The Proffer (+4)

Religions survive

  through subjugation

 

Without it,

  they are lost

 

Wielding guilt as a weapon,

  they proffer salvation

 

Enlightenment and freedom

  —their cost

 

 

 (Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: May, 2019)

 

 

To Never Explain

 

Within every verse,

  many meanings reside

 

The reader determines

  in which couplet you hide

 

The words both descriptive

  with colors aglow

 

The eyes as important

  as what the ears know

 

When backed in a corner,

  don’t ever explain

 

Words beckon discovery,

  refusing one name

 

The same reader may leave

  with a differing view

 

Each time he goes over

  and finds something new

 

A question once opened

  can never be closed

 

And verse penned inherent

   forever to know

 

With time of no consequence,

  your poetry waits

 

For the next searching pilgrim

  —your words to relate

 

(Rosemont Pennsylvania: May, 2019)

 

 

 

In Charge Of The Night

 

Being close to the right thing

Is farther from the right thing

Than the wrong thing is from

Being right

 

To see and not believe

To look and not touch

Much better to be blind

 —and in charge of the night

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2019)

 

 

One's Own Breath

 

The joy in the writing,

  all reading to construe

 

Spoken loud with one’s own breath

  —a vanity so true

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)

 

 

 

Wishes Still To Pray

 

Are they waiting for me patient,

 as I’m caught up in the game

 

Are they counting down the moments,

 till I breathe my last refrain

 

Do they wonder why I dawdle,

 with an opening so wide

 

Do excuses stoop to waddle,

 as my tardiness contrives

 

Is that light beyond my tunnel,

 to burn forever long

 

Is the torch that lights my funeral,

 one to mark and count upon

 

What now keeps me in this moment,

 as new paths have cleared away

 

Is it something that I haven’t said

 —or wishes still to pray

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)