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

Awake to promises , dreams
and ambitions , to coffee
and dark bread , to life's intangibles flurrying about
my head
To the truth , to the rain of
depression fought by a pharmacological
roof  
A morning ode to dark clouds , knowing full well that
sunshine hides in the background