There’s a gene embedded in every parent

  to recreate

  what their parents had done

 

Sometimes good, and sometimes bad,

  passing it down

  from father to son

 

To repeat family history through memories past

  the circle

  a lingering fate 

 

Excuses come early with reasons

  too late

  DNA always proffered as bait

 

The young and the old both prisoners of time

  their footsteps in sequence

  to fall

 

 And when questions are posed why they acted this way,

   they’re too busy passing it on

      —to recall

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

We should be freeing and emancipating

   the poor with opportunity

    —not underwriting their poverty with welfare

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

 

Twilight falls onto my

  windowsill

 

Demon fire in full

  retreat

 

The stars return

  glowing embers that burn

 

In whose radiance

  an Angel will sleep

 

Days grip is unchained,

  the cantor sings while he prays

 

As the chorus cries out

  “It’s unplugged”

 

The sun has now left

  with my hopes not bereft

 

Only the night

  —points to heaven above

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

 

 

If you ask me to read,

  I’ll say only the good

   —in spite of what others might think

 

Once your blood has been spilled,

  and the cut is deep

   —my task to heal, not push to drug or to drink

 

If the pain is too great,

  my heart you may take

   —as I suture you back from the brink

 

From this deepest of wounds

  that I surround and embrace, as a fountain

   —where you may now drink

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Reborn a poet

  and then set free

 

To live beyond wealth

  —and majesty

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

 

 

Overspending the bulk

  of my temporal capital

 

Hourly deficits climb

  and pile into notes

 

Debts I’ll never repay

  stored in vaults I can’t find

 

Words lying uncashed,

  as I write overdrawn  

   

Pledging to go back

  and re-sign what’s untendered

 

 I’m unforgiven—overdue,

   my fate unsecured

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

 

 

Would you lease me your heart

  if I gave you a dime

 

Would you lend me your trust

  if I willed you my time

 

Would you seize my devotion

  with its mortgage in tact

 

Would you love me just once

  —or forever like that

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April. 2015)

Poetry is different

  when spoken than read

 

The words more musical

  outside my head

 

No longer imprisoned

  or held on the page

 

Their freedom unharnessed

  —the voice of an age

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Each time when it almost mattered,

  it mattered not that much

 

Old feeling’s hijacked and held for ransom

  memories cold and stuck

 

But the day when it really mattered,

  my heart was set on fire

 

My will unfrozen and left to sear

   —in a burning hot desire

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

My spirit will never truly die

  as words continue to give

 

My body once committed to sky

  my soul forever to live

 

Voices I’ve carried inside for so long

  now a chorus of octaves set free

 

The songs they sing from the heavens sent

  ever heartened, enchanted—decreed

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)