I know you've thought about it,
            how we caught wind of dreams
whooshing
waking
you thinking.

Shiny bricks and skeins of yellow grass
Barely perceptible colours
Hung with liquid haze
Dog **** and thunder
Heavy close and thick
Miasma
Clings to sweat
Running with drizzle
Clings to damp
Drowning the pores of the skin
Making collars clinging sticky
Rubbing and abrasive

In view of the towering flats
The greyly awaiting wait
Standing at the bus stop
Speaking quiet weather talk
In the distantly English way
So safely meaningless
This polite evasion
Ignores their damp dilemma
Soon, as they sit inside the bus
These bodies shall steam
Like cattle in a byre

Kids hang around the shops
Emptying and kicking cans
The younger ones
Run and shout manically
Their elders spit
And swear casually
All hoods and shadows
Asking adults to buy them lager
Because they can't get served at the "offie"
Rain changes nothing here

A bedroom guitar plays
Weakly electric
And the Turneresque sky
Swallows the sound whole and flat
Sophisticated trash
Crying into a cloudy breast
Shaded darkly round
Full and swollen
Grey and sodden
The distant rumbling
Tumbling closer to home

                                    By Phil Roberts

theres a black house on a mountain
above my little town
shotgun shells and loose bear claws
abound there
native burial grounds civil war zones
may deliver shivers into timid worn bones
scores of poor folks shown bullet holes
bully knolls, knock
and cranny crows fully cloaked, no
murderous demeanor
curious endeavors
set out to devour delirious achievers
chinese demons of gun powder delete us
steel wool money allowed to be cleaned up
the smell of drier sheets and powerful *****
floods a laudr-o-mat in the center of oakland, um

I'm a monkey
pushin buttons and envelopes
in order to get numb and comfy
justly love me please
give a hug or just punch me
right eye has
extra long lashes
despite the montage
of violent masses
my orange sports watch
barely works
childish hashmarks
picture richard scary verse
pirating various scenes to flush the corporate
down a toilet bowl of worthless
hoofing it to your door step
5000 miles to proclaim that its gorgeous
seeing your face from across a birds nest, heard that
word
I'm sure your begging to know
the offering, my offspring
was born long ago
where the land is coughing
stock tips glow
like uranium springs
in the valley of kings
where deathly hollows
shadow willow trees.

Aced fables rake faces into a pile
grimaces tend to fend off soft smiles

when considering the future

sure, keep it to yourself for good
in the attic with dusty ornaments

as long as someone adorns the fence
with ugly colored ribbons
your intentions mean jack

why bother big brother, give it up
mowed over opinions
ending in shoveled dirt, delicious.

I want you, except
not in the possessive sense--
more within every sense:

to draw in the scent 
of your coconut and lemon skin,

to hear the faint, tranquil
sound of your frank sentences,

which, as the taste of your lips,
takes days to truly comprehend,

to drench my fingertips in
the soft light of your hair, golden,

to see the sight of your earthy eyes,
leading me to think the world is in 

your head

and we're all lucky beings 
trudging through thick swamps
just to get stuck 
in this moment 
with you.