How many times can you clench your fists
Claim defense while proactively seeking conflict
Looking to others as the culprit when you did it
How many times can you wage war
Taking more and more before
The blood soaked shores
Come back to haunt your greedy heart
Are you a tin can machine man
With little or no heart to feel for
Your victims in this strange war
Or are you human with eyes to see
That the soft warm flesh you cleave
Is not an illusion or video projection
But a genetic copy with only minor variations
That your enemy is not a nation
That fills its ranks with fanatic monsters
But a funhouse mirrors that reflects
The same passions and drives that move you
To do what you do
One look through this cold Chrystal clear blue lake
And you will be forced to take their pain as your own
Look just one time with an open mind and it will be known
That there is no enemy
Only unclaimed family

When I was a child life was grand
I’m still sitting in the sand with busy hands
Building up and tearing down
Standing up and sitting down
There’s no wall I can call mine
No clock to tell the time
Little waves come now and then
Until the big one at the end

Knowing this I carry on
Though what I build will be gone
Knowing this I carry on
Though every thing will be gone

Across the sand the sun will set
And make this busy mind rest
The sea will take some sand away
And set the stage for the dawning day

Knowing this I carry on
Though what I build will be gone
Knowing this I carry on
Though every thing will be gone

At the risk of egotistically bragging
I love when my poems start trending.
I love knowing when I post a rhyme
That it’s not simply a sort of ending.
It tickles me to see that this one
Will still be in the universe out there
And won’t just be words that slip away;
The world at large isn’t unaware.

I love that so may people like the words
And so often react with love and sharing
Whether my poem is funny, or even sad
And perhaps sometimes extremely daring.
Sometimes it’s because I have written
What has long needed to be said,
And often because I did not leave
Ideas in my path as if they were dead.

Other times, I just take a chance
In the fervent  hope I am conveying
Something brand new and exciting;
Something that really needed saying.
It reinvigorates me to keep on writing
And authorizes what I am feeling.
It boosts up my self-esteem so much
That it sends me senses reeling.

So thank you, my readership all,
And take this sentence seriously,
I read every comment through.
Sometimes I laugh deliriously.
This kind of acceptance from you
Affects me more strongly than a drug.
Please take my heartfelt thanks
And a great big literary hug.

I made my way
Through the raging years
To a certain tenderness
And I've known
A grown man's tears
And the agony of emptiness

And in my time
I have done and seen
More than I could stand
But what was then
And wherever I've been
I'm just another tired man

                             By Phil Roberts

You took a red balloon by the string
And led it deep into the woods.
  You snipped the string from around your wrist
   With the switchblade I didn't know you had
    And let the balloon float away.
     You turned your back and didn't watch it fly away,
      So you wouldn't know that it didn't fly very far.
       The string tangled in the branches of an oak overhead.
        You didn't see it; you were already gone.
         I had once had a red balloon;
           I could have one again.
            I climbed into that oak tree after it.
             Wrapping my other three limbs around the branch,
              I reached my right hand for the string.
               It came undone easily beneath my inquisitive fingertips.
                I tied it to my own wrist.
                 It reached for heaven,
                  And carried me along with it.

I felt this primal urge
This trance-like instinct
To set things right
In case I have to leave
Move on, so to speak

So
I took my jaundiced eye
And rolled it from corner to corner
Of this, my situation
And I felt so very small and hard
Lost in largeness
For cynicism is a tight thing
Which allows little movement
A strange kind of chastity

And then, you see
Changes
Honesty demanded that I see more
Grow, so to speak

And oh, my poor sore eyes
See how the children starve
All over this bitter world
This bitter, sickened world
And cynicism did this
Through the slack hands of millions
Who still refuse to believe
That things can be changed

                                    By Phil Roberts

Get on.
Turn your back on death. Smile.
The journey of your being continue.
The days roll by like a train
diminishing in inevitable distance.
Nothing can stop tomorrow.
People disembark randomly
at the stations of your heart.
Friends, lovers and family
walk off into worlds of their own.
The train rolls relentlessly on,
faster, always and only faster.
You know the final destination.
Soon, you will be wholly ghost.
One life, your life, one lonely world.
The conductor calls out your stop.
Turn your back on life. Smile.
Get off.

I want to be wrapped in soft shades
      of shimmering blue
celestial greens
deep, dark violet hues
I want to be
       held firm and steadied
yet rocked by chisled grace
I want my inner light
     to flow right over,
beaming all over the place
I want to be strummed
until
the tunes reach ethereal notes
      crescendo or staccato
whatever makes time float
I want magic in my palms
       as I cup your gentle face
I want to get electric
inside your firm embrace
      I  want to feel *******
when your eyes are on my soul
I want to feel that tension
build up and juice my flow
Yes.
      I am ready for connection
ready for oceans to break down walls
No longer afraid of waiting
Bring it on!
     I want it all

We all could have equal rights
If the world would only grant them.
We could all sing a brand-new
A truly joyous national anthem.
We could sing about at last
The words of the Constitution
Finally will match with reality
Without another revolution.

This is the tale of the autocrats
And how they got badly out of hand.
They decided they knew more about
Things they could never understand.
They decided they knew better than
The people with proper education.
So they elected their supporters to
Lay waste to their own fine nation.

This is a morality tale about greed
And what it can do to men’s minds;
That turns them to skulduggery
And makes them act as if they’re blind
To reason, decency and even honor
Taking advantage of the weakest
Who then grow weaker by the hour.

As many times in history, they promise
A shopping list of impossible dreams
And the weak think they’ll come true,
Say reality is not quite what it seems.
They think by listening to carpetbaggers
They will all get rich and supported
By each elected lying *******.
But those dreams are soon aborted.

For a while they believe the woes
Are made by their predecessors.
They’l blame the losers, the gays
The blacks and finally the electors.
They won’t question themselves
About the choices they all made.
By then the path of doom and death
Will be almost permanently laid.