Safe From The Light (+6)

I lie down in the shadows

 where no one can reach me

 

My seventh and last

 place to hide

 

The sixth was a funeral,

 the fifth when in hospice

 

The fourth was each time

 that I lied

 

The third was a promise

 I made to a girl

 

That she took

 to her own grave

 

The second a promise

 I made to myself

 

From a vision

 my Grandmother gave

 

The first was the darkness

  where I exited that world

 

On a day that was

 cold and bright

 

Now the process is finished,

 as I hide for the last time

 

In the shadows

 —and safe from the light

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2010)

 

 

Grief Belies

 

A briefcase full of sorrow…

  the hiding place of tears

 

One trade to end all others

  excuse to lie and steal

 

The papers hide the story

 all documents in vain

 

As grief belies the glory

 —of a life that deals in pain

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2019)

 

 

 

No Dreams Allowed

 

Paved over deep,

 my thoughts below

 

Once brilliant shades

 of amber glow

 

The darkest light,

 I now befriend

 

Whose darkest thoughts,

 I sought to end

 

While further down,

 the chanting starts

 

No mockingbirds,

 no meadowlarks

 

Where stillness reigns,

 the present weeps

 

My ashes cool,

 my soul retreats

 

Lodged six feet under

 below the crowd

 

Though sleep eternal

  —no dreams allowed

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2019)

 

 

The Magic Yours

 

You either bend and adapt,

 or then you break

 

The crux in the motion

 —your magic to make

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2019)  

 

 

New Moments Explode

 

Like the marathons of my

  forgotten youth

 

I now shy away from the

  longer poems

 

Sprinting restlessly anxious

  through the waning light

 

New moments explode

  —the old voluminous tomes

 

 (Flight To Las Vegas: January 22, 2016)

 

 

Flashes

 

Good and bad are truisms…

  a qualitative masquerade

 

Ideology trumping feeling

  —in flashes of joy and pain

 

(Las Vegas: January 23, 2016)

 

 

In Conflict

 

 Poetic dyslexia,

  the words juxtapose

 

The meaning in crisis,

  where God only knows

 

Poetic dyslexia,

  all feelings collide

 

Emotions in conflict

  —a verbal divide

 

(Forum Shops-Caesars Palace: January 23, 2016)