Once the beginning is over
It starts beginning to end

                                  By Phil Roberts

we shall not leave this world alive
as we’ll discover at the end of our life

yet even though we know all that
we still cannot imagine being not

What is being beautiful?
Is being beautiful about the greatest figure?
Or who has taken the most pictures?

For me,
Being beautiful has less to do with looks,
and more to do with heart.
The way kindness seeps in at the start,
it would transform people to a work of art.
Beautiful isn't in the physical appearance,
It isn't about acne and clearance,
it is the one that you hold dearest,
As though their heart is of solid gold,
so the saying that is quite old,
'Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder',
so when models give of a cold shoulder,
Or the way celebrities form boulders,
From the bodies of their fans,
so amongst the waving hands,
I can truly say, not everyone is beautiful...

Beauty doesn't stem from the eyes,
It stems from a beautiful heart,
Beauty doesn't stem from a disguise,
It stems from a kind finish and a kind start.

If
You change yourself
You are
Going to help mankind a lot

A wish was made above the stars
Bring me the light from deep within

I retreat into myself
Into the corridors of me
I lounge on the well worn flagstones
Gazing on the marble columns
Arranging tapestries and paintings in
A more perfect order
I stalk down old hallways and explore unnamed galleries with a
Single candle to push back the deep
Sometimes rooms are filled with old Furniture
Sometimes entirely empty
Once feeling brave I held onto
The threshold of such a room and
Stretching out I hold the candle aloft in the chasm. Nothingness, darkness complete the light puddles at my feet pitiful.
When I recall that yawning abyss the silence of
It persists.
In ballrooms I play Chopin's waltzs' for no one  in particular
Yet I take my bow and my place at the head of a table set for a score of kings
I lay on marble steps trying to guess the riddles that my echo whispers
I climb the  towers and the spires to dizzying heights and many weeks I was lost in the labyrinth of cellars of basements of tombs beneath
I have seen strange things lately: a chair upturned or
Bed unmade, quills still wet, and doors open and shut of their own volition in the inky black
I swear I have seen before
A tall figure in a hooded cloak dart
Into the shadows, and it did not seem
Altogether human

I read for years inside my library  
And have spoken at length to Shakespeare and Plato
I have seen Yggdrasil and the seven hells
And sped through time with
H.G Wells. Of death and moon, of birds and galaxies I am enamored.
Tea with Julius Ceaser, chess with Captain Hook.
Breakfast with The Buddah
Coffee with The Christ
Did you know that Captain Ahab takes His water with a squeeze of lime? No Ice. Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain know me by my first name, I have fenced with the Gods of Olympus and of Asgard and I remain undefeated. The divine crowd my hearth and many nights have been passed here in quiet conversation, with Confucius, with Archimedes, with Epictetus, Davinci, and the brothers Grimm
I have lived ten thousand lives and Will live another ten

-Without a single thought of you-

I wander
To my garden
Gently lit by paper lanterns
The path is smooth and heady
The amber blossoms
And weathered sculptures
Make my eyelids heavy
Monuments with fists clenched beat my
Ego ******
New flowers sprout from the ivy throat
Always things are grown but never overgrowing
I steal through the hedge maze that only I know
To the secret center where no plant grows
Pavilion and pond
Where no bird sings year long
In that quiet I endeavor
To look without fear
Into the pupil of forever