To Create With Your Heart

Are you technically perfect,

  but spiritually weak

 

Are your words so well crafted,

  your soul cannot speak

 

Are your rhythms unmetered,

  your feelings unrhymed

 

Are you stuck in a format,

  that kills the sublime

 

Do your stanzas all end,

  their beginnings destroyed

 

Does your summation grieve,

  its parts overjoyed

 

Can you escape sophistry,

  your craft turned to art

 

Can you risk all rejection

   —to create with your heart

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)

To Whom You Pray

I reject all your religion,

  in favor of myself

 

Those spewing virtues dogma,

  often kill, with little felt

 

I reject your revelation,

  with the truth inside my heart

 

I surrender your salvation,

  from your guilt I live apart

 

I challenge your commitment,

  when the road gets hard and long

 

The good intentions you submit,

  Hell’s words without a song

 

I reject all faith in platitudes,

and your threats—both veiled and not

 

I refuse to live in servitude,

 and tied to what we’re not

 

I will reach inside the goodness,

  born to each and every man

 

I will choose to see the wonder,

  of those souls who say “I can”

 

And as I look beyond tomorrow,

  to that place we call today

 

I will live in thanks for who I am,

  —and not to whom you pray

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)

To Ignite And Amaze

Can you purchase tomorrow,

  with yesterday’s wage

 

Can you eliminate sorrow,

  still carrying your rage

 

Can you call out the answer,

  with the question at bay

 

Can you set a reminder,

  while forgetting your way

 

Can this moment unchosen,

  be the instant that lasts

 

Can a heart still unbroken,

  survive memories past

 

Can the choices you’ve made,

  set the world all ablaze

 

Can you harness the fire

  —to ignite and amaze

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)

Forever Wondering Why

Some men remain conflicted,

  some men are justly bad

 

Some men are deemed to stay confused,

  some men forever sad

 

Some men will strive for fortune,

  some other men for fame

 

Some men will choose to be alone

   some live their lives in vain

 

Some men will cast their seeds

  upon a desert hot and dry

 

Some men will start to questioning,

  forever asking why

 

Some men to wile their time away,

  lamenting where its gone

 

Some men to live entire lives,

  not knowing right from wrong

 

Some men will cry when milk is spilt,

  some men pick up the glass

 

Some men to try a different ilk,

  molasses hardening fast

 

Some men will try to say hello,

  wrapped in a last goodbye

 

Most men will die alone in bed

  —forever wondering why

 

(Dreamsleep: June, 2019)

Power For Sale

Politics brings out the worst in us,

  if in doubt—turn on the news

 

The denominator sinking low,

  false prophets in the pews

 

All lust for privilege, fairness damned,

  as old as man himself

 

Truth getting buried inside the deck,

   as the bottom card gets dealt

 

Politics poisons and spoils the well,

  leaving the common good to drown

 

Our animal natures, where dog eats dog

   —power for sale by the pound

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2019)

Don’t Blaspheme

Don’t talk to me about form,

  when the feeling isn’t there

 

Don’t talk to me about substance,

  when experience is rare

 

Don’t talk to me about insight,

  when reflection is ignored

 

Don’t blaspheme an epiphany

  —in the presence of the Lord

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)