To my friends
who can write
fresh-smelling
bouquets of words
with splendid color,
I offer my envy.
Mine are the blunt, stunted words,
rooted in the cracks
in pavement,
or forcing their way
to light around
overbearing rocks.
Some useful
in their own way,
edible or flavorful,
some with a
pedestrian beauty,
but few that one
would bring home in a bunch
with a box of candy.
More appropriate
in a grimy, young fist
crumpled in love,
destined to be vased
in a water glass
by a doting mother,
or shredded petal by petal
for the sake of soothsaying...
he loves me, he loves me not.

Somewhere, amongst the debris
of cigarettes after ***,
chemicals to induce sleep,
I forgot what it means to love.

I forgot what it means to breathe,
to sit still, and just be.

Somewhere, beneath these hooded seams
of solitude and well-versed grief,
beats a heart less cynical,
less tamed by vague distraction.

My nervous ticks and bad habits,
line of best fit for a near-hit
of satisfaction:

This is not enough, I know.
This is not nearly enough
to cool the bray of life
that still rattles meaning in my bones.

I forgot what it means to love,
what separates a house from a home.

Somewhere beyond this thirst
for brand-new words
is a gratitude for all that has been.
Every cliché holds a truth.

Every sentiment, a cocoon,
that I should lie so still inside

until I am wholesome,
until I am new.

Never trust the establishment
They do not exist for our benefit
For they believe  that we exist
For their convenience
Their only purpose is self-perpetuation
And they think that our only function
Is to accommodate that purpose
Whereas our true cause should be
To get rid of the *******

                                        By Phil Roberts

Sometimes at night

asleep by the firelight

I dream about them

how they died

some are singing

and others saying what

they no longer see

walking fencelines

limping as if in pain

some of them handsome

and some mysterious

silent but not

for long they tell you

men scarcely know

how beautiful fire is

and old stories

they can't remember

unless you can

still look them in the eye.

There’s a menacing chill
on the air
this evening.
“Had I the wherewithal
I’d leave this place,”
I think to myself
as the first warning is issued
by that unfriendly cloud
hanging low and dark
over the mountain.
While once I thought that
the rain would fall with purpose,
I’ve come to understand
that floodwater has no manifesto
except to place the scumline as high as it can.
We can stack these sandbags tall
around our hearts
without regard for what’s on either side of the dam.
They’re only transient monuments to ineffectiveness anyway.


An assassin stands at the corner
wondering if I’ll ever leave my house
and its warmth.
I have news for him, though…
There’s nowhere to go, and
the weatherman thinks we’ll have a storm.

the moon
took shelter in my chest and
made a home
of my husk of a body

but it's too
big and bleeding
to hold tight

I was never a rose,
But green
Not a chrysanthemum,
Nor an orchid
Something cut,
Walked upon
And yet,
You were the dew
And kissed me,
With a thousand moist kisses
Everynight,
Making me sparkle
In the sunrise