To Finish Her Song

Polymath Siren,

her flower returns

 

New stirrings to write

new melody to learn

 

Renaissance memory,

its present announced

 

Freeing your psyche,

past-future recount

 

Polymath harlot,

love pledged again

 

Petals now varied,

spread from within

 

Bouquet filled enigma,

here until gone

 

Leaving always one seedling

—to finish her song

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Five Strangers

Five strangers walked into my dream,

arm in arm, all different versions

of my deceased mother

 

They looked at me one by one,

with that look—her look,

that had been gone for so long

 

The first whispered to the second,

then the second to the third,

as the fourth and fifth just shook their heads

 

I tried to look away, but their presence

followed, and my eyes were frozen

in the judgment they proclaimed

 

My sleep now haunted by what I once knew,

a maternal affliction that my memory had cured

—returning again to infect my dreams

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

The Lion’s Roar

Can you save it in a poem,

as you free the words out loud

 

Can you write it as a picture,

softly drifting to the clouds

 

Can you fill the lines with music,

as the verse begins to score

 

Can you leave a troubled listener,

feeling better—wanting more

 

Can you deem the time now timeless,

with your message in the wind

 

Can you find yourself left breathless,

as your ending then begins

 

Can you defend the sacred question,

for those who came before

 

Can that poem with its gentle hand

—release the lions roar

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

That One Reader

I don’t write for other poets,

God condemn me if I do

 

My words all gifted freely,

to those searching hard and true

 

I don’t write for academics,

as they archive others thoughts

 

I write for that one reader

—whose emotions can’t be bought

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Your Spirit Freed

Do you remember what you’ve written,

can you elicit every thought

 

Does it stay within your memory,

or escape to others sought

 

Is it linear or transcendent,

on the page or in the wind

 

Can you still retain the title

—to what your spirit freed within

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Uncertainties Lair

Sneaking into the enemy camp,

the guards all fast asleep

 

Crawling past the sorrow and pain,

old promises to keep

 

Deep within the saboteurs grasp,

for one last time, alone

 

Burrowing into uncertainties lair

—to despoil the unknown

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)