Taking a last breath inside

  the final moment

 

All perception at once

inhaled

 

  —never to be released again

 

(Las Vegas: August, 2015)

Was that dollar Sunday morning

a twenty Saturday night

 

Is that empty bottle you can barely see

the excuse that started the fight

 

Is that torn and tattered jacket

what was once your Sunday best

 

Is your life worth more than nineteen dollars

   eyes blackened—never to rest

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

Inspiration is always there

just reach inside—embrace it

 

All time on hold, new lines to share

the moment lives iconic

 

Words are formed by sweat and tears

not deemed or willed upon you

 

Each verse to go beyond the years

—to seal a memory true

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

Not grabbing

but reaching

 

Not pushing

but pulling

 

Not telling

but listening

 

Not beginning

or done

 

Not mad

but then joyful

 

Not sad

but then hopeful

 

Not before

or then after

 

In this present

—begun

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

I’ve walked at a peculiar

angle

 

As I’ve laughed at peculiar

circumstances

 

I’ve aged in the most peculiar

of vacuums

 

And went on to love in the most

normal of ways

 

I’ve worked in a spirit

of defiance 

 

As I’ve traveled the many miles

from compliance

 

I’ve lived within the confines

of the moment

 

And written those things I

could never speak

 

I’ve seen the footsteps of

giants

 

Made by the intrepid feet of the

smallest of men

 

As the mirrors of my past have risen

in blind reflection

 

I’ve come face to face with

the only adversary I will ever fear

 

I’ve asked the age old questions

knowing there are no answers

 

I’ve taught the unschooled a language

they will teach again

 

I have vowed to seek recovery

for what the iconoclasts have broken

 

Until truth reclaims from power

—what was heaven sent

 

(Philadelphia Airport: August 1st, 2015)

Each word cutting through

ten pounds of flesh….

 

The Muse

—killing me with her love

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Poetry’s sacred

prose not so much

 

One to be read

the other to touch

 

The verse spoken freely

in a nighttime array

 

Phrases more conjured

to outlive the day

 

The medicinal magic

that hides in each line

 

Lifts my body to flight

in a nocturnal climb

 

The prose gets pounded

and pounded again

 

And its linear sense

I find hard to befriend

 

As twilight appears

from the corner of my eye

 

The couplets on fire

I look to the sky

 

With my very last breath

not taken in vain

 

It’s with meter and rhyme

—I call to heaven again

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

If I could be of simple mind

and simple faith

 

And hold your love within my heart

for just an hour

 

On bended knees my arms would raise

toward heaven’s gate

 

Like petals reaching out

—from a morning flower

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

When the spirit listens

 —the heart forgives

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

You can take away health,

   you can take away riches,

   you can take my ability to see

 

But it will only cause me to feel

you more

   —as I cry from bended knee

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)