A motorcycle and leather bag,

life seemed so perfect then

 

When everything I cared about…

my backseat was for them

 

The world was such a smaller place,

ideas grandiose

 

To wander aimlessly I did,

and never be morose

 

The road became my staunchest friend,

new places passing by

 

Those girls I met, the love I spent,

the promise in their eyes

 

That special place my memory held,

for years now time sets free

 

A motorcycle—a leather bag,

and all that was to be

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

We’ve popularized everything,

from the classic to the crass

 

In doing so, we’ve lost ourselves,

neck deep in the morass

 

If everything is AOK,

then what the hell is wrong

 

Those standards that we’ve built upon

—abandoned and now gone

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

To tell if you’re a Poet,

from the first line to your last

 

Do your words connect with feeling

—the future to the past

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Palliative to hospice,

I jump from stone to stone

 

The river waits in silence

—its waterfall unknown

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Deadly to his enemies,

confusing to his friends

 

While faithful to his writing,

—all justified intent

 

Furious in times of war,

in peace his vision burns

 

But past the fray inside his verse,

a gentler spirit yearns

 

Salvation long then sacrificed,

a fate he can’t deny

 

A cross that’s left for him to bear,

but still his spirit cries

 

Through battles mostly devil sent,

and victories sealed with death

 

This guilt the price he’s had to pay,

now felt with every breath

 

One wish at last he prays out loud,

one cry is sent above

 

“My spear, my pen, my will to live

I trade all back for love”

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

My life a poem, forego the count,

that comes in threes and fours

 

The space between to catch new breath,

that time may now allure

 

These moments gifted more than once,

constant in their prayer

 

Whose vow will cast the river wide

—new words to baptize there

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

I didn’t know it at the time,

but my misspent youth was planned

 

The training ground for what I’d write,

then hard to understand

 

The many schools, the teachers chides,

expulsions my reward

 

Postgraduate work for future truth,

all voices untoward

 

The risks were high, survival mined,

Shangi-La, a vagrant’s room

 

My pen disclaimed, all actions shamed,

flat broke one afternoon

 

From the diner’s window I heard the song

that turned my life around

 

As Gregg Allman sang ‘Melissa,’

my true destiny was found

 

And today I harbor no regrets,

there’s no one left to blame

 

As I write the words for me hard one

—my sinful past reclaimed

 

(Strafford Pennsylvania: July, 2019)

‘Thank You, Gregg—I Miss You’