Kurt Philip Behm

Breaking Dawn (+5)

After the finish line,

 a new starting line awaits

 

Where answers have deserted,

 but old questions remain

 

The learning curve most steep,

 as doubt invades the shadows

 

The light never brighter

 —than when dawn breaks through again

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

 

 

Time\'s Capsule

 

Surging through memory,

 all time was expanded

 

The past and the future

 —beginning and end

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

 

 

Crying Inward

 

How old were you

  when you were born

 

Were your pasts or futures

 deemed forlorn

 

How young will you be

 when you die

 

As truth cries inward

 —all time a lie

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)

 

 

Stillborn

 

Raw

Intelligence…

Like dry

Cement

Sitting unmixed

Never used

To make

Anything

Real

 

Raw

Intelligence…

A flashing

Neon light

To its own

Potential

Bulbs

Burning out

One at a time

 

Raw

Intelligence…

Its shadows

Forever littered

Along a

Lost and

Forgotten

Past tense

Alleyway

 

Raw

Intelligence…

Like shards of

Glass

In the maelstrom

Reflecting a story

Of what

Might

Have been

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

 

 

Setting The Ghost Free

 

The emptiness between Hemingway’s words is a

  hollow sound that stays in your mind

 

The space creates distance as the Old Man wanted,

  from the reader and the voyeur of pain

 

“Distance from the day he fought and struggled

   to land that one great fish

 

“Distance from a soldier’s final battle, calling out

   from beyond his reach

 

“Distance from the arena where the horns got close,

   with death again denied

 

“And distance from the many women he tried to

   desperately love and failed”

 

Each city his refuge: Paris, Havana, and Ketchum,

  but in no place were his memories home

 

And giving in to the distance, setting the ghost free

   —his bell tolled one last time

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

 

 

The Truth Revealed

 

The touchstones of existence…

 how many have you known

 

A common rock, a baby’s kiss,

 a dog to walk you home

 

Can one then trump the other,

 with importance or with worth

 

Can a seaside villa or Renoir painting,

 outshine a child’s birth

 

The physicists solution, quantifying

 parts and sums

 

Can all the gold inside Fort Knox,

 rebuy what Mozart’s done

 

What seems to me important,

 is to touch as many as you can

 

And let the truth reveal itself

  —your soul to then befriend

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2019)