When moon like an empty plate
mocks the hunger
the famished bones hunt for a morsel.

Clinks of cutlery fires the belly
aroma of meals calls like a melody

there's a table full of happy faces
chewing and chuckling and chattering
picking eating dropping and littering
their plates are full aha never less
food after food over food always
a fire in oven a bed of clean sheet
never they're they're never short of heat
eyes that are heavy droop easy soon
behind tightly shut windows to the moon.

Snuffed out will ***** out all traces of light
they break into wails rending the night
nothing now moves over the dead town
except the bones with moon as the crown.

in the east the moon is full.
one of those huge harvest moons
and I think I can almost see some craters
and I imagine like a
little boy
that hiding in the shadows of the moon
I can see a cream colored horse.

when I look down
there she stands chewing
bubble gum
about 16
with pensive brown eyes
and as they lift
she smiles.

no, i tell her, no thanks.

i follow the snow down main street
stop and turn.
a car has pulled up to her
the door swings open and
as she slides into the yellow cadillac
her skirt tugs tightly around her firm ***
and all the space between earth
and moon
is hers.
                                  
the door slams shut.
the cadillac heads east
                                  
she rides the horse of cream
 into shadows

and only the bubble gum is real.

They said  'Above us,
rising soon,

will be a shining
supermoon,

with the sharpest
shine for years'.

We raised our blinds.
The sky closed hers..

In theory the moon
is a terrible dancer.

But tonight, waltzing
alone in an open field

I feel her graces
on my shoulder,

her moon rhythms
measuring time
against my neck,

a delicate crater punched
into the small of my back.

She has never
been this close

to me

so I am unashamed
to be dancing with her

like this

for the first time,
a solitary partner

casting shadows
on frosted grass,

spinning over furrows,
long scarf precariously

close to my clomping boots
keeping three-quarter time,

pausing only when she
whispers the word lunatic

in my ear,

a bewitching farm girl
flirting
from her stratosphere
far away.

Branches reach out gently,
To stoke the moons cheek;
And to remind her she is lovely.

In return she shines brighter,
And his leaves vibrantly glow;
And she reminds him he is strong.

Her phases constantly change,
And seasons steal his leaves,
And they drift apart for a while.

They do this dance each year,
And the circle goes around,
They are lovely and in love.

Some nights
the moon throws its light
like an old man
who can't hold his liquor in
and spits blood in the morning

Someone ought to kick some sense
into me, if they did I'd hum
like the body of a fiddle

I propose we all strip down
and take a swim with my friends
the dragonflies, but no one will listen
to what I have to say when I throw my voice
like an empty bottle deep in the forest

When I think of all the dark
and swift things of my rivers,
I wonder why time the old boot -
legger hides his maps and goes
on traveling the low roads

Alone I can tell you there is so much
beside the point of the thorn of the rose
and why the moon is with me always
whenever i choose to go it alone

I drink from that blue jar of time
and breathe the breath of sweet infants

Believe you me the dead shepherd
we sent up the river in a faraway land
in a time so long ago still holds us
all by the holes in his hands

You can see the dark clouds up ahead,
my cloisters I am always walking through them
with you children of the lost dreams,
and with you fifty-something snow-headed men

We have just collided with our lost sons
on the high road of morning, we are rising
dust like the dirt on our children's graves
saying nothing to our brothers the stones.

your purity gives
The sky fine lustre
And your rays
Make the earth glorious

I sit here looking through my window
At the early morning mist and mizzle
My mind is still sluggish and half dreaming
Drifting through memories and images
Without purpose or reason
And from nowhere
I remember a night in the past
When I awoke crying a name
And my secret was betrayed to the moon
And the name was your's

                                               By Phil Roberts