"I love you,"

I said.

He replied,

"Good night."

That night

I knew

what love was for me

was a dream to him

the rain is comfortable for hiding
it’s the loudest noise in the house
so they can’t hear my crying
thank you for being a shield

you kept me strung up
like the memory
of the death of someone
you used to love
you used me up
you gave me just
barely enough
to keep me there
as a ghost melting
into the memory of
someone I used to know

As I map the curves of your body with my lips, I listen to your moan slowly.
I hunger to taste every inch of your skin from toes to between your thighs to your soft cleavage till your lips.
Your cries with pleasure is my new addiction, vaporising my lust.

The sky of your skin
is a pearl...
a whisper
that leaves
me lush oasis,
fertile with sunrise and rain.

I love you
in the dark
where comfort
blossoms,
seeing you as a seed
from a star...

And no matter
how broken
your spirit is,
light always gives birth
to fire.

Take me there          
where my breathing
can be mingled
with your dreams
Is it too far
Where you sigh
          &
   I turn Blue ?

For Eliot

a man possessed awakes and blessing pronounces that the world needs another poetry site even though nothing new under the sun nonetheless the secret passion is coded and the white swells grow into a hurricane crescendo, lighting thunders cymbals and the non believers quietly step forward from places you never heard of, no longer cowards,
invoking a blessing of:

"me too, I am a poet with something to announce new, and I've been sitting patiently in distress, looking for a place to say, see,
I think I can,
I think therefore,
I am,
a named human.
no longer an asterisk."

6/22/17  2:40am nyc

darling,
       you're beautiful.
                      but not in the way most
                             people see
                      in the way your eyes blend
                             from brown to green
                and the way your freckles scatter
                             along your face
             and how more beautiful can you be
                      when your eyes light up
                                your smile appears
                                        & laughter springs
                                            out of your chest
                                   what a beauty you are
                             special, like the stars

1
2
3
4
5

I count things in 5’s

one cat
two cat
three cat
hula hoop
tote bag

My notes are organized Cornell style
but it can’t fill the void you left.

Light switch
one slipper
two slippers
lotion
candle

I’ve got my life organized down to the the minutes
but you aren’t in any of them.

Long distance.
We’ll see.

i don't want to immortalize you,
i want to keep you in a tiny box
with a handsome photo of you
next to each and every thing
you write when you feel whatever
it is that you feel when you write

i don't want to work hard at this,
because i know what that yields
and i'm pretty sure neither of us
has the capacity to grow much
of anything other than ourselves
into what we're destined to become

i don't know who she is,
this woman who talks to you
without fear of rejection or
retribution despite the fact
that i'm saying things i never
thought would roll off of
my disciplined tongue

i don't want much from you,
other than words and long looks
and touches and carnal attraction
and time when you can spare it
despite the truth of how little
excess either of us seem to possess

All this must disappear -
crosswise minor roadways and
State Road with its bleating traffic,
plazas where pennies melt into
palms of Middle Eastern merchants,
Chinese, Nepalese, Indian or
what have you,
road signs for New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown, Columbus, Sandusky or
what have you.
All this must disappear -
the heroin gardens
on Ohio River banks, railways rusted retired and ready to
sink silently into the soil and stone,
back yard above-ground swimming pool algae beds and front porch
family-festival fetanyl parades,
All this must disappear -
gas station dollar altars and
decaying or decayed Irondale tennant building windows, dirty,
community college self-defined
street scientists gathered in old
high school parking lots discussing
politics and the Pleiades and the fastest way out of the galaxy or the
slowest way into an easy death.
All this must disappear,
from Walnut Beach to Wheeling,
and the rust lift and assemble
into something lovely tomorrow's youth can work with, can love and
can sit atop the hills and smile and
be content in knowing while I
sit on the sidewalk and be
glad the future finally showed up.

God, I rather not sleep tonight
because I'm going out of my mind
I pray that you will let me stay up all night
it may be dark outside, but these feelings...
they crawl inside my thoughts all the time
and the last thing on my mind is...
that these feelings must die.

I want to put in the fire,
it's my only desire!
I want to shove it in the dirt,
it feels so good that it won't even hurt!
I want to rip it apart,
so I can love God with all of my heart!
I want to shoot it with a bullet,
so I can live my life through the fullest!

Through aggression, depression, obsession, and frustration
my mind keeps making the same equation
on how to prevent my feelings that leads me to temptation.
I just keep trying to keep my feelings inside...

but still I want them to just...die

Think of a feeling you have not felt nor witnessed anyone who has felt it.
Describe it.
Can you explain to me what the unknown is? do not notice the tide rising up your leg until you are standing, neck deep, in gulf shores salt water. don't know when close is too close until you get burned.
Can never correlate the distance and the difference it makes.
Looking at a map you cannot read. A question mark ended opportunity. We stick in our hands, slowly, knowing there will be nothing to grasp. A blanket of black. This is how we proceed with caution. Better to reach for nothing than to reach for something and miss. Better to make no progress than to accidentally regress. The problem with pretending that living consists solely of existence is that it doesn't.
The earth still turns even when we aren't focused on it.

I must be psychotic, I must be demented, to think I am worthy of even one second, of your attention, we are just looking for love and affection, but play hard to get like love's an infection, just give me one moment, give me one second, I'll hold your hand until its apparent

I saw her break in a tea house
as dainty and delicate as the decor surrounding us
she was pure, yet with age her face only grew more beautiful

perfection was breached as tears dripped ever so slightly into her
tea cup

sinking and rising through waves of fulfillment, she grinned through teary eyes

with her heart shattered across the table into bits of lovely euphoria,
I knew she was at last...
my sister.

A sense of yearning moves her...
It was deep...excruciating.
That even flowers weep,
as she calls to him.
Still, unheard...unanswered.

Plant me in your chest,
Sow my love into your skin.

Water me until I grow.

Love me with
Your eyes of emerald
And hair of gold.

Resting my eyes next to you,
Hearing you breathe beside me,
Eyelids fluttering,
Chest rising.

My darling,
How can I describe a love,
I'm not even sure of?

Leave my sanity at the door,
Leave my heart in your hands.

How can I not miss you at 4AM
When I'm drunk on whiskey
And all alone.

But darling,
I miss you the most at 5PM
When I'm eating dinner
In my apartment
All alone again.

I can't bear to be without you.

However,
I can't bear to lose myself in you,

again...

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because the last time I opened up to someone artistically they told me it was pretty dark and I should keep it to myself.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because I was raised in a culture that was anti love and pro meaningless sex. I saw endless commercials about movies that glamorize a lifestyle in which your body is fulfilled but your heart is ignored and at that impressionable age I learned my heart came second but my allure came first and the less I cared that happier I would be and I carried that belief around with me the way I used to carry around a Bible as a child.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because of the time that I opened my father’s phone to reveal a family secret I would hold to this day against my own moral instincts unraveling miles of insecurities wondering if I’m not a good enough daughter or if he stopped loving my mother or if true love was never real and although I had been taught marriage was my purpose, it was what I believed would make me happy, maybe rings aren’t enough to stay in love and maybe people’s feelings change and maybe no one actually has a “one true love” and that this purpose I had been taught was really an endless wild goose chase that only lead to broken families and lost souls.

I can’t write this poem
I can’t write this poem because sometimes I still wonder why I fell into an abyss of toxicity at such a young age. And when I say wonder I don’t mean a trivial ponder, I mean I contemplate every possible reason why the person who I once believed held the universe in her eyes would lie to my face, why she never kissed me in public and our love was always a secret, why she valued girls with blue hair but my blonde hair was not good enough, why I had to hide bruises from my family when I was still in high school or more importantly, why at the time, I thought I deserved them. These thoughts, this lingering paranoia that I am undeserving of healthy love, they muddy my interpretations of real life and distort reality and effect my relationships. My doctor would call these intrusive thoughts, my best friend would tell me they’re symptoms of PTSD, but I have come to realize that I’ve been burned and I am damaged and I hope to god I can recover.

But you,
Oh god, you
You can write this poem. You can be my safety net while I’m free falling in love. You can be the one to listen to my mental tilt-a-whirls, you can be the one that introduces my body and my heart, you can be the one that calms the storms in my mind when I’m questioning the love I’m deserving of. You are the one who makes sure I fall asleep in my bed after drunk nights, you are the one that still sees my value after acknowledging my flaws.
You can write this poem.

wasn't it?
to feel the knot come undone,
the winds shift,
to feel it so from skin to soul,
to speak of going,
and then to go.

This muse of mine
Remains silent and invisible
And is no less intense for that
I still write to her
Tell her of my dreams and my pain
And she is part of both of these

This muse of mine
May be no more than a ghost
But she is still my only truth
The one who loves me
For all my damned and damaged past
For all my pointless future

This muse of mine
May be unreal or gone
Yet still I hold on
And still there'll be no other
Because within my muse
Hopelessness and hope
Have me enthralled

                              By Phil Roberts

<>


so she says...

your mouth suddenly goes Gobi Desert dry,
somehow manage a single swallow,
sounding as loud as if you've cracked
all twelve of you pistol-toting open carry knuckles simultaneous

damn, as ridiculous as I sounded,,
it can't be worse than my succinct, elegant,
pithy response of a choking, but interrogatory
                                                   ­                              ahem?


(translation: excuse me, what did you say,
are you crazy, and did I hear you correctly
and are you completely crazy?)

then that awful pause
as you wait for
further guidance
from her mission control,
a scientifically measurable and
unendurable two shakes of a lamb's tail
(10 nanoseconds in atomic scientist lingo)

while that interminable wait drags on and on,
you manage to prepare an Old Testament long
and truly impressively worthy sing-song
list of variegated absurd follow up responses,
including:

- damn those ten pounds that summer slipped on so quietly
- is she really that crazy
- does she really think you're that crazy
- really? naked naked? (as opposed to just naked),
   or just in a, uh, a bathing suit?
- hot damn! there is a first time for e v e r y t h i n g!
- mmmm, what's she really after?
- am I going to be an Internet instantaneous super star?
- but I'm not tan down you know where
- she's just making fun of a really old man
- that's gross (or more accurately,      
   "I am so gross looking i.e. damn those ten pounds")
- yeah baby
- and the concluding eloquent summarizing thought of:
"make me an offer I can't refuse"
  which sounds suspiciously
  in your aged brain sadly like
                                                                                "you talking to me?"


then she laughs sweetly and says,
not naked, naked pictures silly,
just those poems where you bare your soul,
reveal more
of your core,
ones where we get to peek
(peak? couldn't resist) inside,
that comely come, studded,
(surely she must of meant studly,
says my semi-wounded pride)
that brain
you try to disguise
from where you draw
equal measures of pleasure & pain,
revealing yourself and so,
revealing us as well,
in a publicly secret way

cloyingly, subtly, adding
in a man-killing seductive  manner,
"after all that's a kind of love poem too,
is that not so?"
dancing me into submission, knowing,
that when Wanda-Goldfish like,
elle répète en français,
est-ce pas?"
there is no question who's the master
and who will be role playing the obedient
slave to poetry

oh well...

Sic transit gloria mundi, all glory is fleeting..

but still,

that's a not half bad compliment....

so I reply

you know there is a very
steamy seamy dark side to me

and as proof, and in fulfillment
of her request,

I gave her this love poem

                                                         and no telling what happened next

You came in the room and freshened up my coffee
dipped your head to my shoulder, said you felt so happy
turned on the tv, laying on your couch
under cream colored blankets and drinking whiskey
the rain had finally started falling
I kissed your neck and said you're everything
I kissed your cheek and said don't ever leave me
how can this all feel so easy
my tortured past felt so hazy
you looked down at me with amorous eyes
lazy, wide, searching deep inside
I touched the sunburn on your chest
warm and bare, then exposed the rest
I'd like to remember the way you looked that night
dancing around in the bright kitchen light
singing wildly as you cooked
you grabbed me round the waist and pulled me
close to your body and said you missed me
I won't ever forget the way you touched me
I threw my head back and felt the ecstasy
you pushed my hand back and fell silently
into my body like the rainfall, softly
cascading down the living room window next to me
I never want the rain to stop
please don't ever let this rain stop

The world
has given you
so much pain,
but yet
you still
find the strength
to make art out of it.

I'm no longer the son
of any earth bound man ;
in an inconsolable moment
i saw an angel fly away

with tear filled eyes
an awakened sigh opined
a flock of seagulls
soar upon winged wind

white bird climbs
    so very high
    gliding west
         across
the shallow surface
of the inshore sky

as if a beckon to follow
      hearkened ;
as if they know the way
        beyond

reverent fragments
       of the sea  
summoned back home

the Pacific Ocean wind song
segued into the call of the wild                                                 .


    June 18,   rivers   2017

Please don't go inside.
I wanna be the reason you dance in the rain.