I knew he was dying
I thought maybe a few weeks left
So still and so quiet
This man whose laugh made us all laugh
The man who always had ideas
Where to go, what to do for a laugh
Always a laugh
Sharer of adventures
Partner in crime
For thirty-six crazy years
Dying before my eyes and
Taking much of my life with him

He'd had a massive stroke a year earlier
They said he'd die then
But he defied them and recovered a lot
Proper conversations and learning to walk
Then they discovered that he had cancer
And here we were five weeks later
"How long are you gonna be in here?" I asked
He turned his head and looked hard at me
"I die next week," he said
As though he had an appointment

He got three days, not a week
I cried seeing him dying
But I was relieved for him when he did
Now my old friend is gone
And it's a duller world without him

                                       By Phil Roberts

I've knelt,
for moons upon moons
Tears flood and drown me
Gravel, dirt
in my knees,
worn as
mere decoration,
stockings
Dust
collected by Time
in an
Hourglass
Paper heart,
Upon moonlit
Paper heart
Time is
Still
And there is
No answer....

I collected the currency of my failings inserting voices  
into the deluge of my figurine dancing on the precipice
of my tainted visage.

But I was short of necessitates, fraudulent reimbursement
was reincorporated, and I was woven unwept as the distresses
of what I had done wove upon my silhouette.

Blank verses were woven on my pools of sky blue, now vacant
only snow flakes of nothingness fell on my perception.
I was not as before I was whole but concussed in creation.

Interwoven, incomplete essences of me. I wasn't that which
was reflected outwards, all that was now interlaced in an
abomination of false reflections and I paid the ultimate price.