While sitting as one

in my grandfather’s chair   

Gunsmoke on screen

a Dodge City affaire

 

Saturday night

as two spirits entwine

Matt Dillon to marshal

— our hopes redefined      

 

(The New Room: December, 2025)

 

Dark Angel

of memory

returning to haunt

 

Those musings

left orphaned

bone stricken and gaunt

 

In shadows

defining

what sleep can’t abide

 

I’m forced to remember

what time

— cannot hide

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2025)

 

The shortest route to eternity

—  the Warrior

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2025)

Inheriting

my shadow

Its legacy

dark

Willed into

my memory

Devoid

of a spark

 

No light

to define it

Or outline

inscribed

The emptiness

preying 

Where ancestor’s

— cry

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2025)

The Ancestral Pen

when passing down

to heirs apparent

is thus endowed

 

Its ink distilling

what time cannot

a legacy willing

what can’t be bought

 

The Ancestral Pen

rewrites the tome

of generations

that sat the throne

 

From voices distant

to voices near

the torch is passed

— the future clear

 

(The New Room: December, 2025)

Spreading like covid

your words it infects

Through vowels into consonants

each phrase it subjects

 

No drug can divert

fated spores on the wind

Arriving like locusts

attacking within

 

The Muse has been stricken

her voice it impales

While spreading to others

each time you exhale

 

The body count deepens

your messaging damned

No cure in the offing

— dead silence at hand

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2025)

In the end

there is only

one truth

 

In the end

one Voice

coming through

 

In the end

a chorus

of joy

 

In the end

His love

to employ

 

In the end

alone

with my thoughts

 

In the end

no longer

distraught

 

In the end

all fortune

beholds

 

In the end

His arms

— to enfold

 

(First Book Of Prayers: December, 2025)

 

 

Everything …

both before

and after

— comes down to now

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2025)

Writing pretty words

you hide from the truth

Arrangement your mantra

all substance eludes

Masked behind structure

embedding each line

An empty betrayal

— in meter and rhyme

 

(Dreamsleep: December, 2025)

“To sound

like bacon smells”

Bonnie said to me

in jest

In the Spring

of 1970

At Penn State’s

— Colloquy Fest

 

(Bonnie Raitt & Son House: Spring 1970)