you are here again
you drift in and out
my tiresome wilting nightmare

you are the endless haunt
of my darkest nights
the sleeping hours
soaked with raw unease

what was the point
in lusting and loving
piercing the depth of our souls
why bind ourselves
in a luscious nest
if it was waiting to fall

i lie on our barren bed
fragments of who i was
splayed on the floor
waiting for a good day
the strength to gather them all
and rebuild myself

please remove your essence
don't play me with your jangling ghost
break the chains
cast my desire to black
let my eyes
never fall on you again

leave me
in this abandoned home
to live my days in cold blood
close the unwritten chapters
let this haunting end

Through a broken window
Covered with dirt and cobwebs
And from within an empty house
Crumbling and derelict
Even the bleakest landscape
Can look fine and good

When the water runs in
Through the sagging old roof
It makes the rain outside
Seem healthier and clean
So that drafts blowing through
Cracked and buckling walls
Make the harshest winds
Feel kind and warm

Because when the interior
Is so desolate and empty
It makes the worst of the world
Seem pretty much good enough
So why bother to change
Anything at all

                                               By Phil Roberts

Naked as Spring
Several propositions,
Like life,
Offer themselves to you
And to the heart of you.
They make themselves available
As naked as the newborn Spring.

It's your choice.
Several propositions,
Like your life,
Become themselves of you
Or of the heart of you.
Some make themselves inevitable
And you believe it's your choice

And now a silence
A crushing roaring silence;
As those propositions,
Chances
Become fewer and fewer
And in the heart of you
Some things become inevitable
And this very loud silence

And now this silence,
This bruising numbing silence,
As these dispositions,
Attitudes
Become stiffer and stiffer
And in the head of you
These things that are inevitable
Are getting slower and slower

Those naked Springs ago,
All those propositions,
Your life
Fasten themselves to you
And to the heart of you
You're getting older and older
And you're as naked as a bone

                                 By Phil Roberts

will you leave me
self loathing
disguising the image
i see in the mirror
extinguishing the hope
   it took me a lifetime
to build
with one glance
exhaustion envelopes me
the warmth of my bed beckons
to fill my head with the dreams
of how i want
my life to be
then awakening
to the reality
and disappointment
of how my life
actual is.

My sound broke so I'm suspended in silence

That's okay because these ears hear too much

I sit here head throbbing
Westside window perception
chipped paint with the dead fly

The can man collects his cart
shoes need mending
Soul needs comfort

Bags of treasure
he has it gladly
Rattles down my street
off for a penny
Only an empty echo
scrap for a malt beverage
Sometimes life is that simple

I have a four pawed companion

It's not mine but sometimes he knocks on my door

Which is just fine because I can barely handle myself

We sit in quiet

Watch the tree sway and garbage gather

He stayed away tonight
cold weather being the culprit I hope

No time for the calls at my windows
I know she only wants madness
and I am exhausted

People come

Checking on a body to make sure it was in working order

They say I will give them cancer from worry

I appreciate the intention
I resent the implication

I fear love

but was never cold enough to deny it

Things get broken
Hearts
Minds
It's no-one's fault
It never is
Not really
Butter fingers and distraction
Without malice or forethought
Things
Like hearts and minds
Slip
And shatter on hard contact with reality

                                       By Phil Roberts

I have moved to a different drum
With odd and peculiar rhythms
Dancing awkwardly through life
On my two flat clumsy feet
It is not the way I chose
To step on innocent toes
But the wildness of my dance
Has had no easy flow
The blame lies entirely with me
It's a genetic thing, you see
I am no more than this
The son of the gypsy's kiss

                                By Phil Roberts

“lie to me again,” she whispered.

“i love you,” he said. ♡

Those days are still around
Right there in the eyes
Small pieces of scripture
Spiritual desperation
Down all those long years gone
Gleaming
Needing
Seething
Spitting teeth and grieving
And a child still cries
In all the bleakest nights
Within the shell of an adult
Still cries, still cries
Still prays for someone kind
To stop the shaking
And wipe away the tears
To fill the belly
To count the injuries
And fill in the forms
But nothing ever -
Somehow never -
Helps

                By Phil Roberts