Start with forgiveness
because it's the hard one
not picking at your scabs
let them itch

Tenderly treat yourself
like your dearest love
pull aside the velvet curtains
brush the hair from your careful eyes

All your furious passions, pet them,
soothe your tearful brow
allow yourself to be all you are
genius-fool, lover-hater, beauty-hag
wanter, wanted, wanting

Take baby-steps
toward the arms of peace

Awake! this is life
Be not ungrateful for its toll
Cultivate an aura of contentment
Delve deeply for that thing they call a soul

Examine all your motives and intentions
Fling aside delusion in your path
Glimpse through tiny keyhole possibility
Harness all resistance with your wrath

Imitate great ones who came before you
Jeopard not the love within your heart
Karma cannot limit your ability to
Lacerate each falsehood all apart

Mingle with the angels out among us
Never rest until you need the sleep
Obviate the demons which cling to us
Perforate what makes you feel cheap

Querulous we walk the road to happy
Rutted as it is with mire and muck
Spare your energies and sweet entreaties
To walking ghosts who just don't give a ****

Upend all ideas that forestall you
Vindicate what you know to be true
Windmills of illusion won't enthrall you
Xcept when you opt to allow them to

Yesterday may blind us with her memory
Zelos might appreciate our idolatry

Eternity's cogs
geared and ratcheted
to the chain of time

We settle for the simple
ignore and refuse to witness
the obvious glory
of this world

insist on a miserly view
a pinched token

Then the night
closes in
an embolism erupts
into silence

I take a different view
hold out hope
for far horizons
settle for nothing
and struggle to drive
a hard bargain
with one who holds
all the cards

In the end
I expect beauty
a bright light
and a chilling plunge
into the grey Pacific

I hope for more
of course
a taste of watercress
a glass of wine
and an epiphany

All paid for by grace.

Silhouettes emerge from the night lunar tide
lives still wriggling in their net
ghostly figures from the sea silken wide
reaping riches from the waves in spate.

The night a luminous smile wears
the belly is fired up for a bite
dried leaves would burn under stars
brewing another day under moonlight.

Mariners when not venturing into deep sea
release passions on the shallow shelf
harvest hope though the catch is measly
breathing in the winds the aroma of kelp.

I feel having long belonged to this place
wading breakers in the phosphorus' glow
gathering in my net a strange happiness
craving home when the tide is low.

As the first drop fell on me
I looked up at the black canvas
gathering and rumbling ominously.

But there was supposed to be another
not far
but right over my head
to defend me against the weather
pattering insane
between me and the rain.

Did I by any chance
leave my umbrella here, sir?
I ran to the shopkeeper.

We all suffer this predicament
was his smiling statement
losing grip over our mind
letting things be left behind
and then came the mischievous addendum
as if my trouble had inspired his mood

go for good
once you let them go
woman and umbrella

they never again show.

Lay back in the afternoon sun
Next door's tired child cries half-heartedly
Having worn herself out in the heat
Mother makes soothing noises
As she takes her indoors
And I'm just soaking up the rays
My skin getting darker
And my hair going whiter
I am at peace with my piece of world
Listening to sparrows chattering
And a blackbird serenades
From the top of a nearby tree
As my dog diligently patrols the garden
My eyes closed against the sun
I drift to other places

                                      Phil Roberts