I stare into the distance
And see nothing
Only the pictures behind my eyes
Images of faces and places
People and towns I'll never see again
Why revisit the empty past?
Memories still linger
But there is no place for regrets
So now that I am too tired to try
And my eyes are too dry to cry
I don't care anymore
When innocents are blown out of the sky
And Parisian walkways run with blood
What does any of it matter?

                                     By Phil Roberts

Spinal necessity exists
Between ludicrous *****
And the pulsating brain
Lumbering and slobbering
Separate from the mind
Which is tuned to distraction
Feeling every nuance
As a ricochet
For this sensitivity is not delicate
But damning and demanding

Tentative toes step around
Lightly sleeping memories
Which will bawl upon waking
Demanding delivery
Into the light of recognition
But, evading perspective
They become demonic in aspect
Causing crashes
Stamping all over corpses
Bringing them alive
And each of these ghastly debutantes
mutters softly
"Dream of me"

                                By Phil Roberts

A simple man is what I am
I went to no university
Or college of theology
And no doubt that's why I'm confused

It occurs to me, when we see
Leaders and generals of all countries and creeds
Celebrate their victories with smiling pride
Shouldn't they be weeping with shame
For all the innocents who've died?

They all believe that their god is on their side
And quite often, the same god at that
All down the ages, our venerable sages
Have killed, tortured and oppressed each other
In the name of the wishes of god

Now I'm just an ignorant sinner
So can someone please explain
What kind of god do these people believe in
That needs the destruction of his own creations
And all in his holy name?

                                                          ­  By Phil Roberts

Robert Johnson went to the crossroads
And fell down on his knees
The wolf was howlin' at midnight
McKinley Morganfield stirred the muddy waters
Singing of hoochie ******* men and mojos
Right back to Charlie Patton and Son House
And Blind Lemon Jefferson too
Men from the land of cotton, corn liquor and jukes
Always travelling hard and hard driven
Playing hard and hard living
These men who became legends
Who touched the deepest part of souls
With their elemental music
And they still do

                                   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

Narcosis wafts on the air
Pollinating the senses
Spreading dust on the years
Softening corners and edges
Disguising shapes
Until there is no point anymore
Nothing clear to be seen
But something pierced the skin

Wrecked witless and reckless
I have walked here all my days
In this land of rant and cant
Home of the brave and me
And I, the sentimental fool
Would keep the dream alive
Of gentle Wodehouse summers
And a myth of Christmas snow
Victorian values

Daylight is brighter here
So bright it laughs for joy
Dapple-dancing and doting
With no thought of cloud or rain
Not one word of unpleasant truth
No hint of hypocrisy
Here in Narcosis England
Everything is fine

                            By Phil Roberts

As sinuous as sexuality
Flowing fresh and twisting
The stream gathers speed
Polishing and chattering
Over pebbles and smoothed rocks
Busy and multitudinous
Rushing and splashing heedlessly on
Into and shallow basins
On its gathering gravity led progress
Inexorably towards the sea
The formless community of its kind
Riding on currents and winds
Soon to mist and cloud the sky
And the rain falls down and down
To feed the numberless tributaries
As the constant cycle rolls on

                                        By Phil Roberts

Strange creatures circle the edges
And their eyes are hungry and haunted
One day their teeth shall glint dangerously
And I know it very well
For I shall be their meat
Though I cannot imagine fear
And I should feel something

Several people are asking me for help
But I shall probably turn away
For uncertainty clings to my head
Like a monkey that cannot be shaken
With claws in my eyes
I try to see my way out
But, of course, there is none
And the demands on my name
Echo where my conscience should be

Passengers come and go
On my endless journey
The landscape is familiar
And occasionally a memory smiles and waves
All too briefly, it seems
I feel I ought to cry more
But nothing seems to hurt as it used to
Only my nakedness makes me cold

                                 By Phil Roberts

Every day
I look for a message from you
Every single day
It's one of the first things I do
I know that you're still waitng
I've heard about what you said
So send me a message
And ease my worried head

                                        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 remember walking tall
Still, it's alright
yea, it's okay
It'll always be this way

                                      By Phil Roberts

You've seen her a hundred times
With a hundred faces
But she's always the same
Always at the bar
She's there when you arrive
And she'll be there when you you leave
There beside the fullest ash-tray
Lighting another cigarette
With fluttery fidgety fingers

Her lipstick is far too red
And not quite straight
Too much make up to hide the lines
Which show all the more
As she cracks the mask to smile
Her hair is too yellow
And her eyes are long lost grey
The arc which her glass follows to her mouth
Is restless and constant

As the evening wears on
She will talk too loudly
She may even sing out of tune
She will laugh too shrilly
When nothing is funny
But sometimes
When it's late
She sheds silent messy tears
As she rocks on her bar stool
Because there's a reason
This woman at the bar
Has a story as real as any other
And it matters just as much

                                    By Phil Roberts

This old heart has been riven
With cracks and fissures
And crumbling dust has been shed
And the healer did not heal me
So I molded and shaped my heart
Into a rolling stone
Free to go where it pleases
And impervious to pain
In theory, at least

                            By Phil Roberts

Time's wheels turn
On and on
And journeys stack up behind me
Years of vivid events
And livid scars

Trails of crackling static
Followed in my wake
But I never noticed
Until the laughter stopped
And then I heard the crying
All too late

                     By Phil Roberts

Never ordinary
Never easy
Nothing parts the sea
Nothing moves the earth
This is a hard world
And there is no give at all

Don't press your face to the ground
It does not help
Don't shout at the sky
It does not hear
Nothing helps
And no-one hears
This is desolation

In the wavering distance
Less than light
Reality  drifts eerily by
There is no need to go
No reason to stay
Grey coiling wraiths
Rise and slowly sway
They could be anything
Anyone
Distinctions have no place
Nowhere to hide
Here is where souls shudder

                                     By Phil Roberts

Are you dead now, old man
Or shall you crawl a while longer
In your stains and your stink
Because that is not a life you lead
But something blind and stumbling
Meaningless and mindless
Don't you wish you were dead?

Are you cold now, old man
Within your cardboard-box bed
And your loss and fear?
And now summer and youth are long gone
With your mind and your heart and soul
Leaving nothing but memories
Which you cannot grasp anymore
What were you once, old man?

Was it pain or neglect
Or maybe crumbled dreams?
Did you believe things which were lies?
Well, why not?
So did I
And as the cliche has it,
There but for the grace of so and so
And so on and so forth
But now, farewell my lovely
For I think that you are dead

                                       By Phil Roberts

My emotional life
Is a blind three-legged mule called Idiot
He limps around, occasionally falling over
As he wanders in circles in his darkness
Because he is an idiot
He makes no sense of the sounds he hears
And so, out of compassion
I've decided to put him out of his misery
Click
Bang!

                        By Phil Roberts

Naked as Spring
Several propositions,
Like life,
Offer themselves to you
And to the heart of you.
They make themselves available
As naked as the newborn Spring.

It's your choice.
Several propositions,
Like your life,
Become themselves of you
Or of the heart of you.
Some make themselves inevitable
And you believe it's your choice

And now a silence
A crushing roaring silence;
As those propositions,
Chances
Become fewer and fewer
And in the heart of you
Some things become inevitable
And this very loud silence

And now this silence,
This bruising numbing silence,
As these dispositions,
Attitudes
Become stiffer and stiffer
And in the head of you
These things that are inevitable
Are getting slower and slower

Those naked Springs ago,
All those propositions,
Your life
Fasten themselves to you
And to the heart of you
You're getting older and older
And you're as naked as a bone

                                 By Phil Roberts

In this distant place
High and remote
Beyond the planet's pull
Gone for good and all
Hanging nowhere

Spacial, spacious solitude
Sounds appropriate
Cast unto shadows
Deeply unmoving
Deeply unnerving
Inertia

But within this
Atoms collide and spin
And soundless explosions
Cause panic-breaths
And splintered heartbeats

And in this distant place
Nothing happens
Nothing moves
But within...........

                       By Phil Roberts

He wakes in the morning
More tired than when he went to bed
He makes his coffee with too much milk
The TV news is pretty much the same as yesterday
Just the faces and names may change
The rain pours outside his window
Washing the colour from the day
And he is reminded of a phrase he heard
So often in the mills
A catchphrase of despair
"If this is living, roll on death"

                                             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
Not anymore

Nothing left
There's nothing left
And I'm losing my grip
I could have been a poetic figure
Of sorts
There's the joke
Yes, there's the joke
And the joke is undoubtedly on me

                                           By Phil Roberts

The setting sun still blazes
A white hot disc
It's final defiant rays
Shaped and shifted
By the softly sailing layers of cloud
And feathers and threads of vapour
All reflected as glinting sequins
Upon the sparkling sea
As it softly  rolls and splashes
Rattling pebbles and empty shells
Invading and the disappearing beach
Seasoning the air
With salty spray to sharpen the senses
And the ceaseless rhythm of the murmuring tide
Stirs and caresses the soul
And whispers of a million memories
Time and tide and ocean
At peace in endless motion

                                  By Phil Roberts

The senseless energy of confusion
With nothing left to try
Too restless to sleep
And too tired to cry
What can he say?
What words can he use?
What does she want to hear?
What more can he do?
Sat alone in the dark
Come home to my heart

Begging the phone to ring
From a distant place
A voice in the plastic
He pictures her face
"I can't stand to be alone
Please, bring my children home"
A half of him is empty
The half that is her part
Sat alone in the dark
Come home to my heart

                                 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

When you awaken
Kiss the sunlight
And wish the morning good day
Because you never know
This could be the day
That changes your life

                                   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

I sit here looking through my window
At the early morning mist and mizzle
My mind is still sluggish and half dreaming
Drifting through memories and images
Without purpose or reason
And from nowhere
I remember a night in the past
When I awoke crying a name
And my secret was betrayed to the moon
And the name was your's

                                               By Phil Roberts

He was mesmerized and she was scandalized
She was vexed and he perplexed
Somehow
Something happened then
In warm climates or somewhere
If he offers a change of address you can bear it
If he offers a new dress you can wear it
If he smiles you can count his teeth and look for gold
But it may be a lie
For nothing is real
Not really real

You must know this is a fact
It eases the pain
And sharpens perception
Incredible dreams
And this alone is true
So take pictures in your room
Capture an instant in the air
There may well be a reason for this
But it is not really real
Like words on the paper
A short-fall on truth
Nothing but pieces of vocabulary

Just count his teeth if he smiles
The bite marks would be jagged crescents
Can you stand that?
Perhaps we shall see
A rush job to the blood bank maybe
Deposit or withdrawal, sir or madam
Fearfully white and clean we say again
"Nothing is really real"
They laugh, all unbelieving
What do they know of jagged crescents?
Only nightmares trouble their truth

He will be bad and she will be sad
But I'm never sure of these things

                                           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

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

I was once called
A communist, a fascist and an anarchist
All in one sentence
Which I thought was quite impressive
And this was because I was a union man
My fellow workers elected me to represent them
In our dealings with management
I was involved in negotiations
About the application of regulations
And other tedious vexations
And on rare occasions
I led disputes and even strikes
And, over the years
I helped to save many jobs
Not numbers
But peoples' livelihoods
Some will say I was a rabble-rouser
An agitator
Some can say as they like
All I ever did
Was stand up for the underdog
And I hope I always will

                                   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

It seems that I made a mistake
Nothing new there, then
You never received the myriad of messages
That I poured out to you
So how could you have known where I was
How could you know that I was in your town
Or when and where
And so I saw all but saw nothing
Please forgive me
I became so empty and cold
And lost for anything to hold
When I thought that it was over
Please stay with me

                       By Phil Roberts

The desperado has crossed the wasteland
He is crazy and grinning mad
But his child-bride is almost dead
Burning beneath the bleaching sun
She tries to crawl in his shadow
Which he keeps teasingly out of reach
As his cruelty has sustained him
So her hatred has sustained her
And thus they have become one
Wedded in the pain of exile
They cannot be parted

Now the freezing night has fallen
And they stand together at your door
This hard and spiky man
As sharp as any weapon
And his shivering dawn of a wife
With tear marks scored into her face
They want your warmth and food
She pleading and he demanding
They crave the shelter of your home
Can you turn her away
Dare you let him in
For they can never be parted

                             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

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

The priest puts his trust
In martyrs and miracles
Clutching his rosary and his celibacy
To his bursting breast
And humanity walks
Through a series of cages
Every day

The ***** puts her trust
In bordellos and bodies
Clutching her money and her condoms
To her brassy breast
And humanity walks
Through a series of cages
Every day

The lawyer puts his trust
In regulations and rules
Clutching his charters and his decrees
To his dusty breast
And humanity walks
Through a series of cages
Every day

We each put our trust
In roles and rituals
Clutching convention and convenience
To our timid *******
So humanity continues to walk
Through a series of self-made cages
Every day

                 By Phil Roberts

To casual observers he seemed to be dead
But those that knew him could tell he was dancing
There was a latent devastation lurking
Behind those strange hungry eyes
Which remained stationary with a speed that was treacherous
Well-trodden trodden paths could be seen in there
Definitely a man of extreme possibilities
An absolute play on words
This is very tiring whilst cornering
Here comes another corner

Sharp as a pencil and twice as right
Exceed with caution and a perhaps

To those who knew him he seemed to be dead
But casual observers could tell that he was dancing
All around the bonfire
He could have been naked with writing on his body
If he had only wanted to badly enough
An ambition
Please turn the corner

Sharp as a twig and twice as wooden
Have you noticed how much today is now
It makes you know something could happen
Danger lurks on every breath
Adventure in your very feet
Proceed with greatest caution and something
To peep from behind

To casual observers
And those who knew him well
They agreed he wasn't at his best
Rest assured that nothing's certain

                                          By Phil Roberts

This night is beyond you
Just out of control
Grins and curious eyes hit you in the face
And you are staggering again
Get to the bar and try for sanity
Don't think too much
Slow down your mind
Get another drink to soften the edges
You're asking for a gin and panic
Everyone's a stranger
And everyone knows who you are
And  everyone's talking
You've seen all this before somewhere
This is some kind of reality
And you are outside of it
No-one warned you that your words
Would be taken down as used as trivia
Don't laugh, you fool
It's not that funny
And those faces are staring again
There's a table to hold on to
Something to stop you from sinking
Keep swimming through the noise
And the smoke and the eyes
And the wet mouths
And the liquid glasses
And the moving walls
And the approaching floor

                             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 the night was harsh and cold
I had a tenderness of dreams to keep me warm
Through the hard times
And there were plenty
I thought that I was safe
Thought my heart was safe at last
At peace within the war zone of life
Such thoughts from a man like me
Such unexpected naivety
And then
When the call went out
"No answer" came the reply

                                          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

Inside the news today
A man made up his mind
The casual cages that held his rages
Were becoming a bit of a bind
So he locked himself in his room
And cultivated his gloom
Then carefully selected his time

At last he waited until
Those who spoke to him still
Were on their way to a working day
With another eight hours to ****
Then he casually did the deed
And then he watched himself bleed
With a curiously impersonal thrill

So, slowly he died
Right there where he lied
He lay in a pool the red dead fool
So sadly and badly demised
It was in the papers that night
And they spelt his name right
He had finally made the big time

                            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

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

Jokers and knaves are wild cards
As ever they were
What fateful houses these make
Breath-held balancing
Precarious shelters
Gamblers and wanderers
With tumbleweed roots
Clinging air instead of earth
The stuff of fools and stars
And someone's days and years
Are made only of this
This thrilling despair

Jokers and knaves and kings and queens
And some of subtler meaning
Mean nothing but paper
Numbers and trembles
Dry-mouthed mumbles
Prayers to a ruthless god
With no reason to pity fools
And a dark love of sacrifice
Yet still desperate belief
Huddled behind swollen eyes
Contradicts every probable outcome
And falls and spins

                        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

I knew he was dying
I thought maybe a few weeks left
So still and so quiet
This man whose laugh made us all laugh
The man who always had ideas
Where to go, what to do for a laugh
Always a laugh
Sharer of adventures
Partner in crime
For thirty-six crazy years
Dying before my eyes and
Taking much of my life with him

He'd had a massive stroke a year earlier
They said he'd die then
But he defied them and recovered a lot
Proper conversations and learning to walk
Then they discovered that he had cancer
And here we were five weeks later
"How long are you gonna be in here?" I asked
He turned his head and looked hard at me
"I die next week," he said
As though he had an appointment

He got three days, not a week
I cried seeing him dying
But I was relieved for him when he did
Now my old friend is gone
And it's a duller world without him

                                       By Phil Roberts

Blossoms billow in slow-motion
Tender petals sigh to the ground
Cushioned upon a sunny breeze
And fat bees and lazy bluebottles
Are snoring gently
Bouncing softly
From bloom to gorgeous bloom
Glad-ragged and gleaming
In their gaudiest glory
And neon dragonflies drone
Adding to the sonerous  chorus
As they skim a sweltering pool
Where carp break the surface
Idly basking in the heat
There is a blackbird clarinetting
From the top of a nearby tree
And high-summer aromas
Pervade the shimmering air
And, just for this moment
Time itself stands still

                            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