As I look in the mirror,
I see myself,
My pale eyes,
my bare emotions,
my scarred soul
though, when I am with you,
your twinkling eyes,
your luscious hair,
your golden heart
As I look in the mirror,
I see,
You

if everyone answered
honestly
when they were asked
how are you
I wonder
how many lives would be saved

how many friendships made

as for me,
I'm depressed
exhausted
anxious
crashing
but still smiling

and one of a million

though
considering
I'm asked this question
at least two hundred times
during work
maybe it's better
we aren't honest
rhetorical question
generic response
maybe it's better
we hide

Misty words billow in the cold
Pluming from their mouths
Quiet swearing and first *** coughing
They walk close to hedgerows
Kicking the dew from the grass
As birds squabble over breakfast
And mushrooms are still socialising
They whistle the dogs to heel
All panting and wagging tails
Stirring the dawn damp air
For happy is the early dog
In these sumptuous fields

Now the business of dawn begins
Low sharp commands are uttered
Bringing the younger bounding learners
To a proper sense of purpose
And that high-toned cross breed
The sleek and swift lurcher
Is eternally proud and primed
This long-sprint racer
Takes inevitable chase
Without sentiment or concious cruelty
An ancient craft is practised here
With the dogs at dawn

                                By Phil Roberts

Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and
choose the sign of your day
The day’s divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach
in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it’s quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose, they croon, the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon,
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.

Death patiently files his nails
And smokes a casual cigarette
Grinning and eyeless
He says so calmly
"Catch you later
Brave little dreamer"

Despite such brittle certainty
Men and women build
Despite such small mortality
Every space is filled
In the midst of death's destruction
Men and women build again

Fear, like a cringing bowel
Exudes an acrid stench
And whimpers and whines
Simpers and cries
"Don't you dare
Don't you ever dare"

Despite this clinging dread
Some will need to dare
Despite the bursting head
Dreams insist on birth
In the midst of our stupidities
Something wondrous strives

                                    By Phil Roberts

So many people wander
this earth aimlessly,

finding no peace
in the places they have been.

But in my travels,
I stumbled upon
the blue of your eyes,
the taste of your kiss,
and the warmth of your embrace.

I have wandered,
and I have found my home.

A throng of poppies
like a lolling maroon tongue
that slumps into water
hundreds of crushes
split the scene
sunlight licks through trees
with a warm caress

autumn foliage comes to play
a swell of golden shapes
dangle from spindly arms
dance over the river
shimmering cerulean
as molten steel
on a late October morning

I needed you to run through my veins
the same way my blood
rushes through them
breathing you in
when I want you out.
You were my drug
and I injected you any chance
I got;
craving the high
your voice would give me
and the euphoria I'd feel
filling up my chest
every time
I heard you laugh.
**That ******* perfect laugh.