Your Song Has Sung

Can you write in spite of comment,

can your soul withstand the pain

 

Can you free those words hid deepest,

can you shoulder all the blame

 

Can your heart and mind together,

walk arm in arm as one

 

Can you take a breath once finished,

knowing now

—your song has sung

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

The Garden Wall

Climbing up the garden wall,

the questions loom

—the answers small

 

Climbing up the garden wall,

the past retreats

—the future falls

 

Climbing up the garden wall,

a distant voice

—your name beyond

 

Climbing up the garden wall,

a minstrel plays

—forgotten songs

 

Climbing up the garden wall,

Lot’s wife is dead

—not looking back

 

Climbing up the garden wall,

the top in sight

—the beanstalk jacked

 

Climbing up the garden wall,

I reach across

—all fear behind

 

Climbing up the garden wall,

horizons new

—the choices mine

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

Dylan’s Gone

Dying alone on foreign ground,

death grips his blessed hand

 

Never choosing time or place,

 method certain

—the Angels plan

 

An oak to fall on alien soil,

all seeds to heaven thrown

 

His words cast free to light the dark,

that ‘Good Night’

—now his own

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

To Forever Amend

Trapped in the meter,

a prisoner of rhyme

 

My spirit indicted,

destroyer of time

 

A minstrels disciple,

epistle in hand

 

The sound and the rhythm,

my souls contraband

 

New couplets my jailer,

their sentences terse

 

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 conviction will end

 

My words liberated

—to forever amend

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)