Emotionally

Intellectually

Factually

(or)

Metaphorically

— say something

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2025)

 

A scant twenty years

grieved a century or more

Poetically perfect

in spirit and lore

 

A man and his horse

alone on the range

The cattle his instrument

and music to play

 

Civil War veterans and blacks

from the South

Through dust and dark clouds

even blizzards they mount

 

Together they battled

in concert they fought

Each unto himself

through prairies uncrossed

 

The hardship and death

to him worth the price

Pushing always ahead

a stranger to fright

 

The only thing branded

to be left at the end

Was the legend he gave us

— and the message it sends

 

(Cowboy Poetry Gathering: Elko Nevada, February, 2017)

The last thing

you should ever want

is for a poet

to re-edit your verse

Better a robot

still better an ape

 if your words to survive

— and disperse

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2025)

Trapped in the meter

a prisoner of rhyme

My spirit indicted

a felon of time

A minstrel’s disciple

epistle in hand

The sound and the rhythm

my soul’s contraband

New couplets my jailer

their sentences cursed

The key to their freedom

locked deep in the verse

And serving in silence

chalk marks on the wall

I listen intently

for one voice to call

Awaiting its pardon

this exile to end

My words liberated

— to forever ascend

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

My mind passes through

— what my heart must leave behind

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

Cometh the hour

cometh the man

 

Time in the cross hairs

— fate to command

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2025)

I don’t wish

to be studied

just

to be read

 

Where daydreams

long scripted

danced round

in my head

 

With words

humbly gifted

each phrase

probate free

 

To those

in whose honor

my best

— I bequeath

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2025)

 

Space in meters

words in rhyme

Life in color

— truth sublime

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

Each day more treasured …

enhanced by time

and season’s glow

As years grow shorter

feelings lengthen

inside my soul

Regret for others

who sleep away

 their lives assumed

As dawn awaits me

to bask in thoughts of love

— and you

 

(Poems Of Love: October, 2025)

A canon fires

a man is deafened

 

But in memory

— the music plays

 

(Dreamsleep: October, 2025)