Do not dream too loudly
You may awaken your conscience

                                        By Phil Roberts

A trickle of time
melts its way down
a mountain of perhaps.
Other trickles
from others' potentials
merge and mingle;
become a stream
which grows as it gathers.
Soon, soon,
time no longer
is guided by stone
but carves it,
carves unwilling rock
into fissures.
Earth itself is rent
by what might have been;
time gathers the debris
and carries it downstream,
deep and slow and wide.
The canyon it cut
is deep and wide as well,
and twists and turns
with branches and dead ends.
Our lives are but a shout into the void,
echoes which carry and fade
along canyon walls,
unless and until
an ear downstream
might hear them.
Perhaps they will;
perhaps not.
The river and canyon both
are fickle;
hold their secrets close.
The only potential
once here

is to shout
until no voice is left.

The old songs don’t feel right
wrong key, out of tune
somebody wake Sinatra
reclaim these wayward melodies
My Way, New York
New York
seat of the Queen
a gilded new King
everything he touches
Gold

money equals tower
Freudian crystal skyscrapers
the fitting measure
of a brittle man
who has not strength
to speak the truth
recites instead from
a book of fables
the moral to every one
those in glass houses
shouldn’t throw stones

the town crier proclaims
the truth does not matter
no one cares

hold tight that red hat
lest it be snatched
by a rebellious wind
see it now, a symbol
framed in white and blue
rising above the crowd
boots on the ground speak
shiny brass buttons
on a pert military coat
don’t a revolutionary make

the peddler of lies is just
a liar once-removed
“alternative facts”
brash fabrications
with a fancy semantic bow
such a pretty package
such a pretty family
the biggest crowd
in all of history
let the whole world

Witness

this most
perfect union

Sheet-metal thunder
rattles through bluest skies
and brightest sunshine

Here in dense darkness, alone I sit,
and crave for the caressing rays
of thy gentle light, nowhere near.
Out side the balcony netted to
keep the deviant doves away
the city of million lights speaks
in a jumble of numerous sounds.
like my heavy heart, the overcast sky
is a silent observer, holding light back.

The silence within me kept deepening,
every little light in this city night has
a story to tell, I perk up my ears to hear.
Every skyscraper silently exchange
encrypted message of light of many kind,
to one another, written on darkness.

"I don't trust the night,
she is a cheat" says one
The other replies, "Oh! the night
her luxurious dark hair heals"
Within the discordant sounds
what light etch on the night air has
love and hate, sin and redemption.
Neon pauses create a rhythm,
the musical river flows on.
Sitting here inside the cocoon,
I did spin myself and inhabit,
I think I see you there in the distant
blue light, which you yourself embraced

Will you be ever dreaming about my lonely plight,
when you dive deeper in to your dark night?

departure
                arrival
the climber
                 the diver
     the heat
                 the chills
     the beat
                 the thrill
         depth
                 moisture
        height
                 closure