By Arcassin Burnham


Touching The Skin,
Scriptures depend,
Doing things that sin won't be held accountable for then again,
Heart turned to stone in a matter of seconds way before the end,
We tempted to love and just give it a try but she left me for a friend,
Sacrificed a love for a another she was aiming after tricking me
Making me think that we could be a trustworthy couple that will
Handle anything when it comes to taking care,
I was ready for marriage and we all knew you didn't care,



/

Daffodils where the old well use to be laying out a piece
Of cloth in the moonlight,
My memory doesn't serve me well feeling all the things
That I feel held in this life.

On a late night flight
Between heaven and home
The turbulence makes her think
How she’s been forced to roam.

Struggling with pleasure and pain
Love, loss and yearning
Stumbling through the smoke
Of the bridges she is burning

She just wanted the world
Was that too much to ask?
But she traded that dream
For the happy family mask.

But dreams are fragile
And so easily dashed,
Dangling in the downdraft
They finally crashed.

Lost on the endless plain
The blowing wheat can beguile,
Shifting with the wind
It confounds her personal exile.

Her love lies fallow
The growing season will expire,
Empty fields call her name,
As she follows her desire.

A dangerous bargain she has made,
Requiring all her talents,
Riding without reins,
She keeps that delicate balance.

in this pasture,
one hundred days past,
scores cheered as the current coursed
through Bundy's body

this evening, I am here,
solitaire, except for my *****,
the cattle, and the fireflies sprinkled
against the night

my spaniel nips
at the flies, but they are quick,
eluding her jaws to perform
a brilliant alchemy again

amidst this spectacle,
cows chew their cud, unperturbed, unaware
it seems, magical lightning comes without
thunder from these creatures

the bovines don't scatter
as I walk among them--perhaps they’ve forgotten
those revelers here on a crisp winter night, eager
to celebrate an extinguishing of light

Where do seagulls
Sleep

On the swell swell
Swell
With undertow deep
Deep deep

In town on house or
Factory
Surely not branched
In birch

(Moving to cities
Huddled for warmth)

And when switch
Cuts
You stay with pain
The pain pain

Take the strain strain
Strain
When deep undertow

Holds you down down
Down

This may be where
Seagulls sleep

In the brain brain
Brain

The sludge
of mud
       that creeps up
to my eyes
squelches me
down like quicksand
***** a large
breathing object
                         into
its grainy film
an antithesis
       of sea
lungs sputtering
out brain reeling
in remnants of
clusterfucked,
panic –driven
welting
and I am ready to
burst out
legs trapped
yet voice high
heart squealing
in the fire
bring me to
somewhere
it’s a situation
                    dire
this madness
cupping me through
time-realms
and I must find it
that liquid that
wet flow of writhing
struggling
breaking
            free
of those heavy bands
of slimy kelp
holding me
squirm me out
I don’t care
if I get the
muck of centuries
in my hair
for in my veins
my blood does see
I crave the sunlight's
strokes
and
        I
            must
breathe

four kilo's of skin
and scruff and fur

four kilos of wrinkled blue
of velveteen and corrugation
of bat ears and amber green eyes

four kilo's of meow
and  chatter and purr

given in love
given to love
lover of sun
and warmth
and all things
chicken

collector of hearts
and bugs, lizards
socks and *****

littleblucat
so very big
in heart
for one so small

it has been
just on a year
since you were
called back
to the mothership

and yet
I still look to find you
still expect to hear you
and wonder why the
new batch of skinks
still retain their tails

you were such a small thing
to leave such a big gap

My friends abroad think I'm peculiarly English
My English friends think I'm peculiarly northern
My northern friends just think I'm peculiar
But at least I've got friends

                                                     By Phil Roberts