Kurt Philip Behm

Last Bridge (+4)

They come to me phrases,

crying out to be whole

 

One last bridge to cross,

no fare for the toll

 

Prodigal wanderers,

not spoken or heard

 

My breath used as payment

—conveying the words

 

(Villaova Pennsylvania: June, 2017)

 

 

Smashing The Mirror

 

Do you wilt in someone

else’s shadow

 

Do you fawn in someone

else’s praise

 

Do you rise in someone

else’s dawn

 

Do you fly with someone

else’s wings

 

Can you break the chains

that hold you

 

Can you smash the mirror

of regret

 

Can you kill the demon

of envy

 

Can you end the bondage

—free at last

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)

 

 

Till Fortune

 

“Blood is thicker than water,

what we had thicker than blood”

 

All wounds long healed by memory’s salve,

divined from up above

 

Our bonding copper wire,

wrapped round a thousand times

 

Till fortune gets down on both knees,

and bows—our soul’s conjoined

 

 

(Listening To Bob Weir: March, 2020)

 

 

Backhanded

 

“All you can be is all you can be,”

damning with faint praise

 

A lover, not a girl to wed

—left hand falsely raised

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)

 

 

 

Nothing More

 

The Sage cried out these final words
as he rose from where he sat…

“There’s nothing beyond everything
—and everything beyond that”

 

(Dreamsleep: March, 2020)