My back aches
It breaks from carrying you, Boy
So many years
All your life
All my life
You hold me back
And slow me down
You keep dragging me
Down to the ground
I could have flown but for you
Keeping the past within me
Anchoring me to the long gone

I remember you
Scrambling in the dirt
And fighting in the street
But underneath you were soft
Too fast to believe
And maybe you still make me a fool
I've always told you
Toughen up, kid!
I can't afford your gullibility
I refuse to feel your fears
Or hear the voices that scare you
Do you hear me, kid?
And tell me this, Boy
Do I still see the world
Through your wide open eyes?

                                  By Phil Roberts

Coughing like a cold start
Wheezing like a bag
Spitting through the back door
Have another ***
Doing the dying thing

Filling up an ash-tray
Feeding a fat face
Drinking cans of lager
Getting in a state
Doing the dying thing

Reading ****** papers
**** and bingo cards
Have another lager
Another pound of lard
Doing the dying thing

Sitting watching game shows
Rattling paper bags
Looking bored and farting
How the sofa sags
Doing the dying thing

Working for a *******
For very little pay
Yes boss and no boss
For eight hours a day
Doing the dying thing

Safely empty headed
Dull of thought and eye
Ignorant and vacant
There are many ways to die
Doing the dying thing

                                       By Phil Roberts

Things get broken
Hearts
Minds
It's no-one's fault
It never is
Not really
Butter fingers and distraction
Without malice or forethought
Things
Like hearts and minds
Slip
And shatter on hard contact with reality

                                By Phil Roberts

Did you take your soul to a land
Where those with hope do not linger
And apprenticeships have been served
With cuts and broken fingers

Oh these days of hardships swell
Cries the mother with howling baby
Who would care and who would dare
To risk their spare change lately

And now you walk on broken stones
With your feet wrapped in newspapers
But they say it's alternative news
Perhaps you'll learn the truth later

So is this the place your soul should be
In this land of hate and anger
Where you would place your fragile fate
In the hands of a stranger

He may be God he may be not
He could be a fallen angel
In this land of decay and rot
Who would trust a stranger

                                           By Phil Roberts

I'm drifting
through my dreams,
occasionally colliding
with a hint of certainty.
I'm higher than I seem,
fighting the concept
of reality as a means.
I'm lost in the sky.
I can't remember why,
but life is just easier
when I get a little high.

I
To the Prophet-ess
who turned fire
into bread,
And taught me
The wreaths of coffee
To read
Into the songs of dawn.
II
And the mason
Who showed me how
To hammer
Form out of chaos,
And love the scent
Of the cement
On new walls.

© LazharBouazzi, August 13, 2017

A poet is rich with words and shares the ***.

Over the years
it's plain to see
I've lost most things
but my ugly

Most folks I know
would agree
Ugly has always
looked good on me

Ain't no sense
trying to figure out
How all this ugly
came to come about

Or how it is
the only thing
That has ever really
stuck with me

Lost most my mind
and all my shape
Not enough math Pi
and too much cake

The hardest thing
that is to fake
Is the face of ugly
I face every day