If someone pulled me from the inside out
Would they still like what they see?
Such things I hide behind
Are not always with intent to deceive
Do I have an intriguing mind?
Or better yet...
Do I have a beautiful heart?
Shouldn't these be the most important parts
I wear masks to disguise the pain
Underneath a river of lies fall down like rain
Should this river of lies drown me?
Or does it just make me grow
a thicker shell for all to see

In a photograph
without a subject
you, standing
with your back
to my camera.

I long for a face,
your eyes, a soft smile,
or even just a pair of hands.

I remember us being
so lonely for each other,
and there on the shelf
a girl standing by herself.

Not just the empty cottage
dilapidated, all alone, my love,
you left three months ago
and the old house behind the dunes
now a photographic manipulation.

A wonder of the modern age,
complete with cuts and splices
where you used to sit, an empty
place in the bed, a gaping hole
somewhere above my navel.

With magnificent indifference
The world swirls and eddies
And life ebbs and flows
Around my crusty head
But still this radiant illusion
Springs eternally hopeful
And leads us by the nose

Times of mysteries past flow
As the northern rain washes the days away
Into slick and glimmering colours
Without earthly reason
And this late in the season
Daffodils fade and die
And butterflies won't fly
In an awkward silent stillness

                                   By Phil Roberts

He knew the ache could not be recompensed
they knew it too the moment echoes fell silent
There was already not enough love
in a world grown dark as darkest past

It wasn't the color of his skin nor dialect
or the  journey of a  thousand  miles
Not the place that he'd come from
       back when ―  left behind

             nor a heart of gold,  
      that never became a home

The colour of  unwritten silence
had  eclipsed  the waning  light
On the run from who he'd become;
     ashamed for all he was,  
couldn't erase a lifetime that felt a waste ―
               trying to untie a Gordian knot

He saw his body as an entombing barbwire cage
    imprisoning  a  wellspring  of  love writhing deep therein

Immured at arms length from the outside world
    where  the soul of a teardrop  abides  within
                         its insignificance

Shielding the  inherent  maelstrom
                          from the innocent passersby
Buried thoughtfully for the greater good of all ―
for the unsatiated dream boundless love betides

Written  artifacts  exhumed  like  ***** secrets
a lifetime of stigma's stain swept under the rug;
just whispered words written from an unfinished life
few ever really looked deeply between the twisted lines
arising from the soul of just another passing stranger

The long road begets a suffocating silence
choking out,           extinguished love inhumed
Ashes  of what once had been life aglow of light
               forevermore shrouded
          like the dark side of the moon



rivers