Edges of shadows
In the corners of eyes
Too fast to see

Is it true
What you see
Is it me
Is it real
You do not hear my voice
Or know the colour of my eyes
You would not know me in the street

And yet
You have seen my soul in words
Those who care to look
Can know my story
My frailties
My vulnerabilities

The curse and the gift
Of poetry


                                By Phil Robrts

I dreamed of my father
crossing the fields
on his one-eyed tractor
mowing acres of sadness
heading east of a moon
that'll be gone tomorrow
and I waded the creek
beneath a ridge
where my mother is shearing
dead roses and the smell
of those flowers floating
to the foot of the mountains
reminds me of her hair
and my father's laughter
disappearing across the hill.

I hear the scratching in my walls all night
It sounds to sinister it gives me a fright
It could be mice or maybe legions
Of some really ******* ****** demons
I hope it's just my ****** up imagination
Not again, my own damnation
Guess I'll just lay here and wait for the screaming
I've past insane, there's no redeeming

and that was my testament, like I was planning to pass
on, which I am not, but
then who knows when the last breath
of wind is gonna flow,
like  a will, leaving nothing to anyone
or a spirit watching over your destiny,
or an old wise woman tending Petunias
or Peonies in a flowered smock,
or the Pine tree watching it all so patient,
just shedding needles as if he doesn't
need them, or a great mountain
standing so patient watching
every sunrise and each sunset
like it is infinity.

One night soon
someone
will strike a match
on a stone
and read my name.

I remember when every shadow I saw was her
A blurry eyed vision
A colorless shape without edges
An energy I could feel
Always present
I remember how her hands would touch me
Softly leaving their mark
She wrote her name on a wall
In black marker
Then she carved it in stone
I remember when she loved me as I love her
Her ephemeral love
Her phantasmal touch
Her promise
To always be there in my darkness
I remember when she was behind me and in front of me

I cannot forget

I remember when she loved me
As a ghost can only love a tortured soul
As the spirit loves the flesh
My flesh torn by her fingernails
Her calling my name
I remember how she left me

I cannot forget

My ghost
Fell into the shadows
And disappeared
Gone
I don't know where she is
But I know
My ghost with love so sweet
If she's not haunting me
She haunts another

There was a girl
quite beautiful
who drowned herself
drinking they say
without blinking
like an infant suffocating
while sleeping without care
out where a lifebuoy
floats like a soggy rose
marking the spot
they last heard her
singing while sinking.