I have never seen
a world as dark as this
its shadows create monsters
knarled teeth and clashing fingers

i have never seen
a world as bright as this
warmth that grabs the heart
and pushes fears away from you

i have never seen
a world as gray as this
where words are two dimensional
and people drift like the northern wind

i have never seen
a world such as this.

Oh won't you butter my squash?

Clean my seeds
Like the sins of my past

The baked passion inside
The oven racks
Racks
Racks

Stack the inner radiance
And peal me

The smooth orange paste
Will feel really zesty

Stay here on my cutting board
Send knives of kisses

Be merciless inside the sink
Blinking boiling stink

And watch as I eat your intestines

One says
"I'll race you to the gutter."
The other one says
"Yeah, but I'll beat you to hell."
Followed by lots of liquid laughter
And they think they're joking

                                     By Phil Roberts

I dreamed of my father
crossing the fields
on his one-eyed tractor
mowing acres of sadness
heading east of a moon
that'll be gone tomorrow
and I waded the creek
beneath a ridge
where my mother is shearing
dead roses and the smell
of those flowers floating
to the foot of the mountains
reminds me of her hair
and my father's laughter
disappearing across the hill.

there are the many ways
i could try to explain
what a deep dark hole it is..
but the bottom of the this pit
is so far down
you wouldnt be able
to hear me
if i did.

There is this pain inside of me
Caused mainly by your apathy
It screams at me with silence
And I cover my ears to no difference

There’s also my anxiety
That chokes my heart without mercy
As all these questions fill my mind
Whose answers I don’t want to find

Will you ever care for me
Will you ever share with me
The love I’ll crave for endlessly
Will this end in futility

All I want is to talk to you
I have this need to know what’s true
Why would you deny me the right
To save myself from my own blight

You were my only thread of hope
Out of this void, my escape rope
As soon as I latched on, you snapped
Now in my own darkness I’m trapped.

114

Good night, because we must,
How intricate the dust!
I would go, to know!
Oh incognito!
Saucy, Saucy Seraph
To elude me so!
Father! they won’t tell me,
Won’t you tell them to?