Your shadow has fallen over this place
like the plague.
The chandeliers cower at your advent,
collapsing atop this innocent crowd;
yet the violins still play.

Your presence ensues consternation.
Who's next?
Who's time is it?

It is I from which your invitation has been sent.
I am elated you could make it.

My mask is you,
with rose patterns aligned,
a gown to match,
with a bone breaking corset.
From my painted lips,

Will you save me this dance?

Face to face, chest to chest,
force each breath from my lungs.
Twirling now to my sounds,
I follow your lead.
Dip me back into your arms, my sweet,
finally reaping me with a kiss.

*You are my only love.

she sneezesas the breezes
carry the pollen to her nostrils

she  is small
and somewhat frail
but  when she sneezes
she creates more than breezes
she makes a gale

and the noise is like thunder
as her lungs do the rumba
all in order  to expell
the pollen from her being

her eyes cross
and fixate
on an ephemeral state
in order to calibrate
the legnth of the ah
in her ah-choo

sometimes it is
large and elongated
sometimes small delicate statacco
and then again it may be somewhere
in between the two

and after she sneezes and gales
and wheezes...she seems stunned
by the fuss and disharmony
she created by nasal cacophony

and in her daze, the taps
her nose and says quite clearly

good old faithful....
                           .....thar she blows

Like an alien in a spotlight
With her magnifying glasses on
My mother as she worked, up all night
Did invisible weaving till dawn

I would watch her when I couldn’t sleep
Honing in on that hole in the suit
Intently, her concentration deep
Weaving tiny threads enlarged like jute

In other-worldly light she labored
I was afraid she’d lose her eyesight
Watching her focus never wavered
Her face all aglow in the lamplight

Invisible weaving, I inquired
How tediously she plied her craft
Worked for the money that she required
Made the warp and weft of fabric last

Reconstruction, undetectable
No more burn, or tear, or fabric blight
Weaving magic so incredible
Its wound now perfect by morning’s light

She taught me much that I’m still making
From her life that now I’m grieving
Sewing, crocheting and great baking
But never invisible weaving

The picture of her life that mattered
I now see how she toiled so finely
And that the wrinkles in the fabric
Of my own life splayed out so blindly

The vision of my eyes, bedazzled
Incandescent, her face in the beam
Unaware how her mind unraveled
As Depression stole her ev’ry dream

The threads of DNA defining
Who I’ve become I’m now believing
My mother’s hand in that designing
Of my own Invisible Weaving

In honor of my mother, Edla Sylvia Fitzpatrick, on this International Women's Day

Sometimes a neighbors smile is really a wall ,
meant to draw you away from
life's frequent pitfalls ...
A friend in need has planted a seed
Let the flower grow , water it well
Chart a course for happiness and let love sail

Spray grazed my brow
from the wooden trestle ,
her countenance was of thunder and
explosiveness devoured by the
piedmont countryside

I'll eat fried bologna sandwiches
and drink your watered down whiskey
Give me cotton sheets and cheap concert
seats
Morning biscuits and gravy ,
A Chilton and a wrench ,
A tractor and a plow
Good old fashioned hand to tool
" know how*"

On cloudless moonlit nights
When the world is silver and darkest blue
And silence seems to reign supreme
If you stretch your hearing inwards
You will hear the distant moans
Of long lost lonely dreams
Homeless and obsolete
Fading away
To become endless shadows

                                           By Phil Roberts

There are spiderwebs stretched between my cells
my movement so hollow, you can hear the crackling of my thoughts.

don't forget me here
i'm alive in here
i just never figured out how to breathe

the melody lets go of my hand and skips far, far away
a fading whisper until
               silence
                         forever more and ever more

but I'm still here

Waiting to breathe