when the market falls
when the dollar is worthless
when nothing can be bought or sold
when even the rich nations cry the poor-man blues
when each day that seems to fly on by begins to crawl
when those who cry at the drop of a hat learn to cry for real
when home once pretty houses with pretty lawns becomes carboard shacks
when cell phones go bleepless and gas won't start cars and the world is a graveyard
I will with every ounce of strength left in me stand on stree… Continue

sometimes in shadows
I think I see you again
somehow you've returned
to walk among the living
as if where you are
because souls lack breath
you walk among the dead

sometimes in dreams
though you wear another's face
I call to you in the haze
of gray forest or familiar street
I've never walked in wakefulness
and you turn towards me
but my feet are rooted in stone

sometimes in silence
when all the world around me
blow horns o… Continue

seeking peace from the world
is like squeezing blood from a stone
the world has no peace to give
only from God and God alone
can peace help us truly live

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how wise I think I am
when I pretend
the inner sounds I hear
reflect hunger or discomfort
instead of being my soul
sworn to secrecy
rustling its being
flexing its invisible self
to gain the attention
of this physical shell
eating up the world
filling himself with emptiness
thinking so foolishly
there's a time and place
for everything

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these are the poems that tried to hide
the ones that crawled from paper to scrawls
adrift on a poet's tears down sorrow's seas

these are the lines I could not save
that rusted in the iron of my hands
and blew away on the first winter wind

these are the rhymes that made me laugh
but I lacked wisdom to hold them dear
till one dark day their humor turned to dust

these are the times when poems could bring
so much joy to a weary old man
but I… Continue