In Lament Of The Cowboy (+7)

A scant twenty years,

grieved a century or more

 

Poetically perfect,

in spirit and lore

 

A man and his horse,

alone on the range

 

The cattle his instruments,

and music to play

 

Civil War veterans and blacks

from the South

 

Through dust and dark clouds,

snowy blizzards that mount

 

Together they battled,

in concert they fought

 

Each unto himself,

life’s harmony caught

 

The hardship and death,

to him worth the price

 

Pushing always ahead,

a stranger to fright

 

The only thing telling,

to be left at the end

 

Was the legend he gave us

  —and the message it sends

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

 

 

Its Tears

 

Softly,

I leave you

 

Within the falling

rain

 

And take my leave,

the storms reprieve

 

Its tears

—to wash the pain

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

 

 

 

Not Hard Or Fast

 

Breaking through the dialectic,

good and bad behind

 

Beyond to where the sky breaks clean,

and time does not apply

 

Escaping from the either/or,

my mind now free at last

 

Lost in the perpetual moment

—rules not hard or fast

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

 

 

Heaven For An Ear

 

Life’s journey through the darkest night,

whose final verse is clear

 

Temptation preying on itself

—all heaven for an ear

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)  

 

 

Her Power Accused

 

Choking on her

greatest asset,

America dying

from freedom abused

 

Twisting in the wind

a talonless eagle,

Her heart ripped open

—her power accused

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

 

 

Save A Poet

 

In addition to the slogans...

"Save The Whales,"

"Save A Tree,"

and

"Save The Oceans"

 

We need a new one...

"Save A Poet"

 

(University Of Pennsylvania: July, 2019)

 

 

Divinity Chosen

 

Do three dimensions,

preclude a fourth

 

Does pointing toward South,

prevent being North

 

Is now just the midpoint,

between future and past

 

Does the freedom to choose,

leave all nature aghast

 

Is one and one two,

if one is in doubt

 

Are the whole or its parts,

what this world is about

 

Are Creation and Physics,

at war with themselves

 

Is Divinity chosen

—willed unto one self

 

(Saint David’s Pennsylvania: July, 2019)

 

 

The Key

 

My Grandfather was a Poet,

my Father was a thief

 

Their spirits fight to own my soul

—my Son in cradle sleeps

 

My Grandfather spoke of beauty,

my Father spoke of sin

 

The truth now locked within a voice

—whose key I leave to him

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

 

 

Only To Remind

 

You’ve got the how but not the why,

from heaven so ordained

 

For that one moment under God,

times fugitive proclaimed

 

You want to know the reasons past,

but not those left to find

 

A crown of thorns and peasant robe

—serve only to remind

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)