From the depths
of your spirit
new voices to call
But their capture
in words
the hardest of all
As the past
and the future
fall farther behind
Old whispers cry out
each new moment
defined
(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2013)
From the depths
of your spirit
new voices to call
But their capture
in words
the hardest of all
As the past
and the future
fall farther behind
Old whispers cry out
each new moment
defined
(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2013)
Intoxicant of sublimation
New ruler of alienation
The channels change
As the mind stops,
And the images
Fall away
(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2013)
Late September holds onto the summer
like that promise you made
—you can never forget
Late September holds onto the summer
as shadows fall distant
—and memory regrets
(Amherst Massachusetts- September, 2013)
Your brightness, your smile
changed my life
As your spirit
recharged my heart
With the strength of
your father and mothers’ love
Only great things
your life will impart
Listen to that voice
above all others
The one that calls
from inside
And marry your will
unto your heart
All heaven to bless
—and to guide
(Lansdale Pennsylvania: April, 2013) To My Granddaughter Parker On Her Christening
A few seconds of eternity
two more than you’ll need
One moment of profundity
fog gone—vision freed
(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2013)
Under the shroud of blind obedience,
the Church forever hides
Its loyalty to the Pope and Rome,
it chides and chides and chides
Canon Law and its corrupted faith
walk proudly side by side….
“Where a child of eight
in parochial school
was brainwashed deep inside”
But guilt then crumbled, damnation cursed
by heavens light deposed
The truth and God now one again
—the demon lie exposed
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2013)
The reason you can change things for the better or worse is because they did not happen in the ‘past’
and will not happen in the ‘future—they happened now, in the ever expanding perpetual present.
You can make up for things that you’ve done, you can lose weight that you’ve gained, you can apologize for hurts that you’ve caused, because you’re still connected to them…in the present moment, not in some isolated disconnected ‘timeframe’ that we mistakenly refer to as the ‘future’ or ‘past.’
You can love someone you’ve never met, or worship a deity exposed from within and beyond because of this connection. If it were broken, there would be no way to connect—or reconnect—with yourself.
It seems easy and convenient to compartmentalize large parts of our lives into the disconnected ‘past’ and ‘future,’ but the unreality here is total. Things only happen in the present. We cannot escape anything—most assuredly ourselves—by creating these temporal oasis,’ where we deceive ourselves into believing that those places are over and past, or in the case of the future—still yet to happen.
The only reality is the one that has always been and forever will be—the ever expanding moment of the perpetual present.
The present needs neither to be attacked nor defended—it just is! It needs only to be lived, as if you had any other choice. Every motion you perform, every thought you conceive, every feeling you feel, happens only in the present.
The suspect emotions—guilt and fear—are normally associated with the ‘past’ (guilt) and the ‘future’ (fear). By fully living within the present moment, the effects of those two emotions are mostly negated. Our whole concept of management is based on data from the ‘past’ and trying to apply it to the ‘future.’ That data, if you will, only has value when it is experienced in the present.
Love, as an emotion, can only be felt now. It can be remembered, and it can be hoped for, but only
experienced in the moment of its release. What are emotions other than the instantaneous celebration of the here and now.
Dreams, and dream-sleep are the natural connectors where rational thought ends and divine thought begins. The whole notion of contradiction rests comfortably within our dreams, and often within our religious beliefs.
The notion of the Holy Trinity (3 distinct persons in one God) is the bedrock of both spiritual and theological Christian dogma. It is central to the belief that God exists on more than one level. So does human existence.
Native Americans, Muslims, Christians, and Jews share this common thread in their beliefs. So often, whether it be Moses, Jesus, Mohammed or Crazy Horse, leaders of their respective tribes went off into the wilderness to receive spiritual enlightenment through a dream or apparition. Native Americans refer to this as a ‘Vision Quest.’
The constraints of rational thought are abandoned here (sorry Jesuits), and the notion of contradiction seems as natural and free-flowing as any other thought. Enlightenment is reached through a higher power, and is not dependent on facts or mistaken empirical knowledge. Only in these isolated endeavors, away from the confusing and misleading structure of what we call society, can true knowledge occur.
Unanswered questions open up spaces into a new consciousness here, and we do not have to dig our heels in to defend—or pledge allegiance to—facts that can only hold us back, imprisoning us to be something other than ourselves.
The very thing that causes us to question is the thing calling out to us—from deep inside ourselves—to return. Dreams, once again, become the fastest way to cross this threshold from a fact based unreality to the beginnings of true knowledge within the gifted moment and its perpetual presence.
(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2013)
Through the eye of the needle
Not to the left or the right
Dodging both on the comets tail
I streak into the light
My last wish out in front
As words melt in a fiery contrail
And with only one question
To weaken my heart
With only one thing to know
The seasons entwine
All beanstalks are felled
With the exit signs all aglow
I crash through the doubt
Releasing new hope
My affirmation now to reign
And look ever further
Beyond my scope
As my senses become untrained
I feel the loose pieces
Start to come off
A new lightness now abounds
The last burden has lifted
Burning bright in my wake
Crossing over—turned around
(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)
Marking time in present tense
old memories left to rust
The past a distant reverie
its truth beyond my trust
Looking straight into the sun
my eyes reopen wide
A last reflection staring back
—remembrance so divine
(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)
Making love to the Muse
newborns fell upon the page
And we named them one by one
as we lined them up by age
Making love to the Muse
a new progeny was spawned
With death now but a servant
—and each child turned to song
(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)