How I feel the time tighten
The temporal noose tickles my throat
Swaying in the nothingness
I do so crave of late

How many hours in the day
Must I conjure the joker
Just in the nick
To salvage my neck
From fate herself?

Why wait for the sand to drop?
When grains of pure ambrosia
Are clustered in the crystal shard
I so wish to crush
For all to feast on what has passed

Dispersed in the ocean of tranquility
I may rest awhile from test of metal
This trivial mental ordeal
Will kaleidoscope the stars

You will breathe me then
Will be closer and complete
This drip feed of love is not enough
So I plead to be defeated

It drowns me in waves of notions
That I should sign myself as absent
Until the indefinite motion
Of the universal spin frees me
From the karmic balance of things

Like this I do see this branch trimmed short
Stunted and pruned before the ripe
With this contorted hope
I may become the light
That I am when I soar in my dreaming

Yet I wake breathing bound by fleshy bonds
So dull in the spectrum of ****** sadness
I confess it is time to end this mess
Let the prophecy contemplate timing

Until that shiny moment
I will sigh and play along
To the tormenting throng
That beckons my presence here
For one day longer

For just one day longer
I will be strong
I will pretend what I feel
Is proven wrong by living reason

Until my patience depleted
Will unmask what we believe
Of this carnal marathon
Racing on the wheels of Samsara

I felt this primal urge
This trance-like instinct
To set things right
In case I have to leave
Move on, so to speak

So
I took my jaundiced eye
And rolled it from corner to corner
Of this, my situation
And I felt so very small and hard
Lost in largeness
For cynicism is a tight thing
Which allows little movement
A strange kind of chastity

And then, you see
Changes
Honesty demanded that I see more
Grow, so to speak

And oh, my poor sore eyes
See how the children starve
All over this bitter world
This bitter, sickened world
And cynicism did this
Through the slack hands of millions
Who still refuse to believe
That things can be changed

                                    By Phil Roberts

A candle lit for love, borrowed light from the Sun
my simple prayer is heard before it is spoke
before it takes form from lips into words.
You always know our hearts, let our hearts be love
a flowing back and forth from creator to creature
and creature to creature in perpetual union.

In the long or short expanse of your life
can you say you have become a hero?
I often wonder if I’ll be remembered
for anything important when I’m gone.
No biological children to carry my name
no feats that brought me fame
no bravery to save a life in danger
no building or great wealthy gain
no great status or social changer.

But more and more lately
being considered or thought of greatly
is not my concern.
Now-a-days I ask myself if I’ve taken time
to listen or smile or write a rhyme
to pause for a minute or an hour
to stop, notice and smell a flower?
Have I spoken kindly in a bad mood
or shut up when someone was rude
or let traffic in my lane
or fed my soul as well as my brain?

Today I ask not if I am a hero
but simply if I am becoming.

“Becoming a Hero,” Copyright ©2017 by Glenn Currier

words fell
    like broken
        glass
                from
your lips
                onto
bloodstained
                       carpet
lacerations
              searing your
bruised heart,
      transplanting
              its jagged rips
into mine
  beats sharply feathered
like injured
                wings,
angel eyes
   pigmented my color,
    blinded by a
cool sheen
hiding behind
                 tears
You are but a child,
young fresh entity
yet know the weight
of heavy
    and suddenly
nothing else
       matters
only your light
in my world,
however
         dark you get
nothing material
can fix it and I will
stop it all
to press
the button
          of time
and give
you
the
       world

is just a
day an oasis
in eternity