If you always face left,
  try once facing right

Stuck deep in the mire,
  all truth beyond sight

It’s the questions at hand,
  as answers unwind

Past and future a myth,
—the present to bind

(Villanova Pennsylvania: December, 2016)

Can you imagine something
  beyond your conception

Can the truth hide from view
  exposed in plain sight

Can you forget to remember
  or remember to forget

Is all darkness misleading
  —the safe harbor of light

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)

You mortgage the future
  with the currency of time

To buy out your fate
  with more meter and rhyme

But one look through the darkness
  past devil and saint

Explodes your true oneness
  —the moment ordained

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)

The enemy of my enemy
  often masquerades,
   —as my friend

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2014)

The day you realize ‘you are a writer’
   distinct from what you’ve written

Is a day you’ll treasure for what it brings
  —and not what it leaves behind

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

Laid with words
   the writers stone
A fortress was columned
  my only real home

The poetry safe
  as it stammered and tried
As my feelings unbridled
  from the outsiders lies

Each year added substance
  to this home of the verse
My thoughts never silenced
  or my feelings there terse

All that’s needed to go there
  blind captured belief
All that’s needed to know
  is that time is the thief

My vision unshaken
  from this chair with two wheels
The advice from the experts
  to wither and yield

But my place more than sacred
  an invincible throne
Independent of body
  times seed now unsown

And the moment before
  I take my last breath
I will enter forever
  where before I had left

The trumpets will sound
  as immortality calls
To that space then my refuge
  the sum of it all

As the memories chase reason
  the facts storm again
But the tents of my solitude
  keep out their wind

For generations that follow
  and their children that ask
This place I now dwell in
  is for all hard and fast

Just believe in its message
  and its fortune to change
Just believe in transcendence
  with all things the same

Until the day that that final
  trumpet may blow
And everything seen
  is all there’s to know

Your message then solid
  as the door opens wide
And those things that are yours
  to the heavens arrive

And the joy that you feel
  thinking back on it all
From that place deep inside
—where first destiny called

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

A young Poet is to an
  older man

As an old poet is to a
  younger man

“When young then old,
  when old then young

The past twice borrowed,
  the future sung

The old man’s knowledge,
  the young man’s youth

To cross in stages,
—like wisdoms tooth”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

(An Anthology Of Perception Vol. 3)            


            “I write the first draft
                and paint the second

                 “But the third
                  —I get to sing”

Dying in the moment
  reborn to eternity
The choice was like water
  the choosing like stone

Dying in the moment
  reborn to eternity
Magic reappeared
  as truth became known

Dying in the moment
  reborn to eternity
Age redeemed ageless
  all years now reclaimed

Dying in the moment
  reborn to eternity
The wind changed its course
  the storm to rename

Dying in the moment
  reborn to eternity
The entrance transformed
  map burning unread  

Dying in the moment
  reborn to eternity
Salvation points inward
  —new pathway ahead

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)

This last ride almost over,
  the train coming to a stop

The mighty engine slowing down,
  my ticket punched and clocked

With words I left untendered,
  in towns along the tracks

My thoughts there drift upon the wind,
  my legacy attached

This journey seemed redundant,
  the scenery looked the same

But voices never heard before,
  cry out and call my name

The conductor gives fair warning,
  his face I know so well

“A turnout waits, the tracks will switch,
   to heaven—or to hell”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)

I wish for tomorrow,
  as today slips away

Each moment more precious,
  the end drawing near

I pray for myself,
  in spite of myself

Hoping God is still listening
—my soul a deaf ear

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)

In limbo from indecision,
  on loan from futures past

Deceit became my calling card,
  deception first and last

Borrowing from a fantasy,
  while stealing from a lie

The treadmill turned inside itself,
  my spirit churning blind

But within this dark implosion,
  a voice would call my name

And in its words I heard “escape,”
  an exit from the shame

In hopes of a new becoming,
  old guilt I cast remiss

As inside out, and outside in
  my present—spins in bliss

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

Kidnapped by the Muses,
   sentence now unknown

Thoughts are held for ransom,
  will denied the throne

Kingdom banned in exile,
  usurper in control

Welcoming confinement,
—house arrest extolled

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)

From deep in the shadows of Tin Pan Alley,
the Sage called out my name

With a voice that haunted and eyes concealed,
  he made his only claim

                            Saying…

“Abuse yourself if you must My Son,
  but you are never to mistreat your words

Untainted they connect your feelings and thoughts,
—your true legacy still unheard”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

Are the best
Moments
Fleeting…
Always
Drifting away

Are those
Feelings
Most precious
That come
And don’t stay

Is magic
Eternal
With it’s
Truth
Never clear

Is the
Music
The sweetest
We still wait
To hear

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Stopping just short of judgment,
  his mind took a leap

Whose soul rose as substance,
  now ready to speak

Words before never uttered,
  or spoken in vain

This acknowledgement followed,
  crying out in refrain…

“The joy in the brotherhood
   all torment by choice

“To share in celebration,
   we alone can’t rejoice

“The critic inside us,
   the judger of sins

“Is best left in silence,
   till it targets within”

As time will remind us,
  and these words will recall

All biting reprisal
  —the coward’s downfall

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

A few seconds of eternity
   two more than you’ll need

One moment of profundity
   fog gone—vision freed
  
(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2013)

Twilight falls onto my
  windowsill

Demon fire in full
  retreat

The stars return
  glowing embers that burn

In whose radiance
  an Angel will sleep

Days grip is unchained,
  the cantor sings while he prays

As the chorus cries out
  “It’s unplugged”

The sun has now left
  with my hopes not bereft

Only the night
  —points to heaven above

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)

Start looking outside your frame of reference
  for that which stands you alone

Stop longing for praise or high endorsement
  things only borrowed or loaned

Start feeling those words you preach unto others
   no longer idling yourself away

Stop blaming the time and the message it brings
  —for those excuses that keep you ‘at bay’

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

The light burns brightest,
  that burns within

The embers warm,
  as memory dims

That final verse,
  an Angel’s hymn

The light burns brightest,
—that burns within

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Extinction probability,
  ninety nine point nine

History’s infinitive,
  the graveyard of time

Cosmology winning out
  in the end

The hourglass draining
  —last thought to befriend

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

The string is broken,
  the past is lost

A road forgotten
  late winter’s frost

Memory clearing
  new thoughts to spin

All distance thawing
  —another Spring

(Court At K.O.P: February, 2016)