You can listen with hope,
or listen in pain
But listen you shall,
as my words will explain…
“You were left in the shadows,
neither empty nor full
“With a decision impending,
a test of your will
“Your choice will define,
what you praise or deny
“Will you now come together,
in the truth or a lie
“Do you carry on blindly,
or reach for beyond
“What your comfort will dictate,
as your courage responds
“One path ends in darkness,
one reaches for light
“Your tracks through the umbra,
that fear leaves in blight
“It’s down to that moment,
last chance to define
“Will your search end enlightened
—or in twilight behind”
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
No Ink From Within
You tell me…
“the structure gives strength to my writing”
I tell you…
“it’s nothing but crutches in waiting”
You tell me…
“the order brings a beginning and end”
I tell you…
“the sequence does feign and pretend”
You tell me…
“the form—the most important of things”
I tell you…
“the truth rides on Seraphim’s wings”
You show me…
the prison you’ve build with your pen
I show you…
a cartridge empty—no ink from within
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
Silence Unclaimed
Dropping its bomb,
always missing the mark
Your echo implodes,
a sound hollow and dark
Answers unquestioned,
all bombast enflamed
Drifting abandoned
—in silence unclaimed
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
Flashpoint
Thoughts ignite,
and words burn
As everything considered
—turns to ash
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
To Love No More
I lifted you into my heart
But one arm was missing
As single wing and one handed
I carried you inside
All the while, you pointing at
My lost absent limb…
You told me you’d love me
If I could find that one misplaced part
The part that would then
Make me whole
I looked into tomorrow
And searched through the past
But my arm had reached out
For something beyond my ability to see
I could still feel the numbing sensation
Of pain
Where the arm had previously
Been attached
The vibration of loss
Now prosthetic for all that was severed
You pitied my deformity as I hid
My eyes
As best I could with only one hand
Telling me the fault was mine
For always reaching beyond what I
Could know or see…
And with your final stroke of malice
You left me further disabled
Climbing back outside a wish I knew
Was never to be mine…
When you left you found the old world
Different than the one you thought you knew
A desert of frozen stone with a black sky now
Surrounded the stillness of your abandoned love…
As you hesitated to turn around and
Reenter my world
The one that just a moment ago you had
Admonished and left for good
A lone arm reached out and closed the door
Behind you
Leaving you abandoned in a sea of loneliness
And despair
—to love no more
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
Dedicated To Lisa Wynn in the next AOP
Coloring In The Spaces
Trying to understand
why you marked up your body
—I stared at the ink
The memory of your open promise
still inside of me
—unfulfilled
Retracing that promised memory
with new symbols
—stained forever
You colored in the empty spaces
I was unable
—or unwilling to see
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
The Key
Poets…
spiritual escape artists
—in a shackled and imprisoned world
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
Forever Carried Away
With prose…
I saw only with my eyes,
as the words left my hand
With poetry…
my eyes were abandoned,
leaving only my heart
But in the distance played a lyric,
freeing what my words
could never unchain
And hearing its melody,
my heart forever carried away
—in song
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
To Light The Spoken Air
Thoughts inflame as feelings stir
Words simmer yet to boil
Unspoken sparks drift through the night
A pyre still to burn
Delphian in its natural form
The smoke a treacherous friend
Words rekindle—lies cremate
The Oracle on fire
As heat restores the human soul
All prodigals return
New hope to melt the frozen dawn
And free the poet’s hand
With letters stacked and dried of doubt
Their Muse cries out your name
As dark she waits for your next breath
—to light the spoken air
(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016)
‘Inspired by Roberto Rodriguez’
A Singular Refrain
Questions are often bigger
than their answers
With horizons wide and spacious,
timelines unrestrained
Questions often lead
to other questions
With answers left to wallow
—in a singular refrain
(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)
Living Inside
Those who are truly great
belong to all of us
Living inside our memories
—shaping what’s left of our dreams
(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)