I do not speak in sombre tones
Not for me the gentle echo
Hushing through hallowed halls
I shall growl my way to the grave
Be ****** to the insignificant
And to hell with the indifferent
There are no rules or rulers
There are only fools and foolers

I need no-one else's straight lines
I have imagination enough to swerve
And spite enough to spin
Snapping snarling and seditious
Spitting venomous and vicious
Flamed by the world's injustice
And humanity's indifference
Not until I am dead burned and scattered
Shall I rest assured

                                By Phil Roberts

Seventeen years old and troubled, I took walks in the woods to sort out my mind.  There were miles of it behind the old neighborhood.
I could meditate on thoughts and walk down paths, off paths, for miles if I wished.  My forest grew in semi-rural suburbia of my hometown, just a thirty minute drive east from Atlanta.
I'd like to believe that it grows there still...  

   One could walk a mile or two through untamed, mostly coniferous, forest but suddenly step out onto a clearing of uninterrupted rock, desolate and pocked like the surface of the moon.  A moonscape bounded by trees.  An anomalous break in the journey of green.  A massive plane of granite lies, apparently, beneath much of our state.  The woods in my area had this unique feature...  Patches where the granite was exposed to the surface.  Some were the size of a small city park.  Others were the size of multiple football fields.  Those accessible by bicycle were especially fun.  They would be explored thoroughly as I jostled and bounced my mountain-bike over the irregular surfaces.  Others lay deep in the woods.  I would walk as much as I could or just lie on the solidness of that ground and look at clouds.

   As pressures in my heart and mind increased, I would come to these woods angry and frustrated.  Pent-up emotions had few outlets.  Poetry was there, a kind of constant companion of the day,  but sometimes I just needed to run.
   Something felt primal and therapeutic about it.  One day, in a lot of frustration and anger, I made up this stupid game.   It was simple.
1: Run.  Immediately.  North.
2: Don't stop. Don't stop.  Don't stop.  Unless stopped involuntarily.

   I leapt off the trail and ran.  Though I felt despairing, the freedom was undeniably liberating.  Constantly, there were split-second decisions to make...  Over or under?  Left or right? More often than not, it just had to be "through" and, in my determination and stupid teen nihilism, I plowed through lots of tangles and thorns, scratching up my ankles in the process.  I didn't care and, stupidly, welcomed the blood until a stronger patch of thorns held fast to my ankle. My running speed slammed me to the ground.  I think I laughed, then, like a ******* crazy person.  I saw myself and felt foolish.  I laughed at the sad sight of this broody kid, breathless and bleeding on the forest floor, who had an otherwise unremarkable and privileged life.  My troubles aren't even worth recalling. They were that trivial, even in the moment.  I picked myself up.  It felt as if I were, happily, helping a friend.  I was feeling good as I helped him walk, carefully, back south again.

Fangcun tea spills the streets
Amid wild migration,
And intent to penetrate the,
“Pearl,”
An acrid and once ugliest river;
Boiled frogs wrought chemical baths,
But come the tea,
Its first and finest smell.

So begins the story –
Tales birthed backs earlier,
And greener the mounts of
Fujian;
With I, the “foreigner,” but learned
When the piano keys
Tremble tumors within the
Nose born a million miles west.

If I’d ventured, if I’d lived,
If she’d left, and she did,
I’d orbit again and again and
Again;
Barren but to tap with one finger
Atop purple clay and sip
On and on and on
For the jubilation and for the hours.

I’d ingest all the ether’s mystery,
I’d dodge yesterday’s bullet tomorrow,
I’d live and if to die lonely,
Simply,
I’d perish knowing,
With a tea cup in hand,
That I’d still taste the dominion over
Self and covenants long forgotten.

Whispered were the stars
On the freckles ‘cross her face,
The chase, an orbit,
And sun,
Our son,
Not far behind.

Whispered were the stars,
Waning were the midnights,
Hours once assumed,
And cold,
The cold finger;
Mortality, ever to remind.

Whispered ‘ever, the stars,
Midnight’s come and go,
And sun,
Our son
Would love as we’d before,
Eternal, and long after we’ve gone.

Whispered was this order,
The path our parents once knew,
The songs they once sang;
Daughters, sons, our
Suns
Atop prior strings and

Whispered ideals that never diminish.
So let them dream, let them sing
Let them sing,
And let them
Shine,
Like before and never before.

That ******
Cicada.
She won’t let me sleep.
She won’t let me sleep!

Won’t let me sleep –
When I’ve worked my shift,
I’ve paid my rent,
I’ve fluffed my pillow.

Won’t let me sleep –
In between harassment,
In between the bill collectors,
The brawls and the *******.

Won’t let me sleep –
When people fail,
When bombs fall
And children perish elsewhere.

She won’t let me sleep.
She won’t let me sleep!
That ******
Cicada.

She won’t let me sleep.

Secrets can be silent.
But most often they are whispered
Surrounded by cup-shaped palms
Transported from trembling mouth
To eager ears

Sometimes they are muttered
Throughout staggering sleep
Unbeknownst to the speaker,
Sounded out by partly incoherent coos
And deciphered by insomniacs

Sometimes they are slurred
by drunken tongues and spilled
Like a pint across the bar.
The glass shatters on the floor.
Left dangerously displayed
Until swept up and forgotten in the morning

Sometimes they are written
Soberly on a stark page
The ink courses through your veins
The pen carves the way


And you’re here.
©

...and there it is.
That smile I remember
The way one remembers green
Waves pounding
Wet rock
Outside Warrnambool, Australia.

Friend so beautiful and thoroughly
Good; angelic/demonically opposite.
I must have been equally good
And beautiful in some earlier life;
Surely not in this
One.

So you prove that kharma is real.
I dread to imagine who you were
Last lifetime, having
Blossomed like this in this one.
Diamond laughter.
Eyes that view the world the

Way a child witnesses its first
Circus; clowns, dancing elephants
And all.
Italian queen of Norway.
Born to conquer,  
Knowing nothing but love

And anything else worth
Knowing.
I bow unto no man,
Yet the dusts before your
Feet carry the print of my humble
Forehead.

Every tree you touched recalls.  
Even within the space between
The things you do and
Don't, there are graces and the breaths
Of Gods.
You mirror the unreflectable.

Never stop laughing.
That sound might very well be the
Glue that keeps this dimension
Attached to the heart and
Soul of
Itself.

simple act of couples holding hands,  interlocking of fingers, clasping of hands. having both of their hands over their shoulders, moving forward together side by side
it's like an act you've been so familiar with. the act holding your partner's hand and stopping your partner from danger
that moment
the fluttering of your eyes like butterfly wings
hands on waist. face to face. telling sweet nothings to each other
the guy caressing your cheek with care
couples lying side by side in subways. the guy's head on the girl's. (cute af, isn't it?) like as if they'd be together forever, until they grow old. like as if their lives depend on each other.

Maybe** it’s stupid for me to think
so optimistically about us.

Us.

We.

Two different letters
With potentially two different
meanings.

I just don’t understand how such a
beautiful human being can exist.

There weren’t any signs to show
me how you felt about it.

Maybe I meant something
different when I talked to you.


Or maybe you weren’t honest
to yourself about how you felt.

But boy oh boy will I be honest.

I loved everything I ever had
with you, and I always will.