Open Fields

 Are you judging from halls

  academic

 

Or from places where words

  cannot hide

 

Are your hours immersed in

  false reference

 

Or in a visceral pursuit

  that defies

 

All bias and excuse

  living tethered

 

In an ivy walled mansion

  enthroned

 

While beauty and truth

  run together

 

Through open fields

   —that no pundit has grown

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)  

Your Lifeless Form

Do You Bore Yourself?

 

Do you rent the space

you’re standing in,

owning nothing in the end

but default?

 

Do you recycle words

until their utterance fails,

mistrusting your ability

to say what’s right?

 

Do you hedge your bets,

never going all in

for fear of losing the very thing

you haven’t got?

 

Do you count the days,

as tedium destroys spontaneity

and all energy drains

from your lifeless form?

 

Do You Bore Yourself?

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

The Next Moonless Night

Its chain cut again…

   the demon is loose

 

Deep into the night,

  she hunts darker truths

 

The hallway’s back stairs,

  her favorite retreat

 

Pending daylight’s return,

  when her bite becomes weak

 

Then she staggers back wounded

  to shadows that call

 

Old blood trails lead silent  

  down that dark lonely hall

 

Where a door is rechained,

  and its lock fastened tight

 

 Until a hacksaw appears

    —with the next moonless night

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

Together To Stand

The words once they’re spoken,

  notes and palettes enhanced

 

Not judged in reference,

   kindred spirits they dance

 

While music enlivens

  what phrases will say

 

A painting embodies

  what verses convey

 

And the only conflict

  is in the critic’s eye

 

Who sees not the harmony,

   but comparisons lie

 

As all art travels skyward,

  enjoined hand in hand

                                                          

To the source of its power

   —together to stand

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)