My pen constrained and kidnapped

   as ink bleeds evermore

 

Voices cry: “Something More Be Done”

  —fury to rage and roar

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: Dreamsleep-February, 2016)

Are your wishes scribed in combat,

  are your hopes relined with pain

 

Is your motion found still wanting

  as you climb the stairs again

 

Are your words now of this moment,

  is your verse free and sincere

 

Are your feelings calling inward

  —from a heart that’s yearning dear

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

The tightness of the words

  protects the freedom of the thought

 

Whose voice when spoken gently

  —can silence thunder and dragons caught

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Can you separate your art

  from your politics

 

Can you separate the temporal

  from the divine

 

Can you separate the excuses

  from the reasons

 

Can you separate purpose

  from those wasted times

 

Can you separate your vocation

  and avocation

 

Can you separate curiosity

  from true insight

 

Can you separate your duty 

  from convenience

 

Can you separate the darkness

 —from the light

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Choking on its wealth…

America now suffers

The Acid Reflux

Of a life at ease

 

Suffering poor health…

A country now drifting

Into the coma of denial

  —and no longer free

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Social Media….

  the web we are all caught in

 

Waiting for the spider’s bite

  —and our venomous end

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

To change one word and rock the world

   a new verse dancing free

 

Its weight unmeasured, breadth untold

  whose key unlocks the dream

 

The bottle open, the genie gone

  last domino to fall

 

One word pulled out or inserted in

 —new meaning to enthrall

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

Are we truly masters

  of the word

 

Are we really in charge

  of what gets heard

 

Are we truly finished

  at periods end

 

Are we really past the point

 of starting again

 

Are we truly out of sync

  or out of time

 

Are we really tired

  of questioning why

 

Are we truly silent

  if that next breath comes

 

Are we really alone

 —when the ink still runs

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

In the darkest final hours,

  I began to write

 

And my words now spoken new

  from scattered ashes light the sky

 

To begin and end each day

  caught up in beauty’s distant wake

 

All loneliness filled by pages lined

 with happiness and joy

 

My fate betrothed, once mistress

  scorned

   —a lover more than wife

 

Whose vision so much sharper,

  her dissection cuts through bone

 

To slay the muted dragon’s fire

  in present elocution

 

Beyond all past and future clouds

  above the darkening storm

 

To live each breath and gifted word

  that heaven sends pristine

 

Never destitute in blessings shown

  —or in things I wish I’d said

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

Only one thing calls out to heart, body,

  and mind

 

Causing seas to part—where yourself you will

  find 

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)