More Than A Cell Phone (+5)

I’ve left it on rock ledges

in elevators and bars

 

Taxicabs, backpacks,

motorcycles near and far

 

It’s laid on the Great Wall,

as I started to walk away

 

And fell out of the raft

in Wyoming that day

 

It flew on the airplane

after I had gotten off

 

And spent two days in Key West

with Fedex as the cost

 

It’s kept me in touch,

that’s important I know

 

But the voice it records

into words

   —much more so

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

     'My Cellphone Voice Recorder'

 

 

Another's Wind To Blow

 

Walking around a

Mythical town

That doesn’t exist

Looking for what

I would never find

I trod those same streets

That I had been down

In my dreams before

The sky barren

Except for the sound

Of the exodus

Of wings

Hovering over people

All moving away

The backs of their heads

The only thing visible

As they marched off

Into the dark

With faces and eyes

Mortgaged….

 

   To pay for all the things

       that they would never do

 

   In debt to one last promise

       they will never keep

 

   The terms of their indecision

       written in the blood of repetition

 

     The movement of the hawk

       —another’s wind to blow

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2015)

 

 

Lords Over Time

 

Always in rhythm

quite often in rhyme

 

The verses hold constant

Lords over time

 

A perpetual beginning

the perpetual end

 

Their structure intones

—what the meaning portends

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

 

 

 

The Mountains Pull

 

Like fence posts in the heavy snow,

I leave the past behind

 

And walk a line toward morning

and tomorrow

 

Each post a buried symbol

of a choice I failed to make

 

Its wire torn

and hanging in the wind

 

The range that lies ahead

a second chance to right the future

 

The sun now hanging low

against its peaks

 

Mountains pull me onward

each decision a new calling

 

My heart and will in locking steps

—as darkness falls again

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

 

 

Your Spirit To Claim

 

The words in the melody

the words on the page

 

Related but different

the Minstrel and Sage

 

The music recaptures

what ink only starts

 

As harmony sings

from an angelic heart

 

A phrase and a lyric

as cousins relate

 

Too distant for brothers

too close in their fate

 

One soul with two masters

each fighting to gain

 

Your soul ever after

—your spirit to claim

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)