Grey and sodden clouds cry
From my north-western sky
Where I used to fly with satellites
Before I was stuck at traffic lights

I'm pretending that I'm sane
With a bandage around my brain
Pretending that I'm whole
With sutures in my soul

Tight and screaming reins
Hold the prophets in my veins
Aquarius turns again
Again and yet again

                                  By Phil Roberts

The moon and all the stars
Know how hard I tried
Though you never will
Only the sun and sky
Know my sorrow
Because I keep it to myself

As images and hopes fade
And dreams turn to black and white
The story will always be fresh
Within the heart of me

There are those who know me
And those who think they do
But no-one knows my pain
My own precious secret

                                   By Phil Roberts

See through
Tall under the sun
Crawling beneath stars
In night-time skull
Thoughts behind eyes
Behind dreams
Under darkness
And above light

See through
Pretended truths
Without words or form
Shadow shapes
Lay like death
Choreographed corpses
Meaningless memories
Damaged dreams
Piled upon writhing hopes

See through
Tender tragedy
Daily despair
Grasping at lies like air
And in the stillness of dawn
The cold of morning light
Water drips
Or maybe blood
Tapping through silence

                                     By Phil Roberts

Like an old man's years
The days are shrinking
As nights grow long and bold
Ready to own their part of the year
That's when memories
Come knocking for me

Down the trembling years
All those lives ago
I see them wide-eyed and fresh
Falling from the sun
Running too fast through life
And reaching the end too soon
Crashing through the moon
And I have lived long enough
To be part of their journey
And too long for my own

                                  By Phil Roberts

With magnificent indifference
The world swirls and eddies
And life ebbs and flows
Around my crusty head
But still this radiant illusion
Springs eternally hopeful
And leads us by the nose

Times of mysteries past flow
As the northern rain washes the days away
Into slick and glimmering colours
Without earthly reason
And this late in the season
Daffodils fade and die
And butterflies won't fly
In an awkward silent stillness

                                   By Phil Roberts

The inner spin which once spun within
Is slowly rolling on the outside
And interest wanes into a feathery sunset
Above a vague horizon

Questions cascade into a mist of dreams
Without purpose or need of answers
There are other things to do
I'll smile if you want me to

Standing alone by a closed window
Just watching nothing happen
Writing on the misted glass
Slowly falling
Away

                              By Phil Roberts

Did you take your soul to a land
Where those with hope do not linger
And apprenticeships have been served
With cuts and broken fingers

Oh these days of hardships swell
Cries the mother with howling baby
Who would care and who would dare
To risk their spare change lately

And now you walk on broken stones
With your feet wrapped in newspapers
But they say it's alternative news
Perhaps you'll learn the truth later

So is this the place your soul should be
In this land of hate and anger
Where you would place your fragile fate
In the hands of a stranger

He may be God he may be not
He could be a fallen angel
In this land of decay and rot
Who would trust a stranger

                                           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

Coughing like a cold start
Wheezing like a bag
Spitting through the back door
Have another ***
Doing the dying thing

Filling up an ash-tray
Feeding a fat face
Drinking cans of lager
Getting in a state
Doing the dying thing

Reading ****** papers
**** and bingo cards
Have another lager
Another pound of lard
Doing the dying thing

Sitting watching game shows
Rattling paper bags
Looking bored and farting
How the sofa sags
Doing the dying thing

Working for a *******
For very little pay
Yes boss and no boss
For eight hours a day
Doing the dying thing

Safely empty headed
Dull of thought and eye
Ignorant and vacant
There are many ways to die
Doing the dying thing

                                       By Phil Roberts

My back aches
It breaks from carrying you, Boy
So many years
All your life
All my life
You hold me back
And slow me down
You keep dragging me
Down to the ground
I could have flown but for you
Keeping the past within me
Anchoring me to the long gone

I remember you
Scrambling in the dirt
And fighting in the street
But underneath you were soft
Too fast to believe
And maybe you still make me a fool
I've always told you
Toughen up, kid!
I can't afford your gullibility
I refuse to feel your fears
Or hear the voices that scare you
Do you hear me, kid?
And tell me this, Boy
Do I still see the world
Through your wide open eyes?

                                  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

It was a Thursday night
As dull as mud
And the guy I was with
Was as much fun as a broken tv
Then this bloke came into the bar
Who knew my companion
And came to join us
He said to our mutual friend,
"Eyup, Brooksy.
D'yer fancy gettin' ******?"
Brooksy sat there moaning
With a face like a slapped ****
"Nah...I'm workin' in the morniin'"
I, who was also working next day
Said, "I'll get ****** with yer."
And a lasting friendship was born

Now, my mate and me
Both needed the kind of friend
Who would calmly say
"Now hang on....that's not clever."
But instead we were both the sort
That said, "Yea, let's do it.
It'll be a laugh!"
Which led to dubious adventures
Sometimes things got dangerous
And others just plain daft
But I have to say, on the whole
It usually was a laugh

                                      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

Dark again
Darker than
Colourless sounds
From ceiling to walls
Always
Strange doors
Like gaping mouths
Dragging tears
Cracking open
Screams of silence

A day or night
Then comes the light
At long weary last
Ended future
Useless past
Nothing holds
Narrow roads
Damaged junction
There's a time
Comes the light
Follow the light

                          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

Hey, old friend
Remember the days?
The times we got so drunk we could barely crawl
What a laugh!
Other nights we'd be so wired
We chewed our lips to shreds
Way back in the day

And do you remember that opiated Nepalese
While the rest were throwing up or falling down
We kept right on smoking
'Til we could barely find our feet
Or remember our names
Haha!

And then tripping out at Fool's Nook
Thinking the water in the stream was diamonds
And chasing a butterfly that we thought was rare
The mushrooms weren't so magic if you got a bad one
But wasn't it fun!

Going to dodgy Manchester pubs for the draw
Haha, remember that night I nearly got myself shot?
I've never talked so fast in all my life
And now that age has caught up with us
Where are we now, old friend?
You're dead and I'm falling to bits
Such fun
Back in the day

                            By Phil Roberts

In the high sky
Where the air is weak
And full of strangers
Nothing lives for long
Only gypsy-footed drifters
Come here on their way
To who knows where

And this place can only be reached
Without anchor or rudder
Nor even a moral compass
Riding on clouds of smoke
And it's such a long way down
Through falling-about laughter
And blood in the gutter
To the hungry crushing ground

                                              By Phil Roberts

With his head in his hands
And his heart on his sleeve
He closes his eyes against the light of day
And against his quiet despair
He pretends it is not real

But part of him knows
Deep down amongst half-remembered dreams
Emotions that appear from nowhere
And linger
Every cell of him knows

He knows a loss without closure
A conversation without words
Dreams without endings
And hoping without hope

He hears a knock on the door
But no-one walks in
He puts his head in his hands
And his heart on his sleeve
He pretends it is not real

                                           By Phil Roberts

There are sweet dreams which sometimes lead
To sadness and pain which sometimes bleed
Into a strange and eerie beauty
Causing the heart and soul to swell
Hovering between heaven and hell
And the deepest shade of blue
Rolls over the infinite truth
Of the sensitivity of being

                                       By Phil Roberts

Do not dream too loudly
You may awaken your conscience

                                        By Phil Roberts

There's a quiet murmuration
Of figments of my imagination
Dreams and broken notions
Feelings and emotions
Swirling and rearranging
Into ever-changing shapes in my mind

There are absent gods and howling dogs
And the broken backs of the poor
While jugglers perform tricks with wealth
As nobody seems to care anymore
Amidst marching boots as children shoot
And hope lies dead on the floor

There seems to be a ghost somewhere
Wandering high in purple mountains
And low in deep green valleys
And this roaming soul may well be
A kind of long lost truth
Inside my hidden mind

                               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

See through
Tall under the sun
Crawling beneath stars
In night-time skull
Thoughts behind eyes
Behind dreams
Under darkness
And above light

See through
Pretended truths
Without words or form
Shadow shapes
Lay like death
Choreographed corpses
Meaningless memories
Damaged dreams
Piled upon writhing hopes

See through
Tender tragedy
Daily despair
Grasping at lies like air
And in the stillness of dawn
The cold of morning light
Water drips
Or maybe blood
Tapping through silence

                                     By Phil Roberts

Keep the innocents in the village
Don't let the children play outside
The homeless and the nameless
Must stay huddled together
Finding shelter where they can

Because there are killers high above
Dropping bombs of hatred and rhetoric
Killing and maiming indiscriminately
And the killers are from so many places
Leaders from all over the world
Whose only morality is ambition
And their only emotion is paranoia

And those who dare to disagree
Are shut up or closed down
Never to be heard from again
And those who care to notice
Are watching open-mouthed
The bloodied stump of history
Right before their eyes

                                   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

I didn't fall into disrepute
So much as occur there

                                    By Phil Roberts

Moons and tides
And stars and planets
All have their rhythms
And their rhythmic pull
To and from each other

On our own planet
So much of existence itself
Is governed by the regular beat
Of the weather's seasons
Life and growth and death
Making us all passing shadows

And the deep logic
Of universal rhythm
With all it's cross beats
Back beats
And syncopation
Vibrates endlessly on

                                      By Phil Roberts

When the moon is full
A shiny silver disc
I'd steal it and roll it along
Like a hoop with a stick
All the way to your door
And give it you as a gift

Then I'd reach up to the sky
And grab the brightest stars
I'd gather them together
And place them in a jar
So you could let them loose
When the night is dark

And when the weather's bad
And the sky is dark with rain
I'd fill my lungs with air
And blow those clouds away
Then I'd push the sun over you
So you'd come out to play

I'd knock on your front door
And greet you with grace and style
Then I'd sing and dance foolishly
Just to make you smile
In fact, I would do anything
To make you happy for a while

                                                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

Don't hang around
Waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel
Because in the end
You're just going to have to stumble your way
Through the darkness
And turn it on for yourself

                                      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

The place I came from was known locally
As Apache country
Later to become the Lebanon
I guess you get the drift
Even to this day
Taxis are loath to go there after dark
And nobody blames them

Everybody smoked back then
And most men got drunk too often
Women might get a little merry
When weekend came round
Most men hated their jobs
And many women hated their lives
But everyone carried on
Because it had to be done

In the streets I learned every swear word
Long before I started school
In a place where "****** this"
And "****** that" and worse
Were everyday parlance
Nobody ever mentioned "love"
Oh, don't get me wrong
I know that there was love around
But I only ever heard it mentioned
In the words of popular songs

                                              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

Misty words billow in the cold
Pluming from their mouths
Quiet swearing and first *** coughing
They walk close to hedgerows
Kicking the dew from the grass
As birds squabble over breakfast
And mushrooms are still socialising
They whistle the dogs to heel
All panting and wagging tails
Stirring the dawn damp air
For happy is the early dog
In these sumptuous fields

Now the business of dawn begins
Low sharp commands are uttered
Bringing the younger bounding learners
To a proper sense of purpose
And that high-toned cross breed
The sleek and swift lurcher
Is eternally proud and primed
This long-sprint racer
Takes inevitable chase
Without sentiment or concious cruelty
An ancient craft is practised here
With the dogs at dawn

                                By Phil Roberts

Lost games
Longer lost rules
Night-time crimes
Lungs full
Of pungent smoke
Bellies full of *****
And heads full of
Something
And nothing

A kind of homage
To a kind of music
Riding across vinyl
And even crackling shellac
And the dead man's foot
Still taps inside the coffin
Refusing to relinquish
The hard-wired hammer
The outlaw life
Is hard in the dying

                                    By Phil Roberts

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

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

Calmly
Serenely
The sun slowly subsides
From the still-starless sky
And the moon is still a ghost
A time of mystery and myth
Half-light illusions
Unusual shadows
And strange delusions
When memories and dreams
Wander from one to the other
Blend beyond relevance
And I once remembered
A memory I never had

                                       By Phil Roberts

Dark again
Darker than
Colourless sounds
From ceiling to walls
Always
Strange doors
Like gaping mouths
Dragging tears
Cracking open
Screams of silence

A day or night
Then comes the light
At long weary last
Ended future
Useless past
Nothing holds
Narrow roads
Damaged junction
There's a time
Comes the light
Follow the light

                          By Phil Roberts

I came out of the north-west
Staggering from the storm
The surgeons had repaired my body
And my mind hung by one hinge
So I headed for the coast of Wales
To assume the healing rhythm of the sea
And breathe the briny air
Where no-one knew me
Nor called my worn out name
Sweet freedom in isolation

And so, in smiling solitude
I walked and smoked too much
Staring at the moody ocean
As we all inevitably do
As though it holds answers
And indeed it does
The answer is "being"

One hot but breezy day
I followed the coast from north to south
Not too far but far enough
Until I came upon a harbour
Tiny and insignificant
But a harbour nonetheless
With a clutch of small boats
Bobbing and swaying lazily
On the backwater slack water tide
And somewhere close by
A nautical bell tolled the rhythm
Of an endless heedless movement
And an oddly comfortable melancholy
Rocked me in it's arms
Lost and found
Beginning and end

In as much as everything matters
Though nothing matters much
This place was nothing to me
No more than countless others
But that harbour bell
So patient and so constant
Touched something deeper than knowledge
Perhaps it was the state of my health
Or the glowing heat of the day
But some vulnerable receptor
Vibrated to that gentle toll
I've been in many places in my life
And seen wondrous famous sights
All seared into my minds eye
But their memories will last no longer
Than the haunting harbour bell

                                                By Phil Roberts

When I go to sleep at night
I leave the TV set on
With electric shadows
Flickering around the walls
Not because I fear the dark
Which is a friend of mine
But because silence is a threat
To my drifting vulnerable mind
And the open wounds of old

Silence allows my ghosts
To invade my imminent dreams
Some screaming in rage
As others whimper for love
Creating vivid nightmares
And drenching my very essence
So, when I go to sleep at night
I leave the TV set on

                                By Phil Roberts

There is a myth
Allied to moonlight
Chased into darkness
Morning rising too soon
Smelling delicate dew
Cupped in newly opened blooms

A million micro worlds
Falling and crawling
Within the vast and yearning
Rolling and turning
Moralities and madness
Beliefs and blasphemies
Who says which is life?

But for myself I doubt
Purity disturbs me and
Righteousness makes me nervous
For all life is truth
Whether in sky or on earth
And in each myth
We live and die

                                    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

We come as we please
And we leave on the breeze
Away........

Distance
As an image of warm blue air
The ***** man denies seditious writhings
Coming in proud bursts of creation
Irrespective of soil or culture
Bursting thirsting creation
Heathen fertility
Haphazard geography
Lust of life beyond life

Screaming gadgetry can cowards make
Tight cages can our spirits break
But love is broad and clean
Fickle and immortal
The soil from whence we came
Without permit or permission
With honour and with relish
The ***** man denies nothing
Not one word at all

And on and on
The fairground moves on
Away

                    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
When you said that my gypsy father was dead
When I met him, in my teens
The world lurched slightly
And never went back to normal


                                              By Phil Roberts

This muse of mine
Remains silent and invisible
And is no less intense for that
I still write to her
Tell her of my dreams and my pain
And she is part of both of these

This muse of mine
May be no more than a ghost
But she is still my only truth
The one that owns me
For all my ****** and damaged past
For all my pointless future

This muse of mine
May be unreal or gone
Yet still I hold on
And still there'll be no other
Because within my muse
Hopelessness and hope
Have me enthralled

                              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

The comedian starts off with
"Ladies and gentlemen,
It's wonderful to be here in downtown Telford..."
Enid in the audience says, " Ew, I don't like his
shirt. What colour would you call that...peuce?"
Edna says, " Looks more like puke to me."
Giggle giggle giggle

The comedian carries on unaware
"Yes, downtown Telford.
The Hollywood stars all holiday here y'know.
Oh yes, the place is awash with champagne and *******."
He smiles ruefully. "Asif. I'm lucky to get brown ale...
and all that gets up my nose is the wife!"
Enid says, "I don't get that."

The comic continues,
"My wife is very demanding y'know....
She says to me recently that she wants more ***!
The ****** woman's never satisfied....."

Edna says, "That reminds me....
how did you go on with him from packing?"
"Well...." says Enid.........

And the comic continues
"More *** at her age.......!
So, I thinks to meself, I'll play along, so
I says....What's the matter with you!
Ain't once a year enough for you?
Quick as a flash she says, "No it ain't.
I'm sick of waiting for Santa!"

Enid says ".....I just saw this purple thing.
I had no idea what it was 'till I touched it!"
Much laughter ensues
And comedy continues.

                                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

Those days are still around
Right there in the eyes
Small pieces of scripture
Spiritual desperation
Down all those long years gone
Gleaming
Needing
Seething
Spitting teeth and grieving
And a child still cries
In all the bleakest nights
Within the shell of an adult
Still cries, still cries
Still prays for someone kind
To stop the shaking
And wipe away the tears
To fill the belly
To count the injuries
And fill in the forms
But nothing ever -
Somehow never -
Helps

                By Phil Roberts