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… 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… 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

#

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… Continue