I wanna die in the sun
By my hand while there's still light
I never knew anyone
who didn't lie and who didn't drink
There's the one he ***** 
No eyes and his heart is stone
They say a caged bird sing
Song of it's wasted youth
Please spend time again
Listen for a little while
Take me back
Back to where I hate the most
Well I'm the one he *****
No future one escape
I wanna die in the sun
By my hand while there's still light

Do not look sadly
at days gone by
days below days
like a river
running under stars

do not listen to priests, the blues
or that bitter veteran fool
of some past war claiming to miss
a piece of his soul, his only disease
is the rotting of an *******

the poet that forgets
in remembrance of you
is a lunatic's left hand man
a gun in the hands of a fool

on Sundays he is the acolyte
of the moon, night following
other nights, the eyes of the blind
the stranger who  lusts after wives

his tool the bitter root of a persimmon tree
and every time he draws his pen
like a knife and drawls his soliloquy
I say forget him, let us drink again

for poets do not cut their fingers
at cheap joints like ******
toasting one another's death

they do not eat the cheese or hoard
the rich black bread of their poetry;
the true poet gives it kindly to the poor.

As we have conflicts with others,
ISIS,
North Korea,
Russia,
And we give a ***** look to Muslims,
We of the far left with a "pure heart" call this
"Islamophobia"
The religious, racist, white supremacist,
Right wing thugs, unconscious, judgemental, ill-hearted, and blind people who say
"Death to all Muslims"
These people who are disgusted by the thought of having a Muslim neighbor,
These people are just as blind as the Germans were when their Jewish neighbors were taken from their homes,
What would we do if we got rid of all the Muslims in America,
Would we put them into camps,
"Refugee camps",
That's what we'd call them,
Secretly behind closed doors,
People would go missing,
Us the people who believe ourselves as saviours of the Jews,
Would **** their neighbors,
Nor would we care.

I'm not sure where to start
Not certain where's the end
I've got some observations
and some reservations....

Observation Number 1
Take care of yourself
Which seems complicated to do when all I can think about is...did that little girl sleep tonight, or did she stay up tortured by the images of her ******

Number 2
Competence is necessary
Of course I already knew this
But apparently in some it doesn't exist
Competence means knowledge it means understanding
Competence is knowing that this family didn't magically appear with issues
No, its been generations, cycles of people whose one commonality, other than DNA, is struggle
Struggle of addiction, struggle of poverty, struggle of depression, struggle to be happy
Competence means understanding that policies are also barriers to real change sometimes

Which leads me to observation Number 3
Policy
It's complicated, it's bureaucratic
It's sometimes diplomatic.
It's the reason we have registered *** offenders
But also the reason we had severe DFCS budget cuts
It's why my client can never seem to have enough money to provide for all 3 of her children

Reservations?
Am I cut out for this? Can I really evoke change?
Can I handle hearing about another 12 year old being abused?Can I really watch another child cry while they're separated from the mother that beat him unconscious?

Maybe it’s my passion to heal those who are broken
Maybe it's because for years I listened on the phone while someone I loved told me about what HE did to her over and over
Day after day
From age 10 until I'm not even sure when it ended
Maybe it's because I have my own story and troubles that I wish someone could've saved me from

But when I look in a child's eyes and see that longing for happiness
That longing for normalcy
I know this is where I belong

Here in social work
With the good, the bad, the ugly
The unknown
I can't let the fear of failure dominate me
I have too many lives to change

the young girl came back home last night
with a vacant look in auburn eyes and
a sense of what it means to be dead.

she shows us the language of unwanted touch.
first, the way it takes words and slurs them
changes words like ****** to daddy
because you are afraid of where he will
touch you next and you learn
you need to speak his language if you
want to survive.

second, the way it takes aching and twists it
changes words like love and turns it to lust
but you are just trying to survive
so you stroke his ego before you can strike
his ego.

third: the way you have died one hundred deaths
and could not articulate them in a language
outside of the ******’s.

the rapists tongue is yours now
you know how to speak it but refuse
all opportunity to because you are so afraid
i will become like him.

Society’s supermarkets selling you lies,
Sweet and savory because the truth is tasteless.
Words prepacked in plastic boxes,
Their best-before-dates washed out because they've already expired yesterday.
Keep smiles frozen so they’ll never run out of stock.
And rotten teeth and brittle bones have never been so popular before.
Coat-hanger-shaped torsos on the meat counter,
And skinny spider legs on sale.
High-heeled and suntanned and bleached and naked
Spineless with bony spines and hollow eyes
I can see them every day running through the hall
Only to grab that one last piece of beauty.

What the **** is going on
why am I still here and
not moving along?

just supposing that every song
has its own tune
just supposing that I am the words
but not the song
supposing the tune is wrong.

Definitely time for me
to cut loose from this
and set myself free.

Depressingly Tuesday
and Tuesday depresses me

It used to be
that every day
was a wake up call
a shout to say
hip hip hurray
but now
and there's always the but now
I really don't know how
I stayed here so long
time
to move
I'm moving on.

Fed up before breakfast?
there's a name for it

fed up of being treated
like **** on their shoes
fed up of being used

what the **** is going on?

You know what?
**** the lot of them

I haven't lasted this long
to still be wondering about
the words and the song
moving on.

Body resilient
One more step away
From the grave
Its ground I used to walk
In the way I know it now
The way it tore me up inside
And the number never meant
As much to me

In the night somewhere
A baby cries
And somewhere else
Lovers sigh
And as time passes
An old man dies

Somewhere out in space
A planet turns
And light years away
A star sun burns
Making us merely dust
And no-one learns

                                 By Phil Roberts