"where night is...romeo at a window"

i.

black rock, gold
leaf edging a page.

ii.

night drowses its
engines dark alleys
and empty cans.

iii.

the night sinks back
like a technicolor
cartoon, blue-green,
it rolls like a film, it
sings of old love
in its fiery steels.

iv.

today i am juliet
waiting for romeo
i wait forever for
one kiss while the
sky calls out
love to the dreaming
cloud.

v.

romeo, oh, romeo,
and the night's
ghostly petals
unwind their
sweetness in the
tree-lined lanes
of the moon.

It's one am again and here I am
Still not sleepy
Once again
I think of all the times I've met the dawn
Having had no sleep at all
Down my long and dangling years
Of laughter and tears
Another empty night
Waiting for the light
But as we used to say
I'll sleep when I'm dead
And lie in every day

                                By Phil Roberts

Why do we Hallmark our holidays and fabricate ceremonies?

We guilty non-obligators celebrate all things that can't be true,
forcing smiles in rooms full of elephants yet no one’s a candidate for sainthood.

I tell myself I’ll do better than they did, but doing better than they did
still leaves roles un-played and dreams unfulfilled.

I may understand life from the top to the bottom but I live in the dash between the hair of the dog and last call.

While people without broken bones wander around on crutches,
we who were broken as children walk on feet-less legs,
a trail of pain follows wherever we go.

Its inevitable for us to get stuck between bitterness and agony while all the while we fail to make sense of what it is we're living for.

I don’t want to be celebrated I’d rather be understood, so maybe then the searing heat of loneliness we never speak of might die a slow death.

I only wanted for you what was better than what I had
not knowing that without the bad there is never any good.

Every left hand turn leads to something right eventually
and when we exist for only ourselves the world is not round rather flat and we tend to fall off the edges into pandemonium and unhappiness.

Its not what we have it’s the pursuit that keeps us going but I need to not want in order to feel what I feel.

To sit still is more consuming than any long term project.

When I have it all I have nothing,

an uneasiness with the easiness of stress free living,

a simmering flame of doubt about all that's gone wrong in my life while things that happened 30 years ago feel as fresh as tomorrow.

I read an article today that said the drug ecstasy can take away depression but we all know lots of pills can do that.

The bottom line in all of this, I wish I had a reset button, a restart after false start, a wake up to reality call, I'd throw away the wigs I wear, powder coated cover ups,  and let my hair grow long,

get back to the basics,

maybe start with Bukowski,

celebrate the simple things in life.

once upon a time,
there were two peas in a pod.
true partners in crime;
envied, was their facade.

they kept each other's secrets,
at least one pea did.
a few spilled, the other admits.
she was reluctantly acquitted.

forgiven again and again,
deteriorating the bond's trust.
controlling her best friend,
their connection doomed to combust.

the big blow up never happened,
one pea just rolled away.
her life is now unburdened,
ready for a brand new day.