Armed with empty sentiment and kindness
Sharing just enough to weaken defenses
A whiff of insecurity
And trust disintegrates
With one swift blow

Good grief

You barely made it through the work day
Listening to the sound of the bed and chair alarms  
From the time you start the shift
Until you finish it. They just wouldn’t sit down

A chemical imbalance in their brains,
We kept getting a paycheck and
We kept on giving it to them. Those awful drugs,
Sometimes it works. Sometimes it don’t
They just wouldn’t sit down.

Mr. Steven Wallace,
I am going to end this hopefully with your blessing
When a brain that have been addled by boozes and drugs
fallen from the socket for a period of time

**Sit Beside you...
What is all this?
I know how furiously their hearts is beating

Heading back to where I'd started
Thirty years since I'd been gone
I can still remember leaving
Didn't think I'd be gone this long

Playing legions and house parties
On to clubs and smoky bars
Things have changed while I've been missing
Had more wives than I've had cars

Heading Home...I think it's time
That little town, sticks in my mind
Heading Home...my heart is talking
It tells my brain that it is time

Did some tv and four movies
Put out albums and cds
Played in places long forgotten
Here at home and overseas

Played on flatbed trucks in rainstorms
Played in shopping malls as well
Played some shows in Arizona
Man, that place is hot as hell

Time to get on home and settle
do some tours but work at home
Time to be a grandpa proper
Unlike the dad who was on the road

Got a ranch out in Alberta
George Canyon lives not far from me
Maybe we can get together
And I can do one more cd

Heading Home to where my heart is
Been gone so long, time slipped away
Home is where my folks are buried
Home is where I'm gonna stay

you don't understand how long some people have been here
you don't understand the changes we've seen
you don't understand how much we've longed for the people to
be who they be
you don't understand how it breaks our hearts
to see such infighting
bought to our world from other pages
used to back biting
you don't understand, for us
that have believed from the start
that Hello Poetry was once a place
where we always laid our heart
we gave over our life to this place
we endured every change
when you see something different here
know we have suffered more than this strange
once upon a time
in an awesome time and place
when people googled
Poetry
they found this space
they found inspiration
they found laughter that never ends
they found confidantes and a place
to plant
a never ending garden of friends
So if you're from another site
drawn here by the skin of tooth
sit a while in our midnight garden
and I'll speak to you a truth

Hello Poetry has been my best friend
for over 5 years, and all the friends
I've found on here, they've danced beneath my laugh, and held onto me so tight
that if I ever fall so wrong, they'll make
it all right

And that's the saddest thing
about Hello Poetry today...
is that most don't try
to make true friends
really real friends
or interact with them
in any meaningful way

...
..
Much before the door closed
Can be seen regularly when walking on the road
Though dark, see the mass of trash
But did not hear any noise ever

On the side of the sky touch wall
My constant movement
Though shadow yet trademark cynicism
I can go away even closed eyes

Closed eyes within the dark
Yet unbelievable, but brings a dream
A dream within the dark,
See a diamond crystal
Where only light and light dispersion
From each dimension

Suddenly, in dream
I am in front of the closed door,
See a footprint,
Known voice with tune,
Can hear the illusive song

Now neither there exists any tall wall
Nor any closed door in the mind
...
..

When your children
Near berserk us;

When the maitre de
Would disapprove;

When the pastor
Stops the service

To ask your cut-ups
To stop and move,

I shrug my shoulders.
Don't grow nervous...

I buy, of course,
Though they don't deserve it....

When the ice cream vender
Tries to serve us....

Not my monkeys!
Not my circus!

I have time.
I won’t be rushed.
Or maybe not,
Don’t matter much -
For which of all my selfish acts
Will live on after me?
Will two dates upon a tombstone
Be my entire legacy?
Will any of my poems
Survive when I am dust?
Or will my ink melt into paper
Like metal melts to rust?

Time will tell.
And we will wait.
Or maybe not,
Depends on fate -
For which of all the famous men
From generations past
Created in their lifetime
Legacies that last
What novels fill the bookshelves
Built on library walls?
And whose portraits hang in silence
In dark museum halls?

Oh to build a monument
To immortalize myself -
To have my portrait on a wall, or
My novel on a shelf
My poems in a library for
Everyone to read -
Mortality is measured;
Confuse it not with greed.
For your face upon a mountain,
If chiseled by yourself
Is no better than a novel
Which stands alone upon your shelf.

Can you name your Grandma’s Grandpa?
Was he a good, and loving man?
Did his name live after he was gone?
Tell me if you can, for
Mortality is measured
We each get our fair share
Put your face upon a mountain –
See if anybody cares.    
Phil Lindsey, 8/21/15

The posters said tomorrow
At eleven on the dot
The Mishkin Brothers Circus
Would be here ....on this spot

There would be no carnival or midway
Just one tent and three rings
And all of the excitement
That a good old circus brings

There would be elephants and lions
Trapeze artists overhead
Dancing dogs and ponies
And zebras painted red

Clowns of all description
Answering to just one man
In the center of the circle
Was Mishkin brother....Dan

He'd run the show for twenty years
Gone from town to town to town
In one day they would get set up
And in two, they'd tear it down

One day to show the locals
The circus still was an event
With magic, form the Barnum Days
All housed inside one tent

The sideshow barkers and their geeks
Were not with this fine group
Dan Mishkin had assembled
Only the finest circus troup

From Russia he had jugglers
Knife throwers, just the best
******* riders from Decatur
Along with all the rest

Fourteen trucks and trailers
Pulled into town the night before
Breaking ground once they arrived
Working right through until four

Just old time entertainment
No travelling gypsy band was this
It was the Mishkin Brothers Circus
It was something not to miss

The show was started promptly
At twelve o'clock, like the sign said
A parade of all the players
And the zebras painted red

Two shows and it was over
The whole routine began anew
The field was once more empty
Gone was the Mishkin rolling zoo

A year from now, we'd see the signs
And we'd all go to the tent
To see the Mishkin Brothers Circus
The best money ever spent

Getting tired or out of breath while making love
But I never get out of breath while
Composing a free verse or
writing poetry in the form of a Villanelle styles
*** is like running a marathon:
So upgrade your *** game

I thank the Lord
for second chances
You get to do it all again
Forget mistakes
and when you made them
Today's today, and that was then

If it weren't for second chances
I would never have found you
I thank the Lord for second chances
I thank him when each day is through

No matter what you call redemption
Second chance is what I say
If it weren't for second chances
I wouldn't be with you today

A second chance I have been given
It's something I won't choose to waste
A second chance gets me to heaven
It's a chance that just can't be replaced

If it weren't for second chances
I would never have found you
I thank the lord for second chances
I thank him daily through and through

She haunts my days
My thoughts float on her spirit
Living in the mirror.
The looking glass becomes her;
My dissipated identity cowers
In a morphed reflection she now owns.
I wasn’t prepared for this possession.
Slipping through the unseen gap,
Sliding in with the night breeze
My unknown twin has arrived
Setting up house in my soul.
Futile struggles to escape
Leave me walking backward
Sighing to accept my fate.
I want to embrace my twin
But I fear a deception
My eyes cant perceive.
Or is it my own likeness
I refuse to trust?
She has rocked my foundation,
Opened my vault to light
Blinding light overwhelming
All senses.
Repelled by my failures
Attracted by my nascent dreams
This haunting has enveloped me
Losing my will to resist
I am drawn to her reflection
My reflection.
Our reflection.