Beneath the
burning snowflakes
of my consciousness
I stand
ensconced in ice
a statue in
your garden
all the verdant,
living treasures
I have given
around you,
burst from
my womb
in volcanic fibers
molten lava
of puce
of ochre-toned
vibrancy
that pierces
through the strata
of our own
personal history
archeological insights
of who we have been
love in frequencies
that once
met their destination
echoes of fire
falling in viscous
bands of liquid
upon my outspread fingers,
uncaught
You
once loved me in parts
  My snowflowers
will stay with us
but I will not
the tenth
of me that you see
is already disappearing
worn down
from your stance
of constant dark
not the dark of richly
pungent mineral layers
of blackest black
but lackluster
in taste and texture
no match
for my warrioress heart
For deep inside
this clear glass casing
are rivulets
flash floods
about to break
the gelid frost surface
bursting through
in cracks
like end-of-winter
river rushes
like seismic explosions
sulphur-rocked
My wild totem
is emerging
antlers glowing from
my crown
They are clashing
rustling up trees
whipping winds of magic
that tumult
right past the
icicles of your posture
And the last gift
I will ever
give to you
are the shards
that have already
melted from my
own estric heat
and, even then,
you will be too numb
to understand

and now, comes
       in resonated whisper
*my soul is out the door

The cloth I gave it as cover for chill
is lying still.

Christmas eve was its last night.

Not that I knew
when picked it up
and gave it back
to the cold night.

I'm still holding it
heavy and invisible
on my heart
as my eyes repeat the scene
of crows pecking out its eyes
the head rolling on the earth
eyes closed.

I close my eyes
scared life could be so thin a thread
barely holding
and incredibly uncertain.

Inside . . .
my frozen heart your love resides
a sunset kept by timeless sighs
my how it's surrounded by my lies

Midnight hour . . .
finds me on the edge of poetry
with paper hearts that be
the chains of your memory

Yet . . .
I reach into my heart
to warm the hands that are so stark
the love that has made it's mark .

Forgiveness . . .
I ask only this of you
but my pleas are more than the stars above the blue
More than the number of drops of dew

Twilight . . .
filters through my minds eye
as the time now turns to fly
I turn to night , cold , goodbye

The coldness of morning
penetrates in proportion
to the lonely nights before
and the winds that blow
in from the north
like sadness wrapped
all around me
a coat without pockets
no warmth for my hands
that once held yours
like ashes without fire
and there is ice on my lashes
that burns like the last words
I heard you say to my back
as I walked away out the door.

I don't need love
love never needs
It's an illusion
an arrangement
that derailment

I don't want love
love never wants
It's pollen lesion
a depressive disease
awaiting for a lease

I can't beg for love
for I owe no debt
alone I came to live
without butterflies
in a lonesome cave

I can't hurt for love
for I have no tears
or eclipsed fears
moments are a brief
test of one's essence

Arms clasped around the small of your back as you stared up at me in the elevator
My heart was ready to burst*

"You were the best thing that ever happened to me," I said. "And then the worst."

With his head in his hands
And his heart on his sleeve
He closes his eyes against the light of day
And against his quiet despair
He pretends it is not real

But part of him knows
Deep down amongst half-remembered dreams
Emotions that appear from nowhere
And linger
Every cell of him knows

He knows a loss without closure
A conversation without words
Dreams without endings
And hoping without hope

He hears a knock on the door
But no-one walks in
He puts his head in his hands
And his heart on his sleeve
He pretends it is not real

                                           By Phil Roberts