If I a man of simple mind

  and simple faith

 

Could hold your love within my heart

  for just an hour

 

On bended knees my arms would raise

  toward heaven’s gate

 

Like petals reaching out

  from a morning flower

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

             ‘To Kathryn’

Poetry’s sacred…

  prose not so much

 

One to be read

  the other to touch

 

The verse spoken freely

  in a nighttime array

 

Phrases eternal

  to outlive the day

 

The medicinal magic

  that hides in each line

 

Lifts my body to flight

  in a nocturnal climb

 

The prose gets pounded

  and pounded again

 

And its linear sense

  I find hard to befriend

 

As twilight appears

  from the corner of my eye

 

Each couplet on fire,

  and I look to the sky

 

With my very last breath

  not taken in vain

 

It’s with meter and rhyme

  —I call to heaven again

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

       ‘From The Book Of Prayers’

 

You can take away health,

   you can take away riches,

   you can take my ability to see

 

But it will only cause me to feel

  you more

   —as I cry from bended knee

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

     ‘From The Book Of Prayers’

 

I’ve always been good at making an entrance,

   never choosing to stay

 

I’ve always been good at passing through,

  most often forgetting the day

 

I bypassed adulthood, becoming a child,

  as your legions mocked and jeered

 

And answered those voices calling out of the wild

   —embracing everything you fear

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

 

Poor in stock yet rich in spirit,

  my clock does bow and sway

 

In rags and tatters all unstitched,

  with joy do I still pray

 

My flesh is weak, my home now burnt

   just embers to remind

 

Within this trouble and burning ash,

   on the hour

     —my heart still chimes

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

     ‘From The Book Of Prayers’

 

Not a professional writer

Not a commercial writer

Not an academic writer

    —of tomes

 

Not a writer of poetry

Not a writer of prose

Not a writer of colloquy

   —heaven knows

 

Not a writer of fiction

Not a writer of fact

Not for comic depiction

    —do my words then attack

 

Not a writer in residence

Not a writer then banned

Not a writer of circumstance

    —just a writer, I am

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

 

Sitting alone

  among my books,

  growing old within myself

 

A memory came back

  its reflection dim,

  as I lifted one down from the shelf

 

Sitting alone

  among my books,

  I remembered—then remembered again

 

More than just words

  are on those pages I wrote,

  it’s my lifetime of searching—in print

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

 

 

 

What kind of love does a man have

  for the offspring

   —he will never meet

 

What kind of love does a man have

  for the great-great-grandchildren

    —he will never see

 

What kind of love does a man have

  for a future

   —beyond his control

 

What kind of love does a man have

  for those distant

   —yet present enrolled

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

 

 

The Lost Generation

 now lost online

 Paris, a web of postings

 

Its cafes are fed

 fresh verses unread

   —new Seines left overflowing

 

(Montmartre Paris: March, 2009)

 

Using me as a weapon

  and not a shield

 

The Muse would

  parry and thrust

 

Attacking with a message

  that wouldn’t yield

 

She prowled my light hours

  in disgust

 

The sword of my fathers

  hers by right

 

To ensure

  tonight’s salvation

 

Collapsing the moment

  reversing my sight

 

Each cut

  a revelation

 

All time was dead

  its hours uncast

 

As she thundered out a

  mystery

 

Her lightning destroying

  all futures past

 

My soul

  —in forced recovery

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)