There's a shower of rain
Yet the sun still shines
There must be a rainbow
Somewhere

An old man nods in his chair
He came from nowhere
And went nowhere else
Journeying all the way

Now he journeys through time
Down the aching years
Things that he's seen and done
Some good and wondrous
And some of them terrible

An old man nods in his chair
Travelling
Behind closed eyes
All the things he's seen and done
The people he's known
All the things he's said
Within his nodding head

Tears pour down his face
Down the canyons grooved by time
And yet he smiles
Gently and softly
There must be a rainbow
Somewhere

                       By Phil Roberts

I HAVE drunk ale from the Country of the Young
And weep because I know all things now:
I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung
The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind:
I became a rush that horses tread:
I became a man, a hater of the wind,
Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head
May not lie on the breast nor his lips on thc hair
Of the woman that he loves, until he dies.
O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air,
Must I endure your amorous cries?

With skin of satin and heart of glass
The dancer watches the seasons pass
The crisp winter air has gone away
Leaving summer an empty stage

Her hair is long
Her body tired
For she has long awaited summers hour

The day is light, life leaps through the sky
Bringing forth flowers and bright butterflies

The nights are warm
A speckled sky
The orchestra plays, natures guide

She stands to dance
Her eyes are blue
But alas she has lost her dancing shoes

The moonlight dances in her eyes
Reflecting the light as she cries

I'm having this recurring nightmare
nightmare as others see it
amid the wandering minds
that refuse to be slaves
from the deceiving vision
of the real world.

Delightful, it is
to be with sincere beings
who find such beauty
behind faults that I crave
so madly to fade out,
looking closely into my eyes,
exploring my deepest core
of countless untold stories.

"This isn't your paradise,
this isn't a place to hide,
not even a place to cure the pain
that burnt deep inside,"
whispered a voice unfamiliar
caressing my helpless body,
thrusting it to a never-ending hole,
inviting me to an eternal sleep.

To awake is now everything I grieve.

Today
I will find my heart
where you left it

Today
I will rinse it clean
and
sew it back into my chest

Today
I will buff the scars
and watch as it inhales
red

Today
I will be fully alive

but
Tonight
I will detach it from my veins
and lay with you again

I am a lot of things.
But not everything I'd like to be.
And in this I find myself
To be worthless. Boring.

I am not the crashing waves
I'm not the burning fire
Or the rumbling, sturdy ground.
Or the breeze or wind.

Why, oh why, can I not be
Everything that seems so exciting.
Why am I stuck,
In this flesh and blood?
Far away from my dream.

The first time I saw you, you were eating candy
Which is ironic because you couldn't have been less sweet
The more I think about it,
The more I realize that you must have been eating sour patch kids
First they're sour
Then they're sweet
Then you so full of regret because you knew it wasn't good for you

The first time I talked to you, you told me I was beautiful
Which was pointless because clearly I wasn't as beautiful as her
I noticed you had an every-changing taste in candy
You must have also had an ever-changing taste in girls

You must have been full of jaw-breakers when I kissed you
Because you made mouth ache
Or maybe it was from the endless yelling
Nights I flossed with cotton candy
Wishing it would cause my teeth to rot and fall out
So I never had to speak to you again

But the truth is you were my candy
Rotting me from the inside out
And yet I thought you were so sweet
How could something so delicious be so bad for you?

You're still my guilty pleasure
I still sneak down at midnight to have a taste of you
You still melt in my mouth
Spreading addicting poison through my body
Giving me a sugar high
Making me think everything is sweet
Then letting me crash

You let me crash

Just like a candy man, you make me sick if I have too much

I remember waking up very early the next morning,
maybe three hours after I fell asleep on the bathroom floor.

I tiptoed through the house, careful not to wake anybody up,
even the guy who kept telling you to drink
even though you very kindly asked him to stop.

I'm not sure if you ended up drinking,
I forgot most of what happened that night,
but I remember shouting from the tire swing
that I loved you and that I loved you
and that I loved you.

I found where you were sleeping,
relieved to find no body next to yours,
and calmly placed a hand on your forehead.
You stirred, before gently grabbing my hand as it pulled away.

Eyes still closed,
you asked me how I felt.

I feel okay, nothing appears to be broken.

You said nothing and went back to sleep.
I said nothing and sat there for a long while.
I watched your chest rise and fall with each breathe,
and I loved you and I loved you and I loved you.

After a time I stepped outside to smoke a thought,
and the thought I smoked was not of you or of the night before
but of my mother.
She told me,
after I brought home my first date, two months into my freshmen year of high school,
that just because I desire somebody's love,
does not mean I deserve it.

I loved you and I loved you and I loved you
but I did not deserve your love.