souls in one last dance

 —as Wakan Tanka draws us near

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

A warrior lives

like he’s already dead

 

Honor intact,

his last mission ahead

 

Destiny called

by an enemy name

 

All glory to God

—no dishonor or shame

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Polymath Siren,

her flower returns

 

New stirrings to write

new melody to learn

 

Renaissance memory,

its present announced

 

Freeing your psyche,

past-future recount

 

Polymath harlot,

love pledged again

 

Petals now varied,

spread from within

 

Bouquet filled enigma,

here until gone

 

Leaving always one seedling

—to finish her song

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Five strangers walked into my dream,

arm in arm, all different versions

of my deceased mother

 

They looked at me one by one,

with that look—her look,

that had been gone for so long

 

The first whispered to the second,

then the second to the third,

as the fourth and fifth just shook their heads

 

I tried to look away, but their presence

followed, and my eyes were frozen

in the judgment they proclaimed

 

My sleep now haunted by what I once knew,

a maternal affliction that my memory had cured

—returning again to infect my dreams

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

If you stop where you are,

you’ll die where you stand

 

Those choices you make

—to forever command

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

 

Wrestling in heaven,

two Archangels beset

 

An arm bar on hell,

to the devils regret

 

Scepters now grapple,

as eternity waits

 

One rule to pin down

  —a reckoning at stake

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Can you save it in a poem,

as you free the words out loud

 

Can you write it as a picture,

softly drifting to the clouds

 

Can you fill the lines with music,

as the verse begins to score

 

Can you leave a troubled listener,

feeling better—wanting more

 

Can you deem the time now timeless,

with your message in the wind

 

Can you find yourself left breathless,

as your ending then begins

 

Can you defend the sacred question,

for those who came before

 

Can that poem with its gentle hand

—release the lions roar

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

I don’t write for other poets,

God condemn me if I do

 

My words all gifted freely,

to those searching hard and true

 

I don’t write for academics,

as they archive others thoughts

 

I write for that one reader

—whose emotions can’t be bought

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)