my senses can only detect 14 billion light years out
a little depressing- thinking how old the universe is
and the morality of replacing religious views
might be morally deceptive where
our sight is limited and science tries to explain expansion
maybe our views need fantasy and Gods to limit
the raging decadence of society
perhaps we need fairy tales
we need to stop finding new Galaxies
and go back to the
more constrictive Golden Rule
so I try to suspend reason
and get Faithful
but the engines and physics
and my attitude
put up barriers
and it's a great Paradox
a large conundrum
I cannot figure
alone
God i wish for a God

Slender and tenuous reasons
Run through the droplets of motive
Which impel us in our actions
Direct us to  our self-fulfilling fates
Our cleverly devised mistakes
For we each bear the scars
Of our own fatal flaws
Victims of our own design
As I have been of mine
Haven't you?

I am the saboteur of my dreams
Picking at the seams
Of a braver me
A wiser and unlikelier me
All my tendencies and traits
Conspire and defeat me
To subtly beat me
About my empty head
With every word I've said
Every thought I've had
And that's why

                       By Phil Roberts

The sands of El Dorado
Lash my tongue under tarp;
Wishes born something golden,
Fried eggs under beds
And homes, abodes in progress,
One peso at a time –
A tale and tear with every grain,
An allowance and granted only
Broken window.

The ragged lump of pillow
Where I now taste time,
Reeks of mescal with my
One white elbow
Tapping one bronze elbow;
Distant, under woven wanderings
And tattered dreams of parents
Wishing well – come subtle guilt,
Whilst the roofs of a prior Tibet
Tap atop my tether.

And while I ponder what strums –
Atriums, tempest and tubular,
I also reckon in what it means to be
Held and held alike
So that I can protect
And protect alike;
She’s waiting for me in “before”
And in Mexico, in the “now,”
So much sooner the past.
So to sooner, broken the future.

And so mothers will cry in kitchens,
Others laugh come the next fool
And yet others, abandon others
So that soon, recklessly soon, my feet
Make a wonderful twist toward away;
But at least I’d had this sunset –
Something to ride off into like the
Liquid dreams off a furrowed brow
And at least we’d had “we” on more time.

Just one more time.

Fangcun tea spills the streets
Amid wild migration,
And intent to penetrate the,
“Pearl,”
An acrid and once ugliest river;
Boiled frogs wrought chemical baths,
But come the tea,
Its first and finest smell.

So begins the story –
Tales birthed backs earlier,
And greener the mounts of
Fujian;
With I, the “foreigner,” but learned
When the piano keys
Tremble tumors within the
Nose born a million miles west.

If I’d ventured, if I’d lived,
If she’d left, and she did,
I’d orbit again and again and
Again;
Barren but to tap with one finger
Atop purple clay and sip
On and on and on
For the jubilation and for the hours.

I’d ingest all the ether’s mystery,
I’d dodge yesterday’s bullet tomorrow,
I’d live and if to die lonely,
Simply,
I’d perish knowing,
With a tea cup in hand,
That I’d still taste the dominion over
Self and covenants long forgotten.

I picked up my memories and hid them in the sand
my brain blocking out every memory of you
and the way you would gently hold my hand.

One day I may look back and appreciate that time of sun,
but for now I will keep those images locked away
and towards the path of happiness I will run.

I do not think of you in that negative light,
though that is the place where you like to hide.
Instead I will think of you as the beautiful soul who cried
and told me he loved me as he left my side.

-Whitney Adele

T-The gift of life is oft stolen away
H-Horrid weaponry does the affray
E-Endlessly casualties will parlay

G-Gleaming soldiers eyes gone for rest
I-In unforgiving battles so harsh of test
F-Fighting at a land's utmost behest
T-Terrible the deadly toll is to attest

O-Over and over munitions have terminated
F-Flagrantly thieving any quietude generated

L-Loved sons of kinfolk seen to weep
I-Infinite this sadness ever so deep
F-From a beautiful benefit the cost steep
E-Extinguished by war's insane keep

Love* can conquer all
But so can *war
So be careful
What you wish for

he is like an unfinished painting
a song with secretive lyrics
he spills a line then retracts a paragraph
with his eyes; that wide ocean
of unending metaphors
he watches and keeps to himself
a bag full of captured moments

and i am a bird, perched on an ordinary tree
i craned my neck, yet he couldn't see
my subtle melody, another mystery,
trapped underneath the leaves
i beg for mercy from a worm
that was supposed to be my meal

there are no trees across the ocean.

even in the negatives
i will never be cleared
or towed away in his collection of polaroids
yet in between my words, there he is
coloring the spaces my ink left
filling and filling and spilling
on my bed sheet, in my closet
among the neurons in my head

there will never be trees across the ocean.