Kurt Philip Behm

Can You (+9)

Can you separate your art

  from your politics

 

Can you separate the temporal

  from the divine

 

Can you separate the excuses

  from the reasons

 

Can you separate purpose

  from those wasted times

 

Can you separate your vocation

  and avocation

 

Can you separate curiosity

  from true insight

 

Can you separate your duty 

  from convenience

 

Can you separate the darkness

 —from the light

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

 

Dragons Caught

 

The tightness of the words

  protects the freedom of the thought

 

Whose voice when spoken gently

  —can silence thunder and dragons caught

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

 

Calling Inward

 

Are your wishes scribed in combat,

  are your hopes relined with pain

 

Is your motion found still wanting

  as you climb the stairs again

 

Are your words now of this moment,

  is your verse free and sincere

 

Are your feelings calling inward

  —from a heart that’s yearning dear

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

 

 

To Rage And Roar

 

My pen constrained and kidnapped

   as ink bleeds evermore

 

Voices cry: “Something More Be Done”

  —fury to rage and roar

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: Dreamsleep-February, 2016)

 

 

Ink That Doesn\'t Run

 

Words in my fountain pen

   bullets in my gun

 

Blasts of rapid insight

  —ink that doesn’t run

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

 

Less Risk

 

The deeper the pond

  the calmer the water

 

The older the wine

  the richer the flavor

 

The longer the gaze

  the sharper the picture

 

The fewer the words

   —less risk of conjecture

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

 

Rooted Within

 

Carrying them with me

   traveling through time

 

The words seed my memory

   new meter and rhyme

 

Spreading them freely

  over days fallowed thin

 

New feelings sprout upward

   —rooted within

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)  

 

 

Poetry Can\'t

 

A novel can be written and detach

  from its author

   —but poetry can’t

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

 

Turn The Page

 

When the freedom

  to think

 

And the ability to write

  are at odds

 

    —turn the page

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

 

 

Together They Stand

 

Not judged in reference

   kindred spirits they dance

 

The words once they’re spoken

  notes and palettes enhanced

 

The music enlivens

  what phrases will say

 

While a painting embodies

  what verse can convey

 

And the only conflict

  is in the critics eye

 

Who sees not the harmony

   but comparisons lie

 

As all art travels skyward

  enjoined hand in hand

                                                          

To the source of its power

  —where together they stand

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)