The words in the melody
the words on the page
Related but different
the Minstrel and Sage
The music recaptures
what ink only starts
As harmony sings
from an angelic heart
A phrase and a lyric
as cousins relate
Too distant for brothers
too close in their fate
One soul with two masters
each fighting to gain
Your soul ever after
—your spirit to claim
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)
Like fence posts in the heavy snow,
I leave the past behind
And walk a line toward morning
and tomorrow
Each post a buried symbol
of a choice I failed to make
Its wire torn
and hanging in the wind
The range that lies ahead
a second chance to right the future
The sun now hanging low
against its peaks
Mountains pull me onward
each decision a new calling
My heart and will in locking steps
—as darkness falls again
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)
Always in rhythm
quite often in rhyme
The verses hold constant
Lords over time
A perpetual beginning
the perpetual end
Their structure intones
—what the meaning portends
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)
Walking around a
Mythical town
That doesn’t exist
Looking for what
I would never find
I trod those same streets
That I had been down
In my dreams before
The sky barren
Except for the sound
Of the exodus
Of wings
Hovering over people
All moving away
The backs of their heads
The only thing visible
As they marched off
Into the dark
With faces and eyes
Mortgaged….
To pay for all the things
that they would never do
In debt to one last promise
they will never keep
The terms of their indecision
written in the blood of repetition
The movement of the hawk
—another’s wind to blow
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
I’ve left it on rock ledges
in elevators and bars
Taxicabs, backpacks,
motorcycles near and far
It’s laid on the Great Wall,
as I started to walk away
And fell out of the raft
in Wyoming that day
It flew on the airplane
after I had gotten off
And spent two days in Key West
with Fedex as the cost
It’s kept me in touch,
that’s important I know
But the voice it records
into words
—much more so
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)
‘My Cell Phone Voice Recorder’
Commercial success
A spirit repressed
Your shell now
The substance below
The glittering fame
Of a deepening shame
Darkened shards at the surface
To glow
Commercial success
Demanding spiritual redress
The light burning down
To its core
With the evening in shade
And emotions now grave
Your soul choking on its
new lore
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
Envy is a curse
with the darkest shadow
Its yearning left unsettled
in a greenish cast
Jealousy its evil twin
beyond veracity’s purview
Coveting the burning torches
—of all darkness past
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
There once was a time when women could cook
and men knew how to dance
Education was by the book
no fuzzy math or creative finance
Parents visited their own parent’s homes,
as the grandchildren came along
And life was so much better then
new words to every song
There once was a time when women could cook,
and men knew how to dance
Hearts were pure as dogs roamed free
neighbors talked across the fence
Everyone shared those values true
family mattering most of all
Because in the end, a community of friends
—let you rise and then stand tall
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
Each day moving forward
—plus one looking back
Every new morning
—offering all that I lack
Night brings new cover
—the stars peeking through
These moments a gift
—as I spend them with you
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
To some
reality comes early,
to others
it comes late
The lucky
get a pass,
where the facts of life
will wait
With truth
backed in the corner,
and fantasy now
to reign
No love
to go asunder,
no past relived
again
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)
