occupy the windows things
the  outside lights and fleeting visions
live like a reflection always looking out
and never in

stand in the sun and hide
from tangibles that glow in
the insides shine the
things you hide

that to everyone
are obvious like elephants
your signature your
dispositions I guess

convert and consecrations
your only sin
but you turn away when looking at the
colored glass

the cross a searing soldier told
to wipe your secondhand mind
clean and when you find
the answers I will speak in sentences

Do you still remember: the flyer flies?
And the harmonic liturgical chant of the invisible crickets
Outside our window: oh how they soothe
us to sleep : an added plus to the sound of the falling rain
of all our wishes, did we meant to leave the
tropical sound for the deafen sound of gun fire ,sirens,
or burning tires of city life, startling's hearts everywhere;
almost every hour upon hours of restless sleep

awaken to the swift sound of chirping, squeaking engine
my heart longs for those crickets outside my window
as they hide beneath the tall wet grass,
I remember how I slept between darkness and dawn
Remembering happiness comes from contentment:

Keep the innocents in the village
Don't let the children play outside
The homeless and the nameless
Must stay huddled together
Finding shelter where they can

Because there are killers high above
Dropping bombs of hatred and rhetoric
Killing and maiming indiscriminately
And the killers are from so many places
Leaders from all over the world
Whose only morality is ambition
And their only emotion is paranoia

And those who dare to disagree
Are shut up or closed down
Never to be heard from again
And those who care to notice
Are watching open-mouthed
The bloodied stump of history
Right before their eyes

                                   By Phil Roberts

a tropher found Grau
and everywhere lay his fawn
while love's artifice dig chéri
and orient this earth that desire weather

and while out on the horizon he'll dust the farm
but still pond a sparrow 'bout to splatter its bath
in a morning of lust that soon will burn off

with an intent lasting sheen
fore the hour drive to town
as his roads are the ride
amid this country has made her shine
that always ponder the air on such afternoons
only to purchase a bottle of her perfume
then pleasantly he'll puncture the throttle
with a just look in her garden.

favored memories you face faded now in spaces
of black blank places those jostled touches of
colors of hosiery ******* hung on lines that last touch
with old fashioned  wooden clips
the **** and the ******* and the line taut
between  stretched the left and right  
where dogs roam wild and nothing is washed or hung out
those fineries hidden from view now with an Aqualung
tracing his flute and deep bass
around the inside your skull
as you dance on the park bench barking ferile
unkempt flea and louse ridden crazinesses
scratching your self like that terror  
you demonized
the memory you became of that same man
who said hello
to you so long ago
and wretch throw up
so much now
it does no good

There was a time where I believed that friendship didn't flicker like a waterlogged outlet. Where standing up came before standing out. I never understood what growing up was for a long time. I remember when I was 15 and I saw a man at starbucks spill coffee on his white dress shirt and thinking "**** that I'm never growing up" and then when I was 18 I draped a plain white polo over my heart and watched everyone I thought cared about me redefine caffeine from waking me up to putting me to sleep.  I insisted that success and money didn't go hand in hand and positivity is easy when the only thing you're paying for is young cigarettes and blindfold mints. When we grow on the  outside, we shrink on the inside to a certain extent. We watch death like a ****** sequel. We fear the inevitable and watch the hands on the clock until they clap and your lights starts to flicker. We live in a sea of inconsistencies that drown our livelihood and when times become consistent, monotony sits in our throat like drying cement that cracks until we can't even breathe for ourselves anymore. Can anyone define happiness? And can you tell your kids that growing up is a breeze? Cause that gust of wind can blow the half empty cup of coffee on to your clothes and really **** your day.

I thought, "holy **** man, look at yourself". The only change I ever witnessed for 3 years was the scrapings left ringing out on the bar rail. Always reaching out to a pocket for god and finding nothing. "I guess you can't refund the drinks, right?" She didn't laugh. I watched my circle get smaller, tired of the antics and my drinking became the **** of a joke. I watched my circle get smaller, my vision blurred like the future lining with a black viginette and with every drink I watched the bartender familiarize. Another? tap tap an empty bottle uses its manners and mine, with a painted smile. Until close she would become my therapist, and the salary was almost the same for the two after I left. After close the cooks offered sympathetic invites and lackluster conversations at the ******* next door. They laughed and drank and like ***** hawks watched their prey scale a poll like the fire they were fighting was inside. I saw no spark, no love given, no love received. I found it hard to love, when hating myself was the only thing I loved to feel. The grease stained fries were tickling the back of my throat on the last night I went. I found myself puking next to a coke head doing key bumps and I asked through hiccups "does the smell back here not bother you?" he said "what smell?". I wiped my mouth and stumbled home somehow. I kicked broken pieces of pavement and scoffed at the curb-sides hugging garbage. I realized through the streetlights that my shadow wasn't the only darkness following me at night. Out of cigarettes and out of my mind I resented this city for having so many bridges. The screaming trucks below gave some sort of comfort with my feet tangling with the breeze. The stretching hands from out-of-place highway trees grabbed at me and I felt the world rotating. The night that changed me, a three am crosswalk flashed its hand at me, but I kept walking.

one cup of coffee
when dawn breaks
and we are now friends

I Hear America sniveling
A nod to Walt Whitman,

I hear America sniveling, life of hardships
Those are the nurse’s aide, each sniveling
looking tired and worn out
Petrified of being on the morning shift
The Porter sniveling as he drags
the fifthly mop down the corridor
The “Don’t walk signs.
Which everyone seems to ignore

The cooks crying as he wakes up early searching for dietary old ladle
Just to meet the breakfast rush, with sleep still in his eyes: his life seem to be a lie

The doorman sniveling as the workers rush through the doors
The looks on their faces, his hands stay closer to the company Tasers
The foreigner taxi cabs drivers speed a headed of each other for two dollars ride
As they tries their best to form a complete sentence..
Knowingly, that his spoken words is grammatically incorrect

The babies sniveling as they mother drop them off at the sitters,
  Poor babies wish they could stay all day in their mother’s arm
The poor man sniveling, can be heard through the land, America
The rich man broad smiles as he killed another elephant for their ivory
Takes images proclaiming victory

The sadness of the hardest workers, or the elderly folks in pain
Shows an undivided world of tough hardships and poor leaderships
Each one to his or her own self, like homeless man Robert in the rain
We wakes up each day under the same sun, the same cruelty and injustice
the testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere  since 1945 and just recently another test
And we continues this repeat, and the more we feel and see or smile turn into frowns
I heard America sniveling:

*Even in hardship, God’s goodness prevails.” E
― Todd Stocker,