Short Indenture Poems

The past and the future
fold into the present
Conceptually vacant
twice empty refrains
No before and no after
perpetually frozen
The ice of indenture
—this moment contains

(Dreamsleep: September, 2022)...

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Mankind
was never meant
to survive the future
Technology
 a trap
their greed as bait
Generations
sacrificed
in self destruction
On altars
of indenture
— their natures gone

(Calvary Cemetery: May, 2024)
...

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Reaching into the 
public conscience
words are tokened free

Blowing fresh holes
through blind indenture
light for all to see

Reaching into the 
common ledger …  
its double-entry fate

Paying the debt
on tomorrow’s maelstrom
—seeking heaven’s gate

(The New Room: June, 2023)...

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Many die
to walk unknown
amongst
the living dead

Their hearts reclaimed
yet beating still
whose verses
go unread

They wander freely
in the night
their chains
relock the grave

Awaiting words
you’ve yet to write
to free
— their death enslaved

(Calvary Cemetery: February, 2025)
...

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You can’t make a deal
with a Judas 
As tenured
they govern on high

Like the British
who sought our indenture
With graft and self-interest
they lie

You can’t play the game
any longer
When rules only favor
the few

Where freedom is held
as a hostage
And verity’s fairness
— askew

(The New Room: March, 2025)
...

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I’m actually tired of being myself…
can I be you for awhile

I hide from the mirror and monogrammed lies,
as I run from an image defiled

I thought I was safe and had made my escape,
when memory reminded again

“You can run, you can hide, your indenture unkeyed 
—the chains locked secure in your head”

(The New Room: January, 2021)...

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You honor poets by this day -  this our souls require!
My far-off ancestral fire and I born in indenture (South Africa)
Still learned "NAMASTHE:  I bow before your spirit!"
No handshakes needed, for higher things we aspire
In Mandela's Africa, where Indian & Gandhi no more inspire
But COVID-19 will perhaps unite us again, as Lincoln & King...

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A man I knew once,
A man I knew as friend.

Within his indenture he turned on us,
Fed up, we no longer could contend.

A man who asked so much from us,
Our support, so little we lend.

We weren’t there when he called on us,
We weren’t there to help him mend.

Left with guilt as vile as puss,
For we were negligent and dilatory in his sickened end.



04/20/13...

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My eyes unleash upon the world before me,
where Heaven wrests all darkness from its reign

These sights my fortune gladly spent on freedom,
to rise and fall as sun and moon both share

The seasons press their head and tail foreclosure,
to trail the one in front and lead the back

As cousins of the changing time indenture,
the same but separate lost within themselves

(Villanova On Avon: October, 2019)...

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My trials, indenture, my regrets
Oh Lord, how solemn I accept
that punishment of knowing, its inept
forgive, forgive and then forget!

This solemn trail, my eyes still wet
climb in divesture, hoping, kept
be it not usuary, be it not debt
but character, that in striving, met!

And so my humble prayer's beget
is not to agonize bereft,
nor field, nor criticize concept,
but yield as wise, and yet, and yet!...

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I don’t write Sonnets,
  or Limerick verse

I don’t write Haiku,
  though often terse

I don’t write Ballads,
  or Horacian Odes

I don’t write Parables,
  to self-implode

But I do write in Rhythm,
  and often in Rhyme

With meaning that’s buried,
  and metered in time

All verbal indenture,
  I must disavow

For the meaning to rise,
  —when the fates allow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)...

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I don’t write sonnets,
  or limerick verse

I don’t write haiku,
  though often terse

I don’t write ballads,
  or Horatian odes

I don’t write parables,
  to self-implode

But I do write in rhythm,
  and often in rhyme

With meaning that’s buried,
  and metered in time

All verbal indenture,
  I must disavow

For the meaning to rise
  —when the fates do allow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)...

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Lobbying through Hell,
the politician remanded

To the Devil he stated:
“Your program’s too thin

“You need to refigure
and turn up the heat

“His word’s getting through,
and the Angels all sing”

“It’s not about numbers,
Lucifer cried from the furnace

“It’s not about losses,
but what’s mine to gain

“If only one soul’s
to be trapped here forever

“Your indenture my focus
—let the suffering begin”

(Dreamsleep: September, 2020)...

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