Can your intelligence

   wound your spirit

 

Can your mind

  entrap your soul

 

Can your hopes and wishes,

  logic kill

 

Can damnation

  be the toll

 

 Or

 

Can a promise

  wed tomorrow

 

Can the future

  slay the past

 

A lifetime spent,

  a moment earned

 

With love

  —the thing that lasts

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2019)

 

“When staring death in the face…

   never look back over your shoulder”

 

(From My Novel: ‘Death From The Sky’)

Is the artist in me a liar,

  or the one who walks outside

 

Are my words and deeds in conflict,

  which to breathe and which to hide

 

Would King Solomon have an answer,

  to this split I often feel

 

Would salvation hold my name in check,

   as today my soul to deal

 

Do excuses, like good intentions,

  pave the way, perdition shown

 

Do the reasons then abandon,

  idle hope when left alone

 

Can the spirit claim what time has lost,

  in it’s quest to stay inspired

 

Can the truth once lit inside my heart

  —set all kindled lies afire

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

My pen would be dry if the world

  were the only cry for more

 

But Laura’s voice from within,

  asserts with solemn command

 

Kindling my eternal fire—stoking the

  questioning cord

 

Burning away the doubt

  —turning me back around

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

An apostle of verse,

  a peasant of prose

 

To inspire divine,

  to explain—Heaven knows

 

(Wayne Pennsylvania: June, 2019)

It’s you I like…

Not your lifestyle

Not your sexual preference

Not your political persuasion

Not your skin color

Not your nationality

Not your choice of religion

Not your lineage

Not your wealth or poverty

   —it’s you I like

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2019)

I hate the ‘Body

Politic’

 

Whose wave blasphemes

and grows

 

I battle to swim against

its tide

 

Or be abandoned in its

flow

 

I hate the way it stunts

my voice

 

‘Old Dominions’ chosen

side

 

I hate the fact—it’s hate

I feel

 

With the truth a captive

lie

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

Inspired By My Friend & Poet Neal Hall   

Did you edit away the fire,

  in your attempt to be correct

 

Do your words make you a liar,

  as they break and disconnect

 

Is that order you chased after,

  now a deserted no-mans land

 

With your mind and spirit sinking

  —in a literate quicksand

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

The most important things don’t need a reason

  —just because

 

The falling leaves beyond their season

  —just because

 

The sun trades the night to the rising moon

  —just because

 

The lateness that brings one last final adieu

  —just because

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)

Copyright 2016 Kurt Philip Behm

There’s a hope that exists beyond reason,

  like the refrain of a well written song

 

There’s a tragedy entrapped in each season,

  where right is still captive of wrong

 

There’s an Angel waiting to take you to heaven,

  across that river of torrent and pain

 

Where true joy in the act of forgiving

  —washes guilt completely free of its stain

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2016)