Let me be easy
to let me rest my head and close my eyes.
Let me be at peace
with the world and even myself.
Let my weary soul rest.
May the demons sleep tonight.

                                       By Phil Roberts

There is no reason or right
for the night
to own your insecurities
to marshal your killing nightmares.
The endless fall.
The leaden-legged chase.
The faceless, nameless monsters
But you know who they are.
Every restless twitch.
The over-heated bed.
Angels feathers
would not be comfortable.
Don't let it be!
Call the night into question.

                                 By Phil Roberts

A stark shaded light swings
From the office ceiling
Making cartoon shadows chase
Crazily around the walls
She stands on one leg
Quite easily and bizarrely
And types with her other foot
Tapping the lettered keys
With the stiletto heel of her shoe
And hanging in the juggling rays of light
There is a trilby hat with teeth and no eyes
Wearing a raincoat indoors
Ectoplasmic cigarette smoke coils
A trilling piano
Tickles around a neon light
Somewhere
Out there

The stiletto becomes a cigarette holder
Daintily dribbling ash
****** trumpet notes insinuate
Sliding brass around the walls
Overlaying the chasing shadows
Teeth do a flash-bulb grin
The top comes off a bottle
And two glasses are splashed into
Negotiations are pursued
A flirting of commerce
Flash!
That grin again
A service has been purchased
Glasses *****
The light still swings
A jazz singer sings
Pouring sweetness over the neon light
Somewhere
Out there

Outside the moon scowls in silver
A pistol writes an anonymous threat
And with inappropriate optimism
The chorus presents
A monstrous garish dance routine
Bang!
And screams off-stage
The dance becomes the soft-shoe scatter
Hands slide inside double-breasted jackets
The cops howlingly arrive!
Car doors slam, bam!
But all players have dispersed
The night is seamless again
And a lazy jazz band plays
Behind the neon light
Somewhere
Out there

                     By Phil Roberts

I know that there have been times,
down the bruised and misread years,
when I have been hard and cold.
Perhaps even seeming to be cruel
But, please remember who I am
And where it is I've come from.
Born to gossip and scandal
and raised in the family war zone,
trust and tenderness, at times,
seem illusory to me.
Unknowable.
Like smoke in my hands.
But I still try.

                                  By Phil Roberts

Look at me
Look at me
I'm scared into flames
And I feel there ought to be a joke round here
Somewhere
Hold onto me
Hold onto me
I'm flying into space
And I can't find anything that matters here
Nothing really matters

Flying high
Flying way too high
With nothing to hold onto
And needing nothing at all
Because everything is possible
So, let my wings glisten in the sun
For tomorrow I crash hard into the ground


                                           By Phil Roberts

Yet again the rain.
Once again
washing the colour from the day.
Wet and liquid grey
clouds  obliterating the sun,
preventing full daylight from
reaching this streaming place.
Until, an early dreary evening
when, with curtains closed
drum-rolls against the window
as passing flurries of wind
throw volleys at the glass
here where the rain lives.

                                       By Phil Roberts

Come here and listen to me
There are ugly deep shadows
Where things could be leering
Snarling and hungry
Heavy and threatening
****** in the wriggling damp
The age dripping damp
Where dead leaves rot and fatten the earth
Come close and listen to me

Don't go down there
No, don't go down there
They're doing strange things in the dark
You shouldn't have come to the park
On your own
Don't go walking alone

This is no place for one so young
And soft
Delicately tremblingly white
And soft
Run home with your soul gripped tight
Before someone
Some muddied gritty  someone
Touches
In the shadows and shrubs
And the night

                             By Phil Roberts

He bursts in through the door
Most would have opened it first
But they're all the same
These radical fundamentalists
Standing alone and angry
Like blistered thumbs

Each sulphurous quotation
Boomed with idiotic solemnity
And such slobbering enthusiasm
Such glassy eyed acceptance
For every steaming edict

He insistently invades you
Because he needs to persuade you
And he longs so much to save you
Poking prodding and nagging
Pulpit punching and finger wagging
'Till your will to live is sagging

"I know and you don't !
I'm right and you're wrong !
You have to listen to me !
I am the man with a plan !
When others can't, I can ! "

So, I ponder this man with interest
His certainty speaks loud and clear
It speaks of making dreams reality
And delusional hopes that really can be
But most of all it speaks to me
Of an utter pile of ****

                  By Phil Roberts

We saw a light
I swear it
Something bright and crisp
And mother-clean
Or so it seemed to us
All those years ago
But we were so young then
Such noble fools
We believed
Oh, how we believed

Affection swells
And memory seduces
It is easy to love nostalgia
The children we were
Looking so new
Open-mouthed and wonderful
Delighted  and startled
Pointing yearning fingers
At the future
And there it was
And here it is
It's only a light
Really
I swear it
It's just a light

                             By Phil Roberts

I have moved to a different drum
With odd and peculiar rhythms
Dancing awkwardly through life
On my two flat clumsy feet
It is not the way I chose
To step on innocent toes
But the wildness of my dance
Has had no easy flow
The blame lies entirely with me
It's a genetic thing, you see
I am no more than this
The son of the gypsy's kiss

                                By Phil Roberts

A name is called in the deep of sleep
Hanging in the night like a star
From the subconscious to the surreal
Memories and myths collide here
All smoke and mirrors to mislead
And mystery
Always mystery
Until reality slips and slides
And the only truth is doubt

                                      By Phil Roberts

They lie warm together
In the afterglow of torrid love
Her head on his chest, he says
"Sing me to sleep, my love"
So she hums and croons
A tune he does not recognize
With soothing sounding words
In a language he does not recognize
"I love you," he murmurs as his eyes close
"I know," she says smiling
And so, as he sleeps
She lies open-eyed
Imagining a future he will not recognize

                                        By Phil Roberts

Hello
It's me again
It's the early hours and I'm slightly drunk
And it's me again

He has the sins of his mind
Which keep him warm inside
Amidst the weary and the wasted
Such warmth keeps him alive

Restless
I've always been restless
I hate to move yet I can't sit still
Hours are endless

There is a thrush inside his head
An agony of wings
Panic beaten thrashing
A cage of singing things

Anxious
Still always anxious
Even though I've slowed right down
This edge is ageless

Laying low and watching
A million sub-plots hatching
Paranoid and paranormal
He scatters to survive

                                     By Phil Roberts

Protected by a suit of dreams
And armed with a smile
He came out of nowhere
And went his own way

Seemingly believing nothing
And walking in no-one else's footsteps
He follows no rules without reasons
But he knows right from wrong
And he knows that's what matters

In a world of easy hypocrisy
Where compassion is stifled by fear
And belief is a reason to hate
To hate and destroy other beliefs
He goes his own way

                              By Phil Roberts

Upon this starry night
In a breath of sparkling life
My grand-daughter was born
In a world full of beauty
As well as traps and snares
She faces her first dawn
And we can give no more than love
Nor offer more than guidance
And vow only to be constant
For that is more than so many have

And so I whisper to her

You are made of bright newness
Innocent of prejudice
So to yourself be true
For many would give you their bigotries
Sell you their corrupted histories
But your truth lies within you
You, the blood of my blood
The child of my child
Have moved me beyond reason
At the wonder of creation

                                     By Phil Roberts

In little over two years
I have had more scans
Than a supermarket checkout
There is more of my blood in path labs
Than I have in my body
I've had nasty painful biopsies
Things up my **** and cameras down my neck
There have been countless appointments
At four different hospitals
As well as being hospitalised five times
Including one minor operation
And two major ones
I now have ******* up kidneys
Veins like ropes and arms like Twiglets
And more scars
Than a bad knife-throwers assistant
But what the hell !
I'm still growing old disgracefully
HA !!

                               By Phil Roberts

(to be read with slurred speech)

HEEEEEEEY!!!!
How the hell are ya?
Good to see ya again
:D
Listen, right...
I been thinkin' 'bout love
And there are two I was going to talk about
One who wants to leave her hubby for me
And one who turns up to ****** torment me
But I can't be arsed
Sooooooo
I'll drink and smoke myself to oblivion
And to **** with 'em all

                                  By Phil Roberts

It has to be said that
I've always thrived in dives
And stumbled in polite society
You see, I tend to talk too much
And laugh in all the wrong places
These modern eternals hate me
Because I smoke and I'm still alive
And I constantly smell of tobacco
So I'll stick to the dives
And the undemanding low-lifes
Who, like myself
Simply do not care

                             By Phil Roberts

I do nothing about the sunrise
It just happens
Like moments and days
On and on
There is a rhythm if not a theme
I do nothing about the theme

I did nothing to be born
It just happened
Like tides and moons
It was easy
I was there at the right time
All I had to do was be there

I know nothing about our fate
Though it exists
Like time and death
Always there
There is a fact if not an end
I know nothing about the end

THE END

                 By Phil Roberts

Come softly, stranger
Step inside the light
Here is home of a sort
Here is nowhere else to go

Such staggering ambiguity
Such all-consuming cruelty
I see it all so clearly now
Wide-eyed and unheeding
Unaware of double-dealing
I was an innocent
And then I was born
Wise to the lies of the womb
And with a grudge for being disturbed

                                           By Phil Roberts

I am accompanied by ghosts
Haunted by broken hearts
And useless regrets
Loss of the living is almost worse
Than the loss of life
But it happens
And now
Without the optimism and hope of love
Life tires of me and I of it
Ah, but alas
I cannot die
Because heaven will not take me
And daddy says I can never go back home

                   By Phil Roberts

There are no Apaches
With flaming arrows and piebald ponies
There are no writhing jungles round here
There are no lost temples
Hiding untold treasures
There are no damsels to be rescued
By a knight on a white charger
There are no pirates on the high seas
No skull and crossbones flying
Above a deck bristling and glistening
With cutlasses and flintlocks ready
And hook hands and black eye-patches
In the sunlight of the Spanish Maine
There are no interplanetary wars
With hand-held laser guns
And weird creatures from strange worlds
They just do not exist
I learned this when
I was very very young
And I really wanted to be a pirate

                                    By Phil Roberts

He ducks and dives
All across the sky
He flies
Yes, he flies
And this is a life form
This is a means to an end
And this is the name
The name is "Dealer"

And "Dealer" says
"You got-ta
Sor-ta
Think in cartoons
You know
It makes it easier"
And this is only possible
Because of need

So he bobs and weaves
And gladly deceives
He lies
Yes, he lies
Because, in the end
It's a living
That's all

                          By Phil Roberts

My friends have known me as Fargone
For a long long time
Sometimes I'm dull
And other times I shine
But when I lose belief in something
Or someone
Then I move on and I'm gone
Fargone

                                     By Phil Roberts

Some days
Your eyes cry
At so much of what they see
And your heart is over full with sad memories
Feral thoughts tear at truths
And chew at hard-won confidence
Your twin lights
Of humour and humanity
Shall lead you back to your smile

                                          By Phil Roberts

When I was a young man
A heedless headlong consumer of life, was I
Above and beyond the norm or necessity
I wore paths deep and wide
To the pleasure centres of my brain
And I rode my soul like an easy *****
Oh happy daze of hedonism
How sweet life tasted then

If there was drink to drink
We drank it
If there were songs to sing
We sang them
If there were fights to fight
We fought them
We had fast feet and faster wits
If there was hell to raise
We raised it
Excess and adventure in equal parts
How fast, how high we flew back then

And then the magic playground
Became a bleak and dangerous place
Peopled by predators and prey
In an ever changing food chain
And I was only one step away
From the totally oblivious
One brain cell ahead of
The permanent reality challenged
Then friends began casually dying
Barely noticed in the rush to join them
Now the race is on
And I have grown old and slow

                                              By Phil Roberts

Caution?
I never quite got the hang of that
Never a gambler as such
I have been a creature of impulse and instinct
Of uncertain intent
Unknowing and unmeaning
I have created crackling static
Out of consequence and recrimination
Trying not to hurt anyone
I do right by no-one
But I cannot change my gypsy way
I have always said and will always say
I won't die wondering
I hope I will die laughing
But not today

                                             By Phil Roberts

A small silver moon
Glimpses and flickers through the swaying treetops
Shadows take me to one side
And whisper rumours in my ear
Thorns rip the skin
And draw blood
For the rumours are about me
Again

                    By Phil Roberts

Things get broken
Hearts
Minds
It's no-one's fault
It never is
Not really
Butter fingers and distraction
Without malice or forethought
Things
Like hearts and minds
Slip
And shatter on hard contact with reality

                                By Phil Roberts

Every time I have all the pieces together again
You return
Silently
Smilingly
Just to let me know you're still around
Never quite letting go
But never quite returning
Well, I have new roads to travel now
And so do you

                                       By Phil Roberts

Every long and lonely day
She is seen in her greyness
And beautiful honesty
For she has no wit to lie
Her age and her nervousness
Make her obviously vulnerable
As she worries in her doorway
And so it goes

A stranger approaches
He looks safe enough
Yes, safe enough
She asks the usual question
"Can you tell me what day it is, please?"
Surprised amusement in his eyes
"It's Saturday, love"
"Saturday. Thank you very much"
And so it follows

Saturday
I know that
I only ask for something to say
I'd have no-one to talk to if I didn't
Saturday
I know that
No-one came again today
Oh they must think I'm such a fool
Asking what day it is
But they can see I'm old
Saturday
Yes, I'm old
I can't remember how old
Too old, too old
Oh dear, what day did he say it was?
Was it Saturday?
Yes, that's right
Saturday
No-one came again today
No-one ever comes
I'll die alone and no-one will know
I could lie dead for days
No-one will know for days
Days and days
The days go so slowly
Or is it quickly
I wonder what day it is
Oh dear, I've forgotten again
I'll have to ask someone
They'll think I'm such a fool
Still, they can see I'm very old
"Excuse me, can you tell me what day it is, please?"

                                         By Phil Roberts

When I was still young and fresh
A million years ago
I walked on edges
Always on the edge of something
Something wild

Bright lights and long nights
Lots of laughter and music
Always music
Singing with the band
Dodging the flying glass
When fights broke out
Howling to the moon
Oh, wild indeed were we

All shadows now, alas
Visions from an addled brain
Pubs, clubs and smoky dumps
Leave no turn unstoned was the cry
More fun than fundamental
And fundamentally flawed, it was
A couple of hours sleep 'fore the day job
With eye-lids stuck together
And walking into walls
But still I wouldn't have swapped it
For all the strait laced straight faced
Wealth in the world

                                 By Phil Roberts

I'll provide the smoke
I'm good at that
And no doubt you have the mirrors
So between us
We can deceive the world
But no-one more than ourselves
Haven't we been here before?
In the land of wizards

                                  By Phil Roberts

Oh, spinner of dreams
In the depth of imagination
Spin a dream for me
A tale of adventure and romance
Of myth and magic
And fragrant mystery
Spin lively for me
To take me elsewhere
To a place where gravity's pull
Is minimal
And reality
Has no hold at all

                                         By Phil Roberts

I felt this primal urge
This trance-like instinct
To set things right
In case I have to leave
Move on, so to speak

So
I took my jaundiced eye
And rolled it from corner to corner
Of this, my situation
And I felt so very small and hard
Lost in largeness
For cynicism is a tight thing
Which allows little movement
A strange kind of chastity

And then, you see
Changes
Honesty demanded that I see more
Grow, so to speak

And oh, my poor sore eyes
See how the children starve
All over this bitter world
This bitter, sickened world
And cynicism did this
Through the slack hands of millions
Who still refuse to believe
That things can be changed

                                    By Phil Roberts

You stand before me like a wall
Awaiting the character of graffiti
You see me as some frozen myth
Within the solid ice of past
You see no movement
Such short and shallow vision
I am already you and more
Listen to my years
Read the maps of my scars
Why insist on fresh blood of your own?

You are not me
Nor am I less
And you don't know anymore
It's different now
You're out of touch

Have new emotions been discovered?
New hungers?
New desires?
New hatreds?
New loves?

Different containers
Same emotions

                      By Phil Roberts

I refuse to dream again
It only leads to pain
There is no truth therein
Whatever some may say
It's all tricks of the mind
And then in the light of day
Whenever I open my eyes
Reality is still grey

                             By Phil Roberts

I do not speak in sombre tones
Not for me the gentle echo
Hushing through hallowed halls
I shall growl my way to the grave
Be ****** to the insignificant
And to hell with the indifferent
There are no rules or rulers
There are only fools and foolers

I need no-one else's straight lines
I have imagination enough to swerve
And spite enough to spin
Snapping snarling and seditious
Spitting venomous and vicious
Flamed by the world's injustice
And humanity's indifference
Not until I am dead burned and scattered
Shall I rest assured

                                By Phil Roberts

It's midnight soon
So I'm off to bed to read
May all of your dreams
Make you smile in your sleep

                                    By Phil Roberts

Been lost so long it feels like home
Been high so long it feels like down
But that's alright
Yea, it's okay
Down here
We all live this way

I steal and I rob for the things I've got
Until they're stolen from me
Mostly I rob to pay for dope
A piece of oblivion in place of hope
But that's alright
Man, it's okay
We live and die this way

I'm losing my teeth
And my lips are cracked
My face looks as though
It's made of wax
I'm thin enough to walk through walls
And I can't ever remember walking tall
Still, it's alright
yea, it's okay
It'll always be this way

                                      By Phil Roberts

No-one knows how bad it was
And nobody knows how good
I wear my smile with bright abandon
Like the days of happy hedonism
But most of my scars are kept out of sight
Too ugly and too brutal to show
They're no-one's business but mine
The lines on my face
Are my long service medals
I never expected so many
Years or medals

                                    By Phil Roberts

The wind shuffles the long grass
And the broad green reeds
Shifting and rattling
By the rippling black water
Chuckling water fowl splash
Swans and cygnets hurry past
And the weather is on the turn
It's time to be heading home

The last of the daylight creatures
And the very first of those of the night
Are sharing this half-way hour
The sky restlessly moves and changes
And bruised clouds rush over head
Like the rubbed eye-lids of a child
A weary teary child
Going home and ready for bed

The slack and glossy water
Laps at the stone beneath bridges
Echoing with the ghosts of barges
And spits of rain flick the air
Studs of cold hitting the face
Turning a collar to the cheek
And urging aching feet
Home-fire yearning me home

                               By Phil Roberts

I dreamed that I knew you
But that was only a dream

I once met a man
In a pub full of gangstas and dealers
And fools like me
Who thrived on the adrenaline and the anarchy
This young man returned my buddy's keys
Not the place to leave them on the bar
So we got talking, as you would
And this young black guy was impressive
He was obviously intelligent and articulate
As straight forward and easy going
As the place allowed
We got on pretty well
Saw each other and said hi a few times
Chatted at the bar occasionally
Then I didn't see him for a while
Until I saw his picture in the papers
He had shot and killed a man
For machete-ing his younger brother
It just goes to show
We never really know

                             By Phil Roberts

It's been a long long road
That I've been travelling
And it's a heavy load
That I've been carrying
Now the nights grow long
And the days become colder
So tell all the brothers
They can tell all the others
That I'm going home

                         By Phil Roberts

Falling from one day into the next
They slowly drag and the nights ache
But I'm used to feeling the cold.
With no direction required
And hopes of salvation long gone
I shall walk calmly through the fire
And simply carry on
I refuse to lose the gypsy within
Old and ****** and ****** if I care
I shall continue to sin and to grin
With new roads to travel to nowhere
Amen

                     By Phil Roberts

She cries tears of mother's ruin
"Look at me!
It's been so hard
All of my life
And I've had to fight
For my own patch of light
Still, no-one ever looks at me"

He turns his eyes to the floor
Saying nothing
Feeling stupid
And his words burst like bubbles in his mouth
He is desperate to say something
Anything to make her happy
But he cannot turn disappointment
Back into youthful optimism
Or bitterness back to hope
As she sinks into smeary sobs
Wet and bleary loss
He takes her home

He undresses her and puts her to bed
Then he holds her as she cries
And he holds her as she sleeps
He hushes her when she stirs
And calms her when she starts and cries out
When the dreams become too real
And he shall never be more than this
Never more fulfilled
Caring for her is his only purpose
Making her happy is his holy grail
Willingly trapped within her pain
He is nothing else at all

                               By Phil Roberts

How dark and long the night
Growing up in the care
Of you, my mother
Unstable and violent
With fists as fast as your hair-trigger temper
I was very young when I learned to take a punch
And fly across a room with the best of them

But you taught me to read before I started school
And you read Dickens to me for hours
Igniting my love of words and stories
But even then
The storm could crash at any time
"What a quiet, well-behaved little boy.
Isn't he shy?"

But the worst thing you ever did to me
You told a lie as big as the moon
You said that my real father, the gypsy
Was dead
When I met him, in my teens
The world lurched slightly
And never went back to normal
And the worst thing is
I was still too scared to call you a liar

                                              By Phil Roberts

Doom laden
Light my way
With candle of blackest tallow
And flame of brightest white
I follow my nature
My gravitation
Without question

Godless and lawless
Out of the wild I came
Still wet and trembling
Hairless and bared to all
I lived off the fruit of the land
And open to the sky
As is the way of my kind

What did I know of fences?
Or of lines on a map
All I saw was plenty for all
I knew nothing of money
I knew only being fed and being hungry
So they called me thief
They called me savage

Doom laden
Light my way
With candle dripping tallow
And flame of dimmest red
With hesitation I follow
Stumbling and lost no doubt
Yet still I follow

                              By Phil Roberts

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

Teacher, you teach me dust
I stare into the distance
Long empty hours
The killing boredom
The places I'd rather be
Anywhere

Teacher, you drone like flies
I hear sounds from elsewhere
Sad wasted years
The ritual of failure
Becoming deeply learned
Little else

Teacher, you and I collude
To propagate ignorance
Half-hearted
Mutual mediocrity
Could do better I suppose
But we won't

                            By Phil Roberts