JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE

published in Muddy River Poetry Review and in Freshwater Literary Journal
nominated for the Pushcart Poetry Prize in 2022

A flash, an explosion and the trip begins.
Off to find the morning of the universe,
when the world was diapered against exploding stars.
Black holes filled with empty darkness,
memories of a big bang before everything was anything,
before fish swam, or birds flew,
before you and I decided to walk upright.
Pictures of our past before there was a beginning.
Light and darkness swirling together.
No stars yet to wish upon,
No answers given,
no questions offered,
no voice booming “Let there be light.”
Is there collective memory,
dreams of a past before knowledge,
a world without form,
a longing to belong?
Fire will be discovered.
We will come down from the trees.

GOD’S SMILE

published by Stick Figure Poetry

God has smiled on some men,
rain to sweeten the grain, seed to nourish the roots.
To others He has turned away his face.
Forgetting their names, leaving them alone in a strange place,
life heavy on their back, sorrow their only friend.
Why choose between brothers?
Why some babies crowned with joy,
others left to suckle on a stone?
Music plays in all our hearts,
we dance to the same tune,
we eat from the same bowl.
Perhaps there is no God,
We pray to an empty room.
If we are not all worth a second glance
then no one should rest easy in heaven.

SHOAH (HOLOCAUST)

Published on Poetry Super Highway in honor of Remembrance Day

First their cries were soft
like the mewing of a kitten
then louder like the beating of a drum
suddenly they exploded like the ending of the world
lives ripped away as if they never existed
Jews in towns disappeared

Who can believe the evil of neighbor to neighbor
who can bear the silence of so many
who will survive in a camp
of tattooed numbers and showers of death

Lord don’t forget them
return the world to sanity and love
their voices once soft now rage in our ears
if we don’t speak who will be left to care?