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517 · Jun 2012
Specter
Joe Roberts Jun 2012
Step out into the cold where no one goes,
where the night air speaks no words of hurt or hate.

The fog of your breath distills in moonlight,
and somewhere a dog barks at the sound of cars.

A wraith-like plastic bag drifts down the street,
a specter, like you, that wanders all alone.

You walk the lonely familiar sidewalks,
hopelessly attempting to forget yourself.

The silent stars above look so becalmed,
though tormented by the slow turmoil of space.

You tread along a crack in the cement,
just like it's a cord that bears you through the air.

In the end the cold reaches into you,
and freezes your wandering will to go on.

Though the cold, the moon, and the stars remain,
you happily crawl back to the place you left.
I go on a lot of walks in the middle of the night.
506 · Jan 2013
Heaven
Joe Roberts Jan 2013
Heaven is an empty room and God is silence.
Or, in this silence, you are God
and the whole of creation is the thoughts you have
in the silence of this empty room.
502 · Jan 2013
A Thing Called Me
Joe Roberts Jan 2013
Who will believe in me now that you're gone?
Who will forgive me for being myself
and convince me that I'm somebody worth being?
Who will selflessly give me all that they have
just so I will believe in a thing called Me?
499 · Jan 2013
Cross to bear
Joe Roberts Jan 2013
I wish I had an angel's wings
so I could fly from these places that I know
and all the people that I disappoint.
But I know I could not hide from you.

I wish I had a cross to bear.
One lighter than the one you made,
the one I carry for your love,
the one I don't deserve.

I wish my life was like a song.
A song about a perfect person.
487 · Jun 2012
Star-scape
Joe Roberts Jun 2012
Angels are just corpses with borrowed eagle wings,
they bring us into life with the discord that they sing.

I walk along a star-scape with my heart out on my sleeve,
and all the little dreams I have are lies to be believed.

The dark is getting closer now, but I'm still wide awake
and being bent as far as this is causing me to break.

So many I have hidden from, but from you I can't hide;
you've seen me at my very worst so you know when I've lied.

So take me from this star-scape, take my heart from off my sleeve,
show me what the truth is. Give me something to believe.
I wrote this poem a couple of years ago. It's one of the few from that time in my life that I still consider profound. It's a poem about faithlessness, loneliness, hopelessness, and the love that comes along to rectify it all.
484 · Jan 2013
To my brother.
Joe Roberts Jan 2013
To the friend I knew I'd never know that I had all along.
To my companion, my shadow,
though often it felt as if I were standing in yours.
Always there, wearing your mask of indifference and hate.
People tell me that they've seen your heart,
they've seen you cry, and defend the weak.
I know now that you're just like me,
more lonely, but that's because you like it.
Brother, I know that we may never embrace,
I know that I may never tell you how much I admire you.
I'll probably never play with you,
as we once did when we were only five and six.
Little brother, there's so much that I'll never do.
But everything I'll never do is something that would say
I love you.
Joe Roberts Jun 2012
Down we fell, down from the sky.
Remember how we used to fly?
Around the seas and moats of stars.
Now we're trapped within our cars.

And now we look up at the sky.
And still we ache, each day, to fly.
Through telescopes we watch the stars,
Surrounded by the sounds of cars.

Please let me back into the sky.
I know now that I'm meant to fly.
Once more, let me traverse the stars.
Escape this world, and all its cars.
'Remember how we used to fly?' is a regretful poem about the devolution, disguised as evolution, of man. Though once glorious, angelic beings, we have come down to earth and grafted ourselves to its surface with our material possessions.
466 · Jun 2012
Cry, dream, breathe.
Joe Roberts Jun 2012
Lean up against the wall and cry.
I like to watch you as you cry.
I'm part of something when you cry.
That might be why I make you cry.

Collapse into your bed and dream.
I like to think that you still dream.
It comforts me to hear you dream.
Am I the reason that you dream?

Throw back your soaking hair and breathe.
I like to hold you when you breathe.
I sigh, relieved, each time you breathe.
Because you give me cause to breathe.
One of my earliest poems, 'Cry, dream, breathe' is about the unspoken love of a man for a woman who doesn't understand his harsh and silent way of showing his adoration. Though he makes her cry and he doubts that she can still dream, he lives for her and wants to always be a part of her life.
454 · Dec 2012
Specter
Joe Roberts Dec 2012
Step out into the cold where no one goes,
where the night air speaks no words of hurt or hate.

The fog of your breath distills in moonlight,
and somewhere a dog barks at the sound of cars.

A wraith-like plastic bag drifts down the street,
a specter, like you, that wanders all alone.

You walk the lonely familiar sidewalks,
hopelessly attempting to forget yourself.

The silent stars above look so becalmed,
though tormented by the slow turmoil of space.

You tread along a crack in the cement,
just like it's a cord that bears you through the air.

In the end the cold reaches into you,
and freezes your wandering will to go on.

Though the cold, the moon, and the stars remain,
you happily crawl back to the place you left.
452 · May 2014
Of Dead Things
Joe Roberts May 2014
Don't speak to me of dead things.
Memories,
nothing but
surround sound moving pictures of
dead noises,
dead cells,
decaying bodies and relationships.
Dead people.
Dead things.
426 · Jun 2013
My little lump of notcancer
Joe Roberts Jun 2013
I had a lump once,
under my skin.
Small and unobtrusive
with nothing to say.
It never hurt me or made me sick
but I was still afraid of it.

I paid a man to carve it out,
and when he did I saw it.
Just a small little tumor of fat,
benign and pink.
It had never caused me harm,
and now that it's gone I'm left with a scar.
418 · Jun 2012
Untitled
Joe Roberts Jun 2012
Dreaming in a cloudy sky
while you whisper a lullaby.

I start to cry and you ask why,
I say "Because it's all a lie."

There was a time I thought that I
would never be alone to die.

But now there's no way to deny,
we both know I'm your alibi.

You wash your hands and close your eyes.
It's always me you crucify.

I look up at the starry sky
and sing myself your lullaby.

And now I know the reasons why
the things you told me were a lie.

And now I know someday that I
might never be afraid to die.

Now I know and won't deny
that you don't need an alibi.

I smile alone and close my eyes.
We all love what we crucify.
This poem works on several levels, at least for me. It's about the pain of a betrayal at first, but then it becomes a poem about understanding and realization. It's also about love, and how the ones we love the most are usually the ones we hurt.
406 · May 2014
A Dream
Joe Roberts May 2014
Words.
Words in a herd.
A herd of small words that beg to be heard.
Sound.
Sounds from the ground.
An unnoticed sound of those left in the ground.
Dead.
Dead in the bed.
A young man who died while asleep in his bed.
Dream.
Dream til the scream.
A beautiful dream that ends with a scream.
Shout.
Shout to get out.
You cry and you shout and you beg to get out.
Free.
Free absentee.
The unoccupied cell of a freed absentee.
Gone.
Gone is the pawn.
The man that is gone is no longer your pawn.
Game.
Game full of blame.
A game between two where we both share the blame.
Guilt.
Guilt that is built.
The engineered guilt of those that God built.
Make.
Make it with hate.
All that you make inherits your hate.
Love.
Love's not enough.
When the world goes to hell love will not be enough.
399 · Jun 2012
The girl in the tower.
Joe Roberts Jun 2012
On my knees in the rain,
looking up,
blinking back drops of rain.

All around me people laugh,
they look down,
at me they point and they laugh.

The tower, like a scar against the sky,
stabbing into clouds,
with one eye looks from its place in the sky.

The tower's unblinking eye is just a lighted window.
There's a girl up there.
She knows I'm down here, but she doesn't come to the window.

I kneel at the foot of the tower. I scream, and I beg the girl to come to me.
The people point and laugh;
They know that I will never move, and that she won't ever come down for me.
'The girl in the tower' is about love that is not, and will never be, reciprocated. Every one has experienced it, but everyone likes to call you stupid for feeling it and never giving up.
383 · Jun 2012
Never
Joe Roberts Jun 2012
All the shards of a broken shallow cup.
They cut your hands,
they make you bleed.
Blood drips from your unclenched hands,
mixing with a sea of tears.

I come along and help you up,
then knock you back down to your knees,
and you will never understand.
'Never' is about betrayal and heartbreak, but not mine. One that I have caused.

— The End —