Fates Retort (+7)

To live within the moment,

  and write as love doth now befriend

 

      “It’s light burning brightest as the

         hours grow short”

 

The beginning reunited

  with the journey’s end

 

       “All memory imploding

          on fates retort”

 

But the window stays open,

  my heart beats faster still

 

      “The march to freedom

         neither to nor from”

 

Time enslaved in a final breath

    one last line to say I will

 

      “The past and future

          left exposed—undone”

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

A Hollowed Out Tree

 

Living inside the base of a hollowed out tree

  since childhood, my dreams have been formed

 

Living inside a space where the walls almost touched

  kept me hidden, protected, and warm

 

Living inside a place that no others could see

  beyond privacy, I became lost in myself

 

Living inside the base of a hollowed out tree

  —where boyhood memories and wishes still dwell

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

 

 

Life

 

You can wish and hope for a hundred years,

  or play the game a day at a time

 

You can focus on what’s at the end of the road,

  or squeeze three nickels from your very last dime

 

You can pray for still more than some others might have,

  or be thankful for what lies at your feet

 

You can love in the face of jealousy and hate

   —or start downward on hell’s one-way street

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016) 

 

 

Liberatio

 

Words, once you free them

 —no longer slave to your name

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: From a longer Poem-Fall 2015)

 

No More Could I Seek

 

When my words are read

  by the common man

 

No higher praise could

  any writer ask

 

The awards and the accolades

  from the intellectual elite

 

Pale in comparison

  to that man ‘in the street’

 

When my words are read

  by those ‘salt of the earth’

 

My spirit is lifted,

  and I’m home from my search

 

Both steadfast and loyal

  to themselves and to me

 

No more could I ask for

  —no more could I seek

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: Watching the New Hampshire Primary- February 9^th, 2016)

 

 

 

A Softer Rhyme

 

Are the feelings soft

  but the words rock hard

 

Turning emotion into anger

  or worse

 

Are those wishes pure

  when the ink goes down

 

Are the letters aligned

  or off course

 

Are the feelings soft

  but the sentences vile

 

When frustration takes over

  your rhyme

 

Is the Muse trying to whisper

  as you shout to the crowd….

 

       “Step back

         —nothing forced is sublime”

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016) 

 

 

My Spirit Complete

 

Combining thought with emotion,

  the words came to life

 

The images eternal,

  as feelings ignite

 

The lines now in concert

  all stanzas to meet

 

My psyche impassioned,

  —my spirit complete

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)

 

Divinity's Hymn

 

I sold my soul

  for new meter and rhyme

 

Trading salvation

  for a thing greater still

 

The joyous embrace

  of one hell damning phrase

 

Now immortal, perpetual

  —fulfilled

 

I sold my soul

  as the Devil laughed

 

Knowing not, my final words

  were for him

 

Exposing his lie

  and his legions of hate

 

My last breath

  —Divinity’s hymn

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2016)