To my home, the words take me

 each calling by name

 

Tearing walls from around me

 passion free, unrestrained

 

Their visions at midnight

 have lulled me to sleep

 

Their message when troubled

 my nightmare to greet

 

Through the long and the short

 it’s the words once again

 

Like the tide on the shore,

 they return as a friend

 

And lately I’m hearing

 an echoed refrain

 

From verses long distant

 offloading my pain

 

These words that I hear

 more whisper than shout

 

And what I once questioned,

 I no longer doubt

 

Through my voice they’re respoken

 to shield me from harm

 

Their peace like a blanket

  —under which I am warm

 

 (Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

 

 

Cowardice and bravery

Not either/or

But different levels of…

 

Valor and shame

A swinging door

Whose facings change when swung

 

A foil to confound

The poets dream

With glory and disdain

 

Bravery and cowardice

Not zero-sum

 —but often look the same

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

Go to school,

 and load your gun

 

The man is coming

 the cradle shunned

 

Do your homework,

 obey the rules

 

The exam’s been written

 that dunce a fool

 

Go to school,
and stack the deck

 

Each grade a face card

 full house respect

 

Dot your I’s,

 and cross your T’s

 

Your promise written

 —no blank degree

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

There’s a great luxury

 in telling the truth

 

A richness verbatim

 no lies to refute

 

A strength of conviction

 beyond substance and style

 

Through the ages adopted

  —veracity’s child

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

I’ve looked and watched

 you turn away

 

Seeing things

 you’ve long denied

 

I grabbed the lion

 by his mane

 

Staring through

 the devil’s eye

 

I bought

 a one-way ticket

 

While never

 looking back

 

I’ve sailed and searched

 the roughest seas

 

My rigging

  often slack

 

I gave away

 all that I had

 

And asked for

 nothing more

 

I played the game

 and damned the rules

 

Rejecting

 any score

 

I stole my fate back

 from the wind

 

Which blew

 from side to side

 

And asking once

 my only wish…

 

  —to leave this world alive

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

Identity,

Born from a kernel of inheritance

Planted deep within a furrow of pain

Growing in the light of new discovery

Reseeding itself

  —waiting for the rain

 

(My Son Trystan & I: May, 2016)

The notion of time

  a potion sublime

 

A bottomless pit

  the physicists fit

 

Today or tomorrow

  the future or past

 

As your arms wrap around it

 —your hands lose their grasp

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)

Nobility,

 in debt to all virtue

  —on loan to the truth

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

 

How important is the music

 to your verse

 

How important is the blood

 in your veins

 

How important is the picture

 to the words

 

How important…

 let me ask you once again

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2018)

Tonight,

I was ready to die,

But death

Wasn’t ready for me

 

Tonight,

I was ready to die

From the past

And a future unseen

 

Tonight,

I was ready to die,

But the light

Of salvation rechose

 

Tonight,

I was ready to die,

But the door to eternity

 —was closed

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2016)