Conscripting my dreams

attacking my doubts

 

Each wish is a soldier

whose loyalty shouts

 

Enlisting new feelings

with hope as my guide

 

A liege to the future

— where time will abide

 

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)

Holding on tight

to each moment before

 

The test results come

forever unsure

 

Reprieved for a day

condition unchanged

 

“Your numbers are stable

— but cancer remains”

 

 

(Ronald McDonald House: Phila. Pa, October, 2024)

Someone

 lost in a meandering season

 

Somebody

crying for all the wrong reasons

 

Somehow

married to a new in between

 

Someway

missing what others have seen

 

Someplace

the meaning stays hidden and waits

 

Sometimes

my wishes both early and late

 

Something

infused in the moments I’ve lost

 

Somewhere

abandoned — the ultimate cost

 

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)

 

Angel of the streets

demon in the fortress

Darkness hides the garden

Grace a fallen wish

 

Voices in the alley

pleadings last communion

Wings that fight to open

— fire on the wind

 

(The New Room: October, 2024)

Being what he was

— he’d already been

 

(Dreamsleep: September, 2024)

Worry

changes nothing

tomorrow unmoved

Forfeiting

the gift

 — of a present unclaimed

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)

So much of the time

we’re in transit

Mindlessly going

from place to place

Lost in a limbo

not here and not there

Ignoring the moments

— that set us all free

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)

Up your seconds

stretch every moment

Joy in the instant

— present sublime

 

(Harry’s Café: Rush Street, Chicago – Circa 1982)

 

You can’t wash the pigment

of the past away

Its stain much deeper

than all regret

 

Coloring lost moments

with what you hide

Painting the future

— from palettes of broken dreams

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)

Mortality

fills our lives

with meaning

 

Procrastination

the future’s  

bane

 

Today is prized

tomorrow

questioned

 

The moment’s

treasure

— our souls to claim

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2024)