Dusty dreams clutter my mind
And my past litters the present,
Crippling the slender future.
I walk in the shadow of rumours
And uncomfortable truths
Follow me doggedly
But I refuse to lie
Or hide who or what I am.
I ask no forgiveness for how I've lived
Nor do I seek salvation
Because the truth is, you see
I've had a ball!
And if I'm ******
I'm ****** if I care

                                 By Phil Roberts

"Be not wise, but be the fool."
That's the Universal Rule.
Turn deaf ears and turn blind eyes.
Turn fake truths and turn true lies.
See no evil, hear no evil,
All is good and gay.
All is saintly, sound, and sweet,
That we all see and say.
No problems here, no problems there,
All bundled up out of sight.
This world we're in, this blinded world,
Is perfectly alright!

Regrets settle on a memory
like dust on an abandoned cobweb
out of reach
to wipe cleanly away.
It's an eye sore
you ignore,
but it's always there
when you try to overlook it.

you forget
you are a poet
and accidentally
make sense

A bumpy track led to the old cottage. The place hadn't been lived in for quite a while but was intact, a perfect timber-framed Tudor cottage. Even the old thatch didn't leak. Just two rooms downstairs with a small lean-to on the back, the kitchen still had a Dutch oven and an old copper for hot water. A kite-winder staircase followed the central chimney up to two bedrooms.

The place was coming up for auction. Desperately I wanted it. At the auction it made four times what I could afford. The buyer did not move in however. There was a story about him being in prison. At this time the farmers used to dispose of waste straw after combining by burning it in the fields, a practice now banned. That's how the thatch caught alight. There was no attempt to fight the fire because no-one even noticed it. Gales later blew in the gable ends, then the chimney crumbled, brambles grew over it until there was hardly a visible trace of the place left.

I wish I could have saved it. It would have been beautiful. Instead I bought a little terrace, then a detached needing renovation, then the one we have today. I got what I wanted eventually, but I still think about that old place sometimes, and how I wanted it.

solely engrossed, slow to emotions
prone to be a soul that is broken
lowly focus, frozen devotion
vocal notions erode when unspoken

(doing fine, i lie with a smile
while i fight my own quiet trial
i clear my head, i'm alright for a while
but
a mind that is clear is a mind in denial)

goal, avoidance of a throat opened
my vocal notions will go unspoken
choking on the voices stolen
prone to be a soul that is broken