go on your way
My beloved child
turn aside from
the swerving path
untangle your gaze
to center on Me
stand in courage
hugging wisdom
guard all thoughts
leaning upon My love
release what's behind
and walk on in joy

Palpatine eyes
and a grimace
mixed with
pale flesh
a mediocre shave
but just
on the surface
underneath
Underneath
well
nothing much
just me.

I happened upon a quart of oil in the cereal aisle
Chocolate chip cookies with the paper towels
The reflection of Randolph on a mirrored ceiling -
in a packed Super Market at the five o'clock hour* ...

a single moment of eternity
and i was yours
forever

Depression


It is different, for different people.  
For some, it is full of raging emotions,
Clashing against one another,
Till they are spent,
Too tired to battle against themselves,

A fused bulb,
The light in their eyes, forever gone.

For some, it's drifting away,
feeling so small in a world so cramped,
A little kid, lost among the towers too imposing,
Lying defeated, at the bottom of the sea.

And it's so peaceful in the dark,
The weight of the world no longer crushing,
No fear, no mask
They are now in too deep.

**Depression is not just drowning on the land,
Sometimes it's being okay even when you are buried underneath the ocean.

For Twenty-Five years we watched
Drug Dealers on the sidelines
in the NFL

In High School
We were told that if we didn't join sports
We would wind up doing drugs

We did not
Believe
Those coaches

The chess team did well that year
A football player became paralyzed
for life

Shiny bricks and skeins of yellow grass
Barely perceptible colours
Hung with liquid haze
Dog **** and thunder
Heavy close and thick
Miasma
Clings to sweat
Running with drizzle
Clings to damp
Drowning the pores of the skin
Making collars clinging sticky
Rubbing and abrasive

In view of the towering flats
The greyly awaiting wait
Standing at the bus stop
Speaking quiet weather talk
In the distantly English way
So safely meaningless
This polite evasion
Ignores their damp dilemma
Soon, as they sit inside the bus
These bodies shall steam
Like cattle in a byre

Kids hang around the shops
Emptying and kicking cans
The younger ones
Run and shout manically
Their elders spit
And swear casually
All hoods and shadows
Asking adults to buy them lager
Because they can't get served at the "offie"
Rain changes nothing here

A bedroom guitar plays
Weakly electric
And the Turneresque sky
Swallows the sound whole and flat
Sophisticated trash
Crying into a cloudy breast
Shaded darkly round
Full and swollen
Grey and sodden
The distant rumbling
Tumbling closer to home

                                    By Phil Roberts

She is the first warmth of the new day as morning dew envelopes my exposed , quickened skin
A curious glance toward blue ambiance shelving mustering
prose to the God given natural holiday
Wildflower fragrant recovery , echoes of worked Earth , White Hereford
relaying the Dawn call to order
The business of man , plant and animal unfurled
Days of songbird early cacophony brought to steady relief
across pearl homesteads , cattle trails and country lanes