Some call him a dreamer
   quiet, sad and deeper
than water in a river
    after the floods come

    dark like the light
outside a widower's curtains
   when the moon hides
behind clouds gray as yesterday

and the day before
   and whatever sorrow
tomorrow or
  the night has in store.

See through
Tall under the sun
Crawling beneath stars
In night-time skull
Thoughts behind eyes
Behind dreams
Under darkness
And above light

See through
Pretended truths
Without words or form
Shadow shapes
Lay like death
Choreographed corpses
Meaningless memories
Damaged dreams
Piled upon writhing hopes

See through
Tender tragedy
Daily despair
Grasping at lies like air
And in the stillness of dawn
The cold of morning light
Water drips
Or maybe blood
Tapping through silence

                                     By Phil Roberts

when I began to write
poetry
all those years ago

I was amazed to find
that I even
had a voice.

It was a gift
that I never
hoped for.

I only shared light.

There is too much
darkness.

And then
little by little
I had to write
about the monsters
in the deep.

And my writing
got to be
unrecognizable.

Those couldn't be
my words.

Don't bury me
in a grave
in a big old box
I've known too much
darkness.

And so here I am
trying to balance
injury
with hope for a new future

That may be called
healing.

from      time        to      time
there is     a romance      of being       alone
   the     imaginations       she  powdered
                                 generously    upon the   colorless  reality.
      metaphors   that  she sews    upon the   sleeves
                         of     melancholy.
her girlfriends   and she    roamed
                 the    ups  and     downs of the  earth,
while their        mothers screamed
                                    for   them      to be ladylike.
     saturday afternoons,
they   procrastinated    upon   pastries and     honey
                 crystallized           fairy      tales
courteous     animals
                                 riding on the      coattail of      dreams
      a lighthearted                feeling    others tried to      snooze.

they    observe things         through glitters    of their vapor.
    they   dote on the    humor of ice    creams
                       and sunlight       of   scarlet pink.
    as we    laugh    with charm,
                                            what a    way   with words,
                 a   lopsided    smile,
a      head    of   curls,
                                        a    flock     of  girls.

The sleepy man at the museum
directed me to the balloons.

Ten out of ten shots went astray
proving my eyes are lame
and so my aim.

The galleries were eerily deserted.
(is people's interest in science flagging?)

I looked down the infinite well
for awhile eternally falling into it
recovering from the realization
they were merely infinite reflections.

The man's smile told he knew from my dazed look
I was lost in the mirror maze.

(Was I stuck in all the wrong exhibits
for my age?)

I got a ticket for the sky in September
finding peace in the dark of the planetarium.

(A note:  in this poem, the authors write alternate stanzas.)

FREEDOM

has always demanded
my surrender to an instant in time
surrender to fate and therefore
to glory

Though my wily will
has oft gotten in the way
with grand illusions and the necessary
fiction that I am in command

But in the end, it is command
of nothing and no one
for that is the nature of time,
mean shrew who prunes our hopes

A clock that does not click
nor clang, but flies tirelessly; one day
its talons will ****** us away, releasing us
forever, from the burdens of the day

And until those burdens take flight
I carry a candle for the hours, open a book
for the days, and teach my trembling hand
to hold on to hope.

So... What if I flew too close to the sun,
cimbing steadily through the open air
and my feathers all fell off, one by one.

Freedom and a reckless moment of fun
mixed with a child's propensity to err...
I know I will fly too close to the sun.

I left the earth with my song, still unsung,
drifted along, alone, without a care
and my feathers all fell off, one by one.

A chimeric mirage, to which I clung
and I pleaded Fates, my wings to repair.
So what, if I flew too close to the sun.

The journey over, quick as it'd begun.
Shining bright was the sun's terrible glare,
and my feathers all fell off, one by one.

The path once chosen, could not be undone
when caught in simple, Fates' auspicious snare.
So... What if I flew too close to the sun,
and my feathers all fell off, one by one?