There’s a zone beyond safety

 where the timid can’t go

 

Beyond reasoned decision

 intuition to flow

 

Past valor and triumph

 past glory and fame

 

There’s a zone beyond safety

 —last moth to the flame

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2018)

Like a blanket or quilt,

  the Muse wraps me in consciousness

 

Sealing me in with her warmth

  each night rejecting the cold

 

Like a filter or screen,

  the Muse tempers all consequence

 

 Under her protection and safety

   —words sleeping untold

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

I’ve forever written

  as myself

 

Few influences will

  show

 

Neither Hemingway nor

  Faulkner

 

 Not Melville or

  Thoreau

 

But as one who saw through

  all of that

 

With so much more

  to know

 

 I search the land

   and stars above

 

For ink

  —my pen to flow

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

 

My words the result

 of the times I’ve lived

 not a classroom exercise

 

My feelings all paid

 with the blood of my fears

 not a rambling diatribe

 

My trail has been lined

 with each tear and misstep

 to mark the way ahead

 

My life a memory

 telling a tale

  —whose direction my soul has led

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2018)

No time set aside

The words reformed

Again at their own pace

 

No place to reside

They’re written down

On a napkin or empty space

 

When I try to hide

They find me sure

In mountain or in plain

 

As new moments chide

The past adieu

  —and thunder turns to rain

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

 

 

New blood will flow

  and breath exhale

   —as my steps go far and wide

 

With verse out front

  to lead the way

   —to that promised other side

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

 

Café poseurs,

 internet losers

 

Reflections through

 the shallow glass

 

Virtual wishing,

 dot.com remissing

 

Clicks and bytes

 as the world goes past

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2018)

The Sage brought me to the Muse,

 when I was but sixteen

 

Her face familiar, her words estranged,

 my fate caught in-between

 

As years went on she whispered

 and oft times took the lead

 

To guide my wishes past my fear

  —old wounds there left to bleed

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2018)

Working at looking studious,

  the academic went his way

 

Pontificating what he didn’t know,

  his students bowed and swayed

 

Reading only what was duly sworn

  writing safe, within the shelf

 

To himself was he now smitten blind

   —an intellectual elf

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

 

Words rushed through my head

  clearing cobwebs away

 

All letters on edge

  cutting doors as they played

 

From one room to the other,

  they matched up and danced

 

And from basement to attic,

  my mind was enhanced

 

Without reason, beyond memory,

  they sharpened my feel

 

Until alone they then left me

  —to confess and reveal

 

(Train-Penn Station NYC: March, 2015)