Victim of format,

prisoner of rhyme

 

Inmate of vision

—exile sublime

 

(Monmartre France: April, 1978)

Closeted belief…

 atheist’s disguise

 

Slings and arrows,

 boomerang’s surprise

 

Empty of graces,

desperate to fill

 

Shot through the heart

—their spirits to kill

 

(Noon Mass: St. Thomas of Villanova Chapel, February, 2020)

If you could lock up three words

to keep forever,

that were yours and yours alone

 

What three would you choose

that were not ‘I Love You,’

your heart to save and own

 

Three magical words

to live within,

now yours forever more

 

Three magical words

to light the way

—and open every door

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)

If you could lock up three words

to keep forever,

that were yours and yours alone

 

What three would you choose

that were not ‘I Love You,’

your heart to save and own

 

Three magical words

to live within,

now yours forever more

 

Three magical words

to light the way

—and open every door

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)

Ordinary moments

for ordinary people,

living inside the dream

 

Like comfortable shoes,

a dog that won’t leave you,

treasures to esteem

 

Ordinary moments

for ordinary people,

the rest to scratch and claw

 

To get to a place

they’ll never find

—condemned to hem and haw

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)

A gathering of Angels,

a welcoming hymn

 

Escape and deliverance

—call from within

 

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)

I’m going to watch you die…

but before I do

I will foretell your story

 

The story of the White Bird

The Great Mystery

and the Silver Seed

 

The White Bird carries

in its talons

the Silver Seed of all mankind

 

A seed that will allow you

to move past what you have been afraid

of for so long

 

When the White Bird

passes overhead

it will drop the Silver Seed

 

You must be dead

before the seed

touches the ground

 

Then, the White bird

will turn into

the legendary Hawk of Thunder

 

And carry you off

into the land

of the great Wakan Tanka

 

The decision to leave

being yours

and yours alone

 

Passing beyond

what time has frozen

—passing beyond what then has been

 

(Pine Ridge South Dakota: August, 2011)

Hammering the dark silence,

Thor bludgeons the night

 

Releasing with thunder

—a storm gods delight

 

 

(Dreamsleep: February, 2020)

Clapton’s first three chords,

 his last three chords,

 my words have done the same

 

Verses once muddled,

distant and skewed,

now thunder down like rain

 

The syllables left

are short and pointed,

their edges razor sharp

 

To cut the remaining

clinging vines

—setting fire to the dark

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)

Science…

mankind’s great attempt

—to become Divine

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2020)