Disappear into your smart phone

 the world outside is doomed

 

Your few remaining human traits

  have long since left the room

 

Disappear into your smart phone

 all life beyond is lost

 

Your feelings truly virtual

 you’ve paid a mighty cost

 

Disappear into your smart phone

 while others stand beside

 

And just like you they tap their screens

 faint proof that they’re alive

 

Disappear into your smart phone

  as time is winding down

 

All spirit tapped, emotion strapped

 your history lost, unfound

 

Disappear into your smart phone

  that bed you’ve left unmade

 

Your spirit cries as memory dies

 whose LaLa land you crave

 

Disappear into your smart phone

  its power now supreme

 

Your knowledge mapped and future trapped

 —your destiny undreamed

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)

Closing the door on my yesterdays,

 tomorrow looked on in pride

 

Setting the lock on the future and past

 —in isolation they both cried

 

A Savior instant, the moment supreme,

 as the now both comes and goes

 

All memory forsaken in times broken dreams

  —as eternal, the present flows

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)

 

To hurt…

 just to know I can feel

 

To bleed…

 just to know I’m alive

 

The wounds of my fathers

 those never to heal

 

In remembrance

 —the past never dies

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)

Is the truth even electable

   redemption now a sin

 

The confessional a voting booth

  —where liars dwell within

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

“Commercially Successful”

   —the metaphysical oxymoron

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

My level of concern

  goes only so deep

 

I care only to there

  in meters or feet

 

Beyond that depth

  lies a hidden zone

 

Where beneath the caring

  is what’s really known

 

In my efforts to hide

  from the surface again

 

My words become sheltered

  immune from the pain

 

Below its demeanor

  I now call out to you

 

From that place that I wander

  —and keep out of view

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

A highway of regret…

 an avenue of denial

 

A boulevard of hopes and dreams

 where footsteps have defiled

 

A thoroughfare of wanton time

 each choice a dead end road

 

In fated plundered wanderlust

 —dark alleyways of stone

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2018)

The nursery, a womb

   where fantasy begins

 

The clay, the permission

  for the sculptor to sin

 

The keyboard, the staircase

  to a heavenly score

 

The day, once forsaken

   —its daydream records

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

Did you waste your life

  just making money

 

Did you eat the bread

  and not the honey

 

Did you sell your soul

  as your children watched

 

Was your heart left cold

  in a tinderbox

 

Were your excuses rich

  and your reasons poor

 

Did you wake up full

  and still ask for more

 

Were your blessings shunned

  as you scratched and clawed

 

Saying no harm done

  “I never broke the law”

 

Were you teeth all straightened

  and your motives bent

 

Were your eyes detached

  from what heaven sent

 

Were your memories lost

  in some dead refrain

 

As a lonely footnote

  to another’s name

 

If you had one chance

  to re-right these wrongs

 

Would you hide in silence

  or break out in song

 

With your soul imprisoned

  the choice is clear

 

All joy awaits

 —redemption near

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

The light of remembrance

  the will’s DNA

 

Entombed by dementia

 —forever in shade

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)