Tonight poets will find the words
to color their life and dip their pens
in wounds that aren’t even their own
and some will stare at the moon
seeing an empty plate, hungering
for something without a name
or a clock with no numbers knowing
time carries a dagger and a sword
for the hours that wound and nights
that cut throats, arrows that pierce
hearts fiercely until they lie still,
cold and bled out on a bed all alone.

I buy her cheap
can't buy expensive.

It's a gift she says
to give my spirit a lift
you buy low
it gets high on my love

don't ever think
price has a place in happiness.

She wears the imitation
and the mirror explodes
into thousand stars
with the gift of joy
now not only hers
but inexplicably
spread all over me.

Live in the moment*, we exhort ourselves as well as others,
But such a mandate is a fool’s errand, nothing more,
For all which we endeavor, all we savor and regret,
Are transitory things, snatches of synapse,
Fireflies gone a-gleaming before we can fasten the cap,
All Chinese-checkerboarded with air holes, onto the jar.
So forgive me, then, for not extolling the virtues
Of your laugh, your smile, a certain set of jaw or wrinkle of nose,
For those are fleeting morsels of time,
Mere snapshots, flat and obsolete at the click of the shutter,
Like the crimson-iris inducing Instamatic images of long ago.
Rather let me, then, dwell
Upon the aftermath of these glimmers in time, in your eyes
Those crevices of memory and apprehension
Where the momentary acquires its shading and gradation,
Its context and concreteness, its niche in ones cosmology
Of those things which flutter the surface
Of somnambulant ponds of sleep,
Roiling the stuff of our dreams for better or for worse.

I hammered some words
Out from the quarry of my brain
They fell around in shards;
Some like boulders,
some like rocks and rubble
I picked them up one by one.
Block on block, I piled them up
Thinking I could build a ‘pleasure dome’

But,
     When it was time for the workman
      To marvel over the beauty and wonder
      Of his dream creation  
      His masonry tumbled down
      Like sand castles built
      By little hands on sea strands
      Or dunes of quicksand sliding down

I have lost count of the times,
This has happened before.
Now that I stay resigned,
Amid a heap of debris

Is there any use feeling remorse?

Like Nero fiddled on his harp
When Rome was burning
I sit on this pile of wreck
Piping my thoughts away
In the cusp between victory and defeat
Exacting as much ecstasy as I can
Before the truth looms large
In all its stark nakedness!

surrounded by
shell-glossed earthtones
teals on magenta
images of americana,
from native moccasins to
an embroidered 50 states
(of slices of mind)
engraved tobacco canister,
grandpa’s favorite pipe
crafted crochet blankets
spun out from grandma’s hands
like magic
one antique menorah
lit in holiday memories
books and photos in movie star
glamour mixed with
wild-haired natural
smooth polished woods and
painted cityscape, all
slick rugged cozy
colorful trinkets against
subtle plush
of beige, elegance of
textures in tandem
love’s timeless flame
wrapped around me,
like a flannel blanket
acceptance and welcome
ringing
in my pores like freedom
and I float upon this bed
in my mother’s home,
once mine
(still mine)
as in a river
flowing out tendrils
our bond unbroken
past and present bathing me
in deep-seated roots of caring
what more could a daughter,
now also a mother,
ask for

In the high sky
Where the air is weak
And full of strangers
Nothing lives for long
Only gypsy-footed drifters
Come here on their way
To who knows where

And this place can only be reached
Without anchor or rudder
Nor even a moral compass
Riding on clouds of smoke
And it's such a long way down
Through falling-about laughter
And blood in the gutter
To the hungry crushing ground

                                              By Phil Roberts

They look for apologies
for what seems like
centuries of
neglect,
but they'll end up with
apostrophe's
at bus stops to terminate
what had gone on,

but
now they can't wait
for the
penitent travellers
who hesitate
to sign on the line.

I will never kowtow
no way and
no how
will I go cap in hand
to those who confess
that they've ruled with an
iron rod
this land that I love.

If there's to be anarchy
then I say,
let the mad dogs free,
let them howl cheek by jowl
at the moon,

very soon and that'll suit me
we'll be on the scaffold or on
ITV
chancing the lights and the
knights of the camera
making our debuts
confusing what's wanted
by using what's not.

Get in everyone's face
make them remember you.

Speak as you find and
pay them no mind,
they're not listening
they're only pretending
and
hanging it out until
the last of you's gone

when it's the whispers
that shrink back at dawn
at
the rising of **** stars
you might wish
or wonder
what you were born for,

but somebody's got to be here to explain
someone who'll tell them about the mountain of pain
the tears that rain,

If not then for the grain of sand
the outstretched hand
or
the welcoming smile
it wouldn't be worth
my while
to continue
because
poetry is a poultice
to put on the eruptions
to cover the wounds
that repulse.

drifting
I seem to live right there
anymore

the tide washes me clean
then crashes
me on the shore

I seem to ebb
with the moon's
phases

like the sounds
of the animals
bay and call

from the shore
the seagull's caw
every wave

my life my death
and I taste salty
and sweet

see depth
see foam and everything