When the moon hovers hallucinated
on the post canal
breaking in bubbles of fish breath
the white widow of the night
revives her long dead tongue
to lick the scales of your skin
pulling you into her bed of nails
making love with you the whole night
leaving you bruised and insatiate
when they find your shadow
scouring the edge of the canal
with her name on its lip.

I listen to that great darkness
watching for burning ships
their bows bearing women
and the black prows are coming
plowing the mist into water
as the wind lifts up the bowsprits
leaving a wake I want to be
left alone with night after night
like a sleeping knife that runs
deep through the belly
between the thighs of dreams.

Last night drinking
cherry cured 'shine
from Tennessee
I caught the moon
flinching behind
a tree like a white
flower afraid to be
cut from its dark stalk
whereas in the spring
when I'm sober
it grows outside my
window before daylight
when moths come
and die gently while
I lie here listening
to their silent soft wings
dreaming of bleeding
in my sleep and find
no trace of a wound
aching in the harsh red cut
of another day breaking.

When I go out at night
trying to sweep up the stars
my woman grows weary
of the cold weather in me
she thinks I am with someone
else, but it is midnight
and I am alone with the moon
that woman in a red dress
standing on the beach
but you see, it is an empty
plate with no supper, or
maybe a piece of stationery
without a lover's phone number.

In the narrowest of lanes
I found the sweet shop.

Behind dusty crumbling glasses
dozed the old keeper
smelling of sugar, milk and sweat
over fossils of Paleolithic sweets
on a time machine from the century
he never was
to a millennium he doesn't bother about
clinging onto clay by pottery
not succumbing to synthetic
counting not on android
but accounting on parchment
with the art of finger's arithmetic
most intricately scribbled with pencil
announcing progress is a trouble
not designed for the simple
and contentment has no more nitty-gritty
than price and quantity.

Over his head
spiders worked and reworked
from the ceiling to the glass
as have been doing
since Carboniferous.

I listened to the iron rooster
spinning in the wind wondering
who would climb the roof
and take him in, or would he roost
with strangers in the house

It was so cold
the chicken water froze over

The women made coffee
and the men went out to the shed
to look over the tools

No one would sit in her black chair
because it was a bear
that might wake up anytime

She died in the middle of the night

The doctor said her heart blew out
like a jar of preserves

Before dawn I laid my head
on the hard couch by the cast iron
stove and heard her coming down
the stairs with her cane and her teeth
in a glass on the way to the outhouse
saying *Who took my flashlight?

I used to eye her more than books.

She had good looks
and for me
in the library
she killed the dullness of patience
the stifled air of silence
with her lips' hidden smile
that was quite a diversion
from pouring over yellowed pages
all the while.

In the garden I sought my chance
but she resisted any advance
telling me it's not her
I needed to be in my mind
but a job I must find
for couldn't be raised a family
merely loving in the library.

I think she gave me love
when I needed a job
but by the time I earned the bread
she was already married.

Once I thought of her as Miss Giving
but now as I look back
I have serious misgiving.

Walking home
ripped I tripped
on a dead dog
half-in the ditch
hard as a log
and stinking.

I said *Scoot over bro,
come morning
there won't be a spit
of difference between
you and I in the eyes
of the buzzards
and the beholders.

Sometimes at night

asleep by the firelight

I dream about them

how they died

some are singing

and others saying what

they no longer see

walking fencelines

limping as if in pain

some of them handsome

and some mysterious

silent but not

for long they tell you

men scarcely know

how beautiful fire is

and old stories

they can't remember

unless you can

still look them in the eye.

Hello
It's me again
It's the early hours and I'm slightly drunk
And it's me again

He has the sins of his mind
Which keep him warm inside
Amidst the weary and the wasted
Such warmth keeps him alive

Restless
I've always been restless
I hate to move yet I can't sit still
Hours are endless

There is a thrush inside his head
An agony of wings
Panic beaten thrashing
A cage of singing things

Anxious
Still always anxious
Even though I've slowed right down
This edge is ageless

Laying low and watching
A million sub-plots hatching
Paranoid and paranormal
He scatters to survive

                                     By Phil Roberts