Carrying your heart

Inside my pocket

I traveled the world

Searching for love

When fate was unkind

You never complained

As I forgot to thank you

  —time after time

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

The signpost a warning

  a resting black swan

 

Its flight to perdition

  last call from beyond

 

With roses ungifted,

  their thorns bury deep

 

Last moon a reminder

  a reckoning steep

 

The doctor’s watch broken

  your time shorter still

 

His prognosis a token

  beyond suture or pill

 

He asks if you’re ready,

  you say that you’re not

 

You ask if it matters…

  the main lesson untaught

 

And into the night

  you try once again

 

To find deeper meaning

  to reach beyond blame

 

But those last final minutes

  only serve to remind

 

What the jaded and hoping

   —are never to find

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

A Warrior’s tears…

  blood from above

 

His fury unleashed

  in a most perfect love

 

Though few understand it

  a life heaven loaned

 

Dying immortal

   —to be welcomed back home

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

A four year endeavor

A lifetime of pain

The hours put in

Always fighting the strain

 

One hundredth of a second

Your dream crashes down

The spoils eluded

Someone else with the crown

 

No pictures or news clips

Today come your way

The prize to another

The trophy at bay

 

With pity now over

It’s time to dig in

The reward in the training

New endings begin

 

So head back to the track

Your pool or the court

The bar a bit higher

Your coach to retort…

 

   “It’s all up to you

    As you reweigh the cost

    Never quitting—the magic

    Until then nothing lost”

 

(Watching The Winter Olympics: February, 2014)

The Emperor walks naked

  past eyes fully cloned

 

To his subjects he panders

  his pride for a throne

 

His strut his true signature

  exposure supreme

 

Your opinion no matter

  —he colors you green

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

Writing should be

  like making love

 

If you have to be taught

   —you’re lost

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

The flames rose

 as history burned

 —and memory settled into ash

 

The smoke carrying away

 all reasons why

 —dying embers of the past

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

Never let intelligence

Get in the way of good judgment

Never let excuses

Inside your dreams

Never let the refusals

Cancel out the invitations

Never let tomorrow

 —destroy today

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

Living inside the moment,

Temporal things

Pass me by

On their march to permanence

 

Attached to everything

But themselves,

They stand as false Icons

To a time once lived–then put away

 

A trophy case of remembrance…

Enshrining what was lost

In the gathering

Dust

 

Never rediscovered…

Defining what death means

In the gathering

Dust

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2014)

 

A voice goes silent

 in the distant wind

 

No tracks to follow

 no path within

 

Muses cry

 as shadows fade

 

Their chorus faint

 with dreams unmade

 

The past abandoned

 tomorrow gone

  

This moment orphaned

 the night so long

 

Goodbye tomorrow

 farewell today

 

All hope now fleeting

 —time castaway

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: October, 2018)