My younger brother still fishes
when he can, when the weather
is agreeable, when he can afford
some tackle and beer for the cooler.

He sits alone on the river bank
and smokes and drinks and waits
in the shifting shade of cottonwoods
for the unmistakable pull on the line.

He fishes whether
the fish are biting
or not. He is intimate with
psychology and the placid
deceit of undisturbed water.

My brother is an angry man.

As kids, we fished
together on the dock
and killed them
with our hands.

Careful not to kneel
on scattered hooks,
we baited the lines
on our knees a foot
above brackish water.

We dropped fish heads
off the edge of the dock
and watched them float
down, almost out of sight,
settling into final stillness
only to snap back to life
(or the false throes of death)
by the white claws of *****
picking them into oblivion—
goodbye eyes,
goodbye gills,
goodbye teeth,
goodbye scales.

Brother, I don’t remember anymore:
was it triumph or merely shame
that left us shivering in the sun?

I envy your heart,
Its beating

I lost mine
P
  I
    E
       C
          E
By piece
A dried up and dead rose
All that remains

No matter the amount of blood I've spilt
Trying to fill my veins

I see you have rosy cheeks, a smile
May I borrow them,
Just for awhile?

I may return
Yet
More likely burn

But your rosey cheeks,
How they invite

I'm hungry
Give me just
        A
B
  I
   T
     E~A

.
It would not stop, the drop dripping
Faulty well and I was cornered in
Your eyes, when your love came down.
The gentle rain was a deceiving
Flood.  The softness in your voice
Was dim light bent, on my banishment.

I began to notice the kind indifference,
The doldrum swale, when your love
Came down, was like you were employed
Only— half trying to get along
With me.  My own dulcet music
Crashed in two, she wails a shamed—

Diaphany and darkness from the corner
Room began to grow, when your love
Came down.  The light that moved so dear,
Became a precious ration, it was
A black starvation and I began
To die from tasteless food, sad music,

Fading sun, no expectations—
And laughter meant for others.  I bled
For years on open wounds and I—
Could hear the wind that rails at ones tomb,
When your love came down.

Quixotically adorned
In a creaking suit of armour
Stumbling from set back to let down
I am learning to smile enigmatically
As though my thoughts are far away
Which is so often the truth
And my memories are bitter sweet
Because that's what they are

And so.....

Behind this slight disguise
I bumble and fumble through life
Assuming a face of serenity
A face which is not really mine
But one I wear for public view
My creaking suit of armour
Protects my vulnerability
And hides my secret heart

                                    By Phil Roberts

I have come a long way.
Those endless nights spent clouding the mind
to a comfortable blindness
where I did not have to witness
the war at my own front door.

I have come a long way.
Locked in fear I could not communicate
with my foreign tongue;
learned that good company
was the mere salute of open arms.

Learned to swallow breath
as I once did pills, *****, and cigarettes
to find that patient calm.
Chemicals promise anaesthesia;
only pain is left when supplies are gone.

I have come a long way
from the departure lounge,
staring at heaving grey skies
and contriving a paradise
no one could hope to find.

Walked suicidal through
tourist-lit streets of central Bangkok.
Half-drunk I wondered why
I continued to breathe;
why my heart refused to stop.

I have come a long way
from believing happiness
is a steady state you can attain
through time-lapse images of victories
and failures you forgot.

Fell in love with an older woman
who would sleep beside me
when she could not see her son.
Through nights of *** and amphetamine
she would sway through each melody

even when the meaning was lost.
Taught me how to speak Thai in the moonlight,
left food on the handles of my motorbike
when I was too hungover
to face the day.

I have come a long way.
Travelled 6000 miles to learn
that home  means anything
from a constant pleasure
to some happy accident.

That love is not pillow-talk;
it’s the rain on the windshield
that gives shelter from the storm.
That truth is not what you hope to find.
but the words that you meant;

fractions of yourself
you could never leave behind.
I have come a long way.
I have made love in enough hotel rooms
to tell you the ashes of yesterday

can be both the aftermath of a flame
you cannot replace
and the fertile ground
to change your name
and start over again.

I have come a long way.
I am still my worst enemy.
Every day is still a fight;
each moment filled with darkness
when I cannot see the light.

I have come a long way.
Stood brave in the entryway
of every opened door.
Made a toast for all the people I could be;
all of the people I have been before.

Pale moon kept
hiding behind
the thicket of clouds,
being constantly
twisted and turned
by renegade winds

Silence fell
intermittently,
may be after
every defeat
or victory perhaps
depending
on the side,
one could only guess

There were booming
of guns, explosions
sounds of vehicles
rushing to all sides
creating panic.
Pain was the language
cried out aloud,
well understood
At all times
smell of death would spread
like a trail of smoke
from an extinguished wick.
It thickened the darkness
by desperately crying out for light.

"Are we winning or losing?"
a voice in the darkness
in agony whined,
not knowing which way
wind blows
or  when all would
mercifully  end;
that question has
already rendered meaningless
by the reign of dark forces.

Was there a whistle
signifying naught?
a whisper spread
all around like a mantra
"Nada..nada.."

Then came a long silence
nobody seemed to answer
or know what to tell.

When sleep can't find me, I guess because I'm camofluoged and fit too well in the night
(After all, sleep does have its eyes closed)
I make the 25 minute drive down to "L" street.
I sit on my old bench in that ****** fake park with the lined up giant rocks and the one weeping cherry tree. City counsels gift to the street ******, rapists, thieves  and drug peddlers.
  I watch, I listen and sip my whisky. L street is the worse part of town here. There's an asylum on one side of the corner, a bank on the other. Red light number 3. People are always lined up in front of the asylum. I suppose for little blue pills.
  Further down the row of crumbling bricks, is a cafe that plays live music on Friday and Saturday nights and across from that is a pool hall that sells green hotdogs. On the other side of the pool hall, is an empty building with my tobacco lady painted on the side of it. And my "bitchs bench", as I call it, sits beside that.
My mother has always raised immortal hell about my going there. Day or night. "You'll get *****, hooked on the "L" pills or murdered. Dont come crying to me when it happens", she sais. But as much time as I've spent there, I've spoken with more than a few of those "undesirables" and they all have a story of such pain and heart break. Or they're just mentally ill.
They're daisies. That didn't grow upright in this field of life. They tripped.
  My "L" street,
is where the daisies tripp.