‘Normalcy’
has its
depression
built in

Mundane
and ill formed
life hiding
from sin

Each day
like the former
unseasoned
and bland

With time
in the freezer
hope frozen
— and canned

(The New Room: April, 2025)

Neuroscience
takes a world class meal
grinds it into bits
and tries to convince us
— its taste has improved

(Villanova University: April, 2025)

When artists
grow reflective
their impact
is stalled

All direction
is hijacked
momentum
recalled

Looking back
through their psyche
a tunneler’s
view

As horizon’s
lie waiting
with visions
— anew

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Once upon a time
the old songs were new
On prairies unplanted
invaders were few

Where rivers rolled onward
no ferries or towns
All riverboat minstrels
new ages impound

The time of the season
unmeasured refrain
And cursed belladonna
tomorrow to reign

As butterfly’s wander
o’er questions unasked
A dark shrouded answer
—  the future unmasks

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Learn to Fandango
castanet in your hand
Tambourine calling
its bells to command

Dance every Tango
before it’s too late
Death in the offing
— the wolf at the gate

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Safe place for the meaning — in couplets of rhyme
the words taking shelter in moments sublime

Their message unfurling — new harbor in sight
the tempest becalming in lines of delight


(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Aperta

All of my life
the window stayed open
The good and the bad
— beginning to end

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)


Verbal Teflon

If the message
doesn’t stick
— the words are in vain

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Courage travels ...
where reason will not go

Wisdom teaches ...
what intellect cannot show

Prescience offers ...
what knowledge can’t explain

Love transient ...
infatuation to remain


(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Verbal
irrigation
streams
that rush and flow
Tributaries
far and wide
messages
in tow

Watering
the wasteland
Arid lulls
retreat
Freeing what
the silence hides
and reticence
— defeats

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Can a dreamer
be bigger
than the dream itself
a source of hope and pride

Can believers
be stronger
than love or hate
when circumstance denies

Can pilgrims
make choices
to keep the faith
when stranded in the wild

Can orphans
adopted
embrace a name
— that births tomorrow’s child

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Route 66

The death of the road
— the birth of a dream

(The New Room: April, 2025)


Live More

If you’re light
on experience
your writing will suffer

Like clay
to the sculptor
— or drummer to the band

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Old enough
to be your
Grandfather

Young enough
to be your
Friend

Wise enough
to see your
Greatness

Where time
and tide
— depend

(University City: April, 2025)

Let’s cut right through
the bombast ...
your camouflage of words
And redefine
the essence ...
of what you’ve never learned
Your double-talk
pontificates ...
to lure and to distract
Whose lies deride
wherein you hide ...
from what the truth exacts

(The New Room: February, 2025)

Betrothed
to the moment
Estranged from
the future
Present
to marry
All time
— an affaire

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

Tempests of
inclemency
Cyclones filled
with pain
Tornadoes come
and go at will
With nothing
to remain

Caught inside
their whirlwind
Whose spin to wreak
and hurl
A demon vortex
roaming wild
Destruction
— to unfurl

(The New Room: April, 2025)

Strutting
in place
Message
defaced
Words left
to spew
Bombast
in view
Worshipping
mirrors
Begging
for fame
Image
debasing
Vanity’s
— claim

(The New Room: March, 2025)

Science ...
the bounty hunter of poetic wisdom

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Caught at
a crossroad
duality
reigns
Closing
you off
or opening
lanes
That choice
staring back
in the distance
provides
A new
destination
or a place
— you can hide

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Try to define
consciousness
you haven’t
the tools

Try to define
instinct
the same kind
of fool

Try to define
reason
misusing
the words

Try to define
wonder
unseen
and unheard

Try to define
sleep
when lost
in a dream

Try to define
presence
with space
— unforeseen

(Rosemont College: March, 2025)

Your words
they fall silent
but your life
is a poem

Each motion
and gesture
by Heaven
are known

You rhyme
every smile
your eyes
metered guides

To love
written couplets
of joy
— from inside

(To Kathryn: March, 2025)

Saying
something witty
while having nothing
to say

Is like
spitting in the wind
to stay out
— of the spray

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Science
never answers
the primary
questions
it ponders
in circles
deck chairs
rearranged
Reciprocal
theorems
of self
aggrandizement
indentured
to kingdoms
where dilettantes
reign

Why
is there love
why
is there war
why
are we human
why
do we grieve
Why
do we question
why
is there joy
why
are there feelings
that
foster belief

Is
consciousness
timeless
do thoughts ever die
is prescience
a quotient
does truth
ever lie
Is looking
for answers
outside the true
realm
the act that
betrays us
and damns us
— to hell

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Man often kills  
that thing he loves
Dying inside it
— when push comes to shove

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Seductive
to many
Accepted
by few

Its magnet
attracts
What closeness
eschews

A force
drawing nearer
What time
disarrays

Whose moment
lives on
As years
— slip away  

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Appearance
reality
their differences
hide
Within the
perception
that judgment
abides

If once
crossing over
there’s no
going back
The tradeoff
complete
their identity
— hacked

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Listen for the rumble
hear it roar
Retribution’s coming
from distant fjords

Your lack of judgment
and crass disdain
Will mark the sentence
its will proclaims

Feel the vibration
wake the hopeless
From their sleep
impassioned dreams

From the forest
to the ocean
Nature’s rage
— its verdict screams

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

If I give you
today
Will you give up
tomorrow

If I ask
you to wander
Can direction
be saved

If I say
that I love you
Will the words
meld the seasons

If I surrender
this moment
Can forever
— be gone

(The New Room: March, 2025)

Gunpowder
was to ‘Little Boy’
as a whisper
to a shout

Forever changed
the world remains
enslaved
— unto its rout

(The New Room: February, 2025)

Painting with words
speaking in colors
Palette of voices
— rainbow Divine

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

The moon unquestioned
has no answers
Between light’s reflection
the coming dawn

One promise chosen
to fill the darkness
One promise chosen
to calm the storm

As planets rally
the moon abandoned
The time for reason
has come and gone

They spin their orbits
and claim reentry
New eyes upon them
new axis spawned

Rotating freely
in pinball madness
Colliding passions
of night’s retreat

A new moon laughing
the death of order
A new moon waiting
— as shadows sleep

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

The higher you rise
the thinner the air
The more that’s at risk
the less there’s to dare
As oxygen falters
your head becomes light
And looking above you
fear turns to delight
The sun is setting
far over the peak
The summit awaits
whose answers you seek
With twilight retreating
your flag in the rock
You enter the madness
— descending unlocks

(Memories Of Sagarmatha: April, 1981)

God can’t become
that greater
than he is
God can’t become
tomorrow
or today
God can’t become
now or then
when always
God but exists
pure reason
— faith relayed

(The First Book Of Prayers: March, 2025)

Affable people
are likeable fools
Divorced from the moment
their banter unspools

Affable people
in search of a creed
Amusing examples
— of folly indeed

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Someday to write
the greatest poem
The most powerful words
forever to hear

Someday to write
the moment solemn
Where time will stop counting
— and prescience endears

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Often
words that
condemn
offer salvation

Their
juxtaposition
the blink
of an eye

What starts
to indict
turns into
redemption

The turn
of a phrase
their meaning
— belies

(The New Room: March, 2025)

Returning to my past
effects became causes
Finishes became starts
descended upon

The light there to spin
in spheres of infinity
Time the impostor
— beginning to end

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Reincarnation
eternity’s myth
You’re incarnated
only once
Though many transitions
are stamped with time’s pretense
As it was in the beginning
— it will be at the end

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

The most constant romance
the one with yourself
The most lasting friendship
the mirror defines
The most sacred promise
only yours to break
The most valued feelings
— your treasure inside


(The New Room: February, 2025)

Star-crossed by the years
a cuckhold of fate ...
I made love to you
in the copulate verses
of another time
— and another life

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

The day you
discover
that it’s you
who makes it all right
Is the day you
uncover
what destiny holds true
— and prophecy foretold

(Villanova University: March, 2025)

What is love
if not an out of body
experience

Proving the dualist
philosophers right
— and the poet’s words set free

(The New Room: March, 2025)

What creates a mood
better than music
A tonic to fill
the empty spaces
and writer’s block

What transports the words
better than music
As Elton, Paul
and Cole have shown
— its gift to reign supreme

(The New Room: March, 2025)

The hardest stones
cannot withstand
— what only men endure

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Never to discover
the limits of soul
Such is the depth
of its station

The nature of being
  not what’s distilled
But what’s left
— from evaporation

(Septa R5: March, 2025)

One too many
mornings
Two too many
nights
Three too many
warnings
An apostates
delight

Four too many
judgments
Five too many
fears
Six too many
curses
Raining
— too many tears

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Did they dare you to be
what you already were
Your profile kept hidden
unshaken or stirred
To wander in your
unbroken discontent
A path that lies hidden
—by unspoken words

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

The butcher
in a trance
this death
then many more
The cleaver
paused in motion
destruction
to the fore

The blood
is pooling downward
in images
besmeared
Its stain
a violent crimson
tattooing life
— with fear

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Defense of freedom
takes a courage
rare and dearly won

Through wars endured
with tyrants scourged
and despots on the run

The words in place
by Founders Ink
on parchment
closely held

As children roam
the halls of light
with precepts
— deeply felt

(The New Room: February, 2025)

Stealing your thoughts
a crime of dispassion
the penalty fatal
my name stays unknown

A larcenous caper
whose felony looming
authorities chasing
though lost will they roam

Returning your musings
a word to each notion
attached and delivered
through eyes that retake

Enlightened resplendence
unfenced by Jehovah
no borrowers promise
— this thief ever makes

(The 1st Book Of Prayers: March, 2025)

The woods never yawned
at the end of my stories
The streams never laughed
when I stuttered in haste
The mountains stood firm
when I lost my last footing
The sky understanding
in joy or disgrace

These natural things
forever behold me
Forgiving my weakness
rewarding my nerve
Their arms reaching out
through each change of the season
Pulling me onward
— my voice undeterred

(The New Room: March, 2025)