Sat in Coffee shop, latte in my hand
Watching people queuing, time turning to sand.
The server takes your order, writes your name upon the cup.
The Barista makes your order, then serves it up.
The server calls your name over a microphone.
Chocolate sprinkles, marshmallows, flake bars and pretty stuff, adorning the top.  
Workmen in their high viz, ordering macchiato to go.
Watching the clock tick tock, tick tock, 15mins is all they've got.
Business women in sharp suits and heels, ordering double espresso.
Watching the clock tick tock, tick tock, 10mins is their lot.
Mothers and their children enjoying babycino.
Watching the clock tick tock, tick tock, waiting for the hour hand to reach the top.
I sit taking it easy, watching the world rush by hoping that something miraculous will catch my curious eye.
Something hot & steamy.
Something with a froth on top.
You never know what you may find in your local coffee shop.

The world looks freshly painted
directly after the rain,
each surface glistening in the streetlight:
newly created.
As if a great artist
in a flash of inspiration
(like the strike of lightning
that preceded this storm)
envisioned this all in her head,
called it instantaneously into being
on her canvas.
All the colors, still wet,
slowly flowing into each other.
The pavement, the fallen leaves,
my footprints trailing through.
At the corner, I look behind me.
My footprints are gone, ****** into the paint;
it smoothed itself out as I passed, in my wake.
Wet and breathing spring: a perpetually-renewing clean slate.

How can one year seem like ten?
Is love just a form of multiplication
Stacking seconds on top of minutes
To the point that each hour
Somehow violates the laws of time?
Or does the weight of our hearts
Bend the very fabric of time
Creating such gravity that our
Beats move like a wave throughout
The cosmos?

To the outside world we appear normal
Whereas the seemingly everlasting days
To them seem brief at best
For our love is anything but general
It is special to the extent
That the faster we move
The heavier we become
As we grow and learn together
Within the shared experiences
All contained within one year

365 days
8760 hours
525600 minutes
31536000 seconds
Of the special relativity
Between us and the cosmos

Death patiently files his nails
And smokes a casual cigarette
Grinning and eyeless
He says so calmly
"Catch you later
Brave little dreamer"

Despite such brittle certainty
Men and women build
Despite such small mortality
Every space is filled
In the midst of death's destruction
Men and women build again

Fear, like a cringing bowel
Exudes an acrid stench
And whimpers and whines
Simpers and cries
"Don't you dare
Don't you ever dare"

Despite this clinging dread
Some will need to dare
Despite the bursting head
Dreams insist on birth
In the midst of our stupidities
Something wondrous strives

                                    By Phil Roberts