Memory of light,
vision of God

Centered return
—orbit of love

(The First Book Of Prayers: November, 2016)

Festival Of San Fermin

Running the gamble
— living the dream

(Pamplona Spain: July, 1977)


‘Pathway To Hell ...”

Money is to promises
what bureaucracy is to care
Chasing lost indemnity
— uncertainty’s despair

(Dreamsleep: August, 2024)


The Lost Garden

A bad seed
illy planted
Fallow
—and alone

(Denison Iowa, September, 1967)


Au Chante

The pathway
to happiness
Goes through
—the open heart

(Midway Airport: August, 2024)

Time waxes poetic
on a distant battlefield

The warrior a sage
—whose blood we all share

(Dreamsleep: September. 2022)

It’s not about the watch you wear,
but more about the time

The messenger lost when references cross
—all numbers out of rhyme

(Dreamsleep: November, 2021)

Not an academic
Poet
Not a tenement
Poet
Not a beat or a blues
or a church Poet
Not a famous or infamous
or celebrity Poet
Not an Irish or Basque
or Welsh Poet

Not a formal
Poet
Not a casual
Poet
Not the kind that takes
to the stage Poet
Not a tenured or membered
or club Poet
Not a for profit or glory
or fame Poet

… just a Poet

(The County Line: April, 2024)

Older than you were
younger than I am
Your memory grows inside me
keeper of the flame

Each day we spent together
our boyhoods reassured
Connected to forever
—we never asked for more

(Rosemont Pennsylvania: October, 2022)

I’m not wishful anymore
or here to ride the wave
My feet both mired in aging mud,
my heart now turned away

I’m not here to save the world,
nobility be ******
Time on trial my last denial
—on distant Ronan land

(Henderson North Carolina: October, 2021)

The future hung desperately on to the past,
like a pilot fish to a whale
Swimming through the current of times gone by,
lost moments were impaled
The seconds ticked down, day blacker than night,
intention in denial
As deep in the din, voices cried from within
—eternity on trial

(The New Room: January, 2022)

Causality before truth
truth before causation
Universal in transference
inextricably defined

An atom of veracity
a little bit pregnant
Plato through Lewis
—reality entwined

(Rosemont College: October, 2022)

Did you not love, as flame the fire,
when springtime came in view

Your soul to task, no futures past
—the world again anew

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2019)

California loses its finest citizens
…acceptable losses

America loses its drug riddled youth
…acceptable losses

Texas loses its southern border
…acceptable losses

Our manufacturing base auctioned away
…acceptable losses

Native Peoples crying on reservations
…acceptable losses

The electorate abandoned and sold down the drain
…acceptable losses

Our finest and bravest fighting forever wars
…acceptable losses

Our schools now a swamp and our teachers inept
…acceptable losses

We talk to our smart phones and lose all connection
…acceptable losses

Our churches and synagogues bombed and attacked
…acceptable losses

Our freedom of speech now woke and maligned
…acceptable losses

The media profiting from rancor and division
…acceptable losses

Our allies mistrusting and looking askance
…acceptable losses

The dollar a symbol of greed and decay
…acceptable losses

The White House held captive by liars and fools
…acceptable losses

Our forefathers rage in eternities sleep
…acceptable losses

All shared common values rejected forever
…acceptable losses

A world without freedom leading the way
…our future in ashes

(The New Room: March, 2021)

Death indicts you
seasons past
prophets marking
spells recast
Life remortgaged
debt remains
time indentured
—hope reclaimed

(Dreamsleep: March, 2022)

Dancing through
the mine field
deftness parlayed
Destruction incumbent
the future
in play
Each step risks a lifetime
if right
turns to wrong
Tomorrow uncertain
when short
—calls for long

(Dreamsleep: November, 2023)

Your wounds bleed past tomorrow
an inconvenient truth
Unsutured blame — till death reclaims
its healing absolute


(Dreamsleep: March, 2024)

When you speak
to me
a certain way
I can see the words

Shaped and formed
with wings
of gold
freeing what I’ve heard

When you speak
to me
a certain way
I can taste the wind

Calling forth
my hopes and dreams
— tendered from within

(Dreamsleep: March, 2024)

“By God anointed…”
religions claim,
then fight to steal His throne

Devotion pledged
in false pretense,
to become the greater known

A figurehead
to suit their needs,
they break His every rule

To seize with power
these ‘Chosen Ones’
—intentions harsh and cruel

(Villanova University: April, 2021)

Opulent solitude,
how rich it becomes
alone in one’s shadow,
times riches in sum

To revel monastic
o’er sultans and earls,
whose joyous reflection
—your diamonds and pearls

(Dreamsleep: November, 2021)

People are people
—and a fool is but a fool

(Dreamsleep: March, 2022)

Celebration of what used to be,
what might have been,
what never was
—the past

(Dreamsleep: March, 2022)

Trapped in between the lyric
and music
Wandering in a rhythm
of lost expectation
Blaming each note still unplayed
and unwritten
The echoes distend
in a moment’s undoing

Hearing a chorus
when no choir is present
Voices imagined
to sing my sequester
Wandering aimless
through scores of abandon
Harmony denied me
—nightmarish and deafening

(Dreamsleep: May, 2023)

One of life's challenges
is to find your own speed

Where travel is constant,
destination in sight

Too fast,
and yesterday abandons your future

Too slow,
and memory stretches beyond your grasp

(Airplane to Richmond 10/14/2016)

My ear
to the asphalt
My nose
in the wind

My mind
on tomorrow
Escaping
my sins

The road bends
before me
It twists
and it turns

Where truth
waits forbidden
And love stays
unearned

The voices
grow faint
In this gale
to escape

In front
and behind me
Both early
and late

As the mountain
implores me
Still calling
my name

With fate
at its limit
And death
— here to claim

(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)

I look upon the angry ice
and men that prowl its form
to stab and poke in rich delight
a chance to ride the storm

With blades on fire and sticks held high
they weave and crash as one
in search of that elusive net
—still guarded and unwon

(Dreamsleep: October, 2021)

Is it in the heart
Or in the eyes
For all you see
To then despise
Is it anger first
Or love at last
Can you judge the future
By the past
Does the meaning change
With every choice
Your words return
Another’s voice
Last wish you make
One vow to pray
Your vision strikes
—all doubt betrayed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Stealing from a thief
those phrases gone
Scales rebalance
words in song

Once recaptured
then released
The chorus joyful
— the world at peace

(The New Room: September, 2024)

The house is quiet,
as Knothead’s asleep

Hershey Kisses in place
on the staircase to reap

There’s snow on the roof,
with the chimney unblocked

For Santa to enter,
new soot on his frock

The cookies and milk
on the hearth reappear

With Rudolph’s one favorite,
chocolate chip to endear

The sound of his footsteps
arrive on the roof

As Knothead awakens
to Santa’s reproof

“Get into the sleigh
as I’ve told you before

“TC and Melissa
deserve so much more

“Your mischievous wandering
has caused quite the stir

“Mrs. Claus is upset,
the good Elves much deterred

“And clean up your mess
before we move on

“Those wrappers a danger
to those woe begone”

But as they departed,
the naughty Elf smiled

Two silver reminders
ensconced to beguile

Both hidden in cupboards
for children to find

Christmas 2021
—to forever remind

(Christmas Poem: 12/24/2021)
Backstory:  Knothead is the naughty Elf who has plagued the Behm household for over 40 years at Christmas time.  To catch him, you need to put out Hershey Kisses, so that Santa can follow the trail of wrappers, capture him, and take him back to the North Pole.

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)

The shortcut to a heart’s desire,
where roads and feelings cross

Destiny maps, direction on fire
—love’s toll the only cost

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2019)

Do you have
enough scars
to help others
heal

Or wounds
that stay open
the past
uncongealed

Did you suffer
in silence
each moment
of pain

Did all hope
leave you orphaned
alone
and profane

Is your counsel
of value
when the weak
come to call

Can you see
through the trauma
and cushion
— their fall

(1st Book Of Prayers: May, 2025)

In the land of my once fallow youth,
old phrases bury deep

Where seeds of time regrow the rhyme
—their crop my soul to keep

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2019)

Time,
a slave
to importance
when
all respect for it
— is gone

(From ‘Calling Me Home’: May, 2024)

The jaws sing
As the drip, drip, drip,
Of the petroleum chorus
Dances across
The inverted aluminum
And the hissing starts
And the hissing stays
Its smell a warning
A final omen
Like the last rose
Of summer
Or the fragrance she wore
For that final goodbye
The teeth tear inward
Like the regret for today
And the regret for yesterday
And the lament for tomorrow
Its promise broken
And your khakis red
And baptized
A stigmata
To self infliction
As the music plays constant
And the rushing you feel
An emptying of sorrow
Onto the crushed ceiling
Of a dream in reverse
Of all life in reverse
Until two arms grab you
And you fall from the sky
And you fall from the sky
Waiting
For the ground
To coronate the outcome
And for one more answer
To a 'why' unquestioned
And to love you one more time
But the lights are now dim
And the voices muffled
As an ***** can be heard
And store bought flowers smelled
And an old woman cries…
As a young woman cries…
And a stranger pronounces
What you feared the most
They didn’t know you
And couldn’t know you
The exit sign flashing
But there is no door
“There is no door”
—and then the music stops

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

Hiding between imprisoned lines,
a fugitive of verse
turning my back on pleadings made,
musings that amerce  

The lengthy sentence of my mind,
fleeing my recall
to leave the spoken word confined
—released to scale the wall

(Dreamsleep: January, 2022)

It’s important
what you get called
has a name,
one you can take
to the ivory
border
It’s important
what you’re called
is remembered the same,
today recollected
tomorrow
reordered
A mark on the stone
no longer
unknown,
your history and
legacy
rendered
Sapphire crystal
overlord set,
the past
eponymous  
the future
—kismet

(The New Room: February, 2021)

The world has forever
outgrown itself,
its pants no longer fit

The cuffs too short,
the waist too tight,
its inseam worn and ripped

The fabric that
it used to grow,
lay barren in the field

The magic that
it used to show,
a sleight of hand reveal

The world has forever
outgrown itself,
its future running out

The earth exposed,
the sky on fire
—all life but hand to mouth

(Dreamsleep: March, 2022)