When I go to sleep at night
I leave the TV set on
With electric shadows
Flickering around the walls
Not because I fear the dark
Which is a friend of mine
But because silence is a threat
To my drifting vulnerable mind
And the open wounds of old

Silence allows my ghosts
To invade my imminent dreams
Some screaming in rage
As others whimper for love
Creating vivid nightmares
And drenching my very essence
So, when I go to sleep at night
I leave the TV set on

                                By Phil Roberts

is just a
day an oasis
in eternity

I have been grumbling
And complaining
I haven't thanked
The One sustaining
All my needs
The One restraining
Worse events
Than I'm retaining
I'm in need of
Some retraining

He is waiting
He is listening
For grateful heartstrings
Moist and glistening
For something He
Has seldom heard
A chord of thanks
In spoken word

Let us poets, as a crowd
Speak our thanks
Right out loud!
Of course, my friends,
You have a choice,
But read this poem
With your voice!

I'm grateful God
That You're there
I'm grateful I can
Breathe the air...

I'm grateful that
You made a tree
I'm grateful for
Our poetry
I'm grateful i have
Eyes to read
The inspiration
That i need...

I'm grateful i can
Take a drink
No muck and mire
For to sink
No sewage that
Brings death
And stink

That I have a
Mind to think...

I'm grateful that
There's food to eat
No mud cookies
For my meat
I have a roof
I have a seat
I have shoes
Upon my feet...

I'm grateful,
Though there's
Pain and strife
I have this chance...
... for a good life!

There! You've READ IT!
All the while
Jesus listened...

*... and He smiled!

struggles occur,
often I'll juggle many
in attempt to avoid them
and pretend I'm empty;
nothing can hurt me!
but eventually I mess up
and break the tossing.
One struggle breaks
right after the other,
and in the end
I usually feel much better.

In reflection of minor moments that ended before I had understand or recognition of their value
I stumbled across a time of mine
as a child
scurrying through a park
hurrying to play before the dark
came to take freedom away.
From the corner of my eye
I spied
a wood pigeon
struggling against the snag
of dense ivy vine.
Its leg revealed trapped between
frantic flapping
and panicked call.
I crawled a careful crawl
ignoring thorns and nettle stings
I used to cover my approach.
Reaching out
denying maddened pecks
and talon sctatchs to detour me,
I gently held the bird
between leg and hand
as the other hand tore ivy vine.
Released it sored.
Swift and gone.
The throb of its shaking heart still echoing in my palm
as this memory echoes in my heart.

the way life used to be
isn't what i miss,
it's each individual moment-
lapsing over and over one another
creating an inconceivable picture
of everything i love,
now lost

The perception you have
This cloud that mars your judgement
A lack of compassion
And of vision
Has handed to me
Your transition
From lover to long term sufferer
And my metamorphosis
From your rock, to the reason,
We may never recover

How time has cracked
The fate we sealed
How nonchalance and reluctance
Have become the swords we yield
No time it would seem
To continue to dream
Just to watch the harvest burn,
Of our fallow field

We subside into solitude
The construction of,
Our pre fabricated fortitude
And all the worries, the strains
And the stress
They all shall drown
As our lives digress

No passing of grace
Just a funeral pyre
With time it douses
The burning desire
To turn run and find
All those years we left behind
Discarded with ease
No longer here to please
This heart-breaking separation
Now has become my emancipation