Beyond the rolling bones
Of memory's myths
And the ancient sounds of laughter and tears
Something mystical exists
Something deeper than marrow
The seeds of our ancestor's dreams and fears
And at a level beyond our knowing
It still rules our actions
And leads us to our fates

                                             By Phil Roberts

I've been to the doctor's today
For a change (I wish)
The problem being, on this occasion
A left ******* the size of a bus
And as painful as a nail through a nerve-end
Naturally, it was a lady doctor I hadn't seen before
And she asked if I minded a student being present
Weeeell, they gotta learn somehow....right?
So, that was a young lady too

Questions and discussions,
She seems a good doctor
Ultimately of course,,
I ended up stood there
With my trolleys round my ankles

Upon sight of the offending *****
Which was literally three times the size
Of his constant companion
The doctor reassuringly uttered
"Oh my word......!!
That looks very painful!"
D'yer think?

When all comes to all
It's some sort of nasty infection
So, I've got the tablets and having a scan
Now then, what's my to-do list?
Hospital tomorrow for kidney monitoring
A day or two after that
I've got a scan about another part of me
That also seems to be falling to bits
Then this scan soon as she can arrange it
And what else was it....?
Ah yes, that was it
Remember to dream

                                      By Phil Roberts

Johnny was bored with his life as it was
He felt as though his fate was decreed
By the likes of Victorian undertakers
With professionally ingrained sympathy
Wringing their hands with grief to his face
Rubbing them with glee behind his back
Solemn faced professional men
Who were here to bury
After all

So, feeling as he did about his life
He packed a bag and headed for the jungle
Where there are no rules at all
Other than those which keep you alive
Amongst the roaring beasts on the ground
And the screeching creatures of the trees
As well as the snakes that hang, crawl and swim
Always beware of snakes and their venom
And even the tiny deadly mosquito
Filled his every day with possible peril
But he had freedom
Of a sort

                                        By Phil Roberts

Everything seems to be
cold to the touch.
I can't remember if that means something.
Maybe it just means everything's cold.
Not that it matters all that much,
as long as I'm not'
I suppose there's hope

                                           By Phil Roberts

In the old part of town
There are still cobbled streets
And at one time
These streets were surrounded
By living working mills
Marking the towns heartbeat
Twenty-four hours a day
Seven days a week
The machines hammered the air
As the flying shuttles were cracked
From side to side of the weft
On more than a hundred looms
It sounded like a battlefield
And some would say it was

But that was long ago
And now the mills are dead
The buildings still stand
But inside they are broken
Housing many more
Modern endeavours
And in one of these old buildings
Within the same crusty bricks
There's another world that lives
In the dark hours at least
There's a night club that throbs
To the sound of bands playing
Different rhythms for the town
And the neon lights outside
Shine on the same old cobble stones

                                        By Phil Roberts

I am cold
Cold and empty
I have emerged from the void
Once again
Into the safety of emptiness
And the comfort of the cold
Hiding behind manic mantras
To ward off madness

You see, I shook the memory tree
In search of inspiration
Stories from the past
To amuse or provoke
But when you shake that cursed tree
Not all the fruit that falls is good
And one memory leads to another
Like a row of terrible dominoes
Leading to long forgotten
And deeply hidden
Traumas

                                     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

On cloudless moonlit nights
When the world is silver and darkest blue
And silence seems to reign supreme
If you stretch your hearing inwards
You will hear the distant moans
Of long lost lonely dreams
Homeless and obsolete
Fading away
To become endless shadows

                                           By Phil Roberts

Will you call me in the winter
When I need someone around?
The nights are so long and cold
And the days have nothing to offer

I never thought that I'd grow old
Nor vulnerable on the streets
There were places I used to go
Now I'd be robbed and left for dead

Now as my old heart tires
And my legs grow weak and stiff
I can't be bothered with another winter
So why don't you call me then?

                                             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

I live on the Hurdsfield Estate
To the north-east of town
Set on the edge of the countryside
And at the foot of the hills
It's idyllic in many ways
But with a character of it's own

For a start there's the H.A.T.
Which stands for
The Hurdsfield Assault Team
Which has existed for generations
With sons following fathers
They see themselves as protectors
Of the place where they live

There was one memorable instant
When two policemen entered the flats
To arrest someone several floors up
The H.A.T. boys gathered around
The unattended cop car
Whilst someone blocked the lift
They bounced and bounced that car
Until they turned it on it's roof

Now, I don't know if this is true
But it's said that Santa won't come here
Apparently, the last time he did
Before he got back up the first chimney
His sleigh was on bricks
And half the estate were eating venison
But as I said
That's just what I heard

                                   By Phil Roberts

My pal Pete had this cousin
Who was always known as ****
He had earned this name at school
Because he was always prodding his friends
For the answers to teacher's questions

Now **** was a likeable and friendly guy
But, alas, the police knew him well
He had a penchant for breaking and entry
Not peoples homes, thankfully
His thing was robbing garages
Tires, spares, cash or anything else
Whenever a garage was *******
**** was the first port of call

Anyway, on this day I'm thinking of
Pete and me were chatting to ****
Just casually shooting the breeze
As you do on a sunny Saturday
And a cop car crawled past us
A passer-by spoke up cheerfully
"Eyup, ****! Yer cab's here!"

                                          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

I was at outpatients today
Again
As I was sat in the waiting room
They called the old lady opposite
I hadn't really noticed her before
She stood with some difficulty
Her knees didn't straighten properly
And her back was so bent
That she was almost bent double
Over her walking stick
As she painfully followed the nurse

She soon returned to the waiting room
After being weighed or whatever
And at last I looked at her face
It was lined and a little collapsed
And had a sort of fixed smile
As I looked at her I saw a little deeper
And that poor bent old lady
Had once been very beautiful
It was all there to see
For those that bothered to look

                                            By Phil Robets

Pete and me had this mate called Charlie
He lived in Manchester
And he was a rogue
Whenever we called on him
He'd rub his hands and say
"What can I sell ya, boys?"

Once when we went
He opened a large drawer and
It was full of gold and silver rings
All types and all sizes
He opened the drawer beneath that
And it was full of ****** and vibrators
I kid you not

Another time we went he said to Pete
" I've got some leather jeans'll fit you,"
So Pete tried them on and they fit
Sort of
This was in the days before stretch fabrics
And what Charlie didn't mention was
These were womens' jeans
So Pete looked at me and said
"What d'you think?"
I tried not to laugh but failed
"They look like leather jodhpurs!
You look like a Hell's Angel equestrian!"

So that was Charlie
The last I heard
Bad people were looking for him
Apart from the police
I often wonder what happened to him

                                    By Phil Roberts

Throughout my long life
I've been fortunate enough
To know many colourful characters
However, it's also true that
I've met lots of monochrome people too
Now, I ask you, dear reader
Knowing me as many of you do
Which do you think are my friends?

                                                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

Shall I talk of Mistress Moon
Or her sisters the stars
Etching their endless orbits
On the black of space and night

Or should I talk of Brother Sun
Who brings the daytime on his own
Making the unseen seen again
And opening flowers to smiles

Without the dark of night
Separated from the bright of day
Our world would just exist
In a constant shade of grey

                                            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

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

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

If your eyes fill with tears
And the future seems blurred and distant
I'll be there to take your hand
You may not see me
But you'll feel me there
Right beside you
Always
So hold on to me

                        By Phil Roberts

Born of the sun and earth
And kin to the moon and sea
Life's immensity
Exceeds humanity
And the planet needs us
No more than fleas
So don't be fooled into thinking
We will always exist
In terms of the universe
We are no more than dust

                                           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

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

When I die
You can paint my body purple
And stick an apple in it's mouth
If you want to
I really won't care

Lay me out in a cardboard box
It's going to be burned anyway
So that makes sense to me
And as I say
I really won't care

The only thing I give a **** about
Is that you take my ashes somewhere high
And scatter them in the wind
Let them fly
Free
That's all I really care about

                                        By Phil Roberts

She was our first grandchild
And naturally
We loved her dearly
And I adored her
As only grand-dads can
And she latched onto me

She used to come to us every Tuesday
At a time when kids are most interesting
She was fully conversational
(Didn't we all know it)
Her personality was emerging
And she was still young enough
To have her originality and imagination
My little gold mine of joy

And this is how it would go

"Grand-dad, you be the shop keeper
And I'll bring my dollies in for clothes."
So she would lay out her doll's outfits
And bring her dolls forward to buy clothes
She would haggle over the price (and win)
And pay me in cardboard coins

"Let's watch a video, Grand-dad!
Let's watch Barny!" (Again)
I hate that ****** purple dinosaur
And Katie thinks he's wonderful
That smarmy voice of his
"I love you and you love me,"
I bleeding don't you know
I wouldn't let him within a hundred miles
Of any kids of mine.

In the course of the day
I would be called upon
To play multiple parts in
Everything from The Three Bears
To Little Red Riding Hood
In which I memorably became
Big Bad Wolf and Grandma
And presumably ate myself

But the highlight of the day
Was the last thing before she went home
The weekly show
"Introduce me, Grand-dad!"
In my best showman's voice
"Ladies and gentlemen...!"
To my wife and dog
"...The moment you've been waiting for.
Fresh from her recent tour
Of our back garden.....
Miss Katie......."
"Katie Spice, Grand-dad."
"Miss Katie SPICE!"

Into some popular ditty of the day
Issuing from her at full volume
Then she would stop mid-line
While she did a little dance step
All greeted by thunderous applause
In her head it was Carnegie Hall
Rather than my wife, my dog and me
So, a happy end to a happy day
Then Katie went home
And I slipped into an exhausted coma

                                           By Phil Roberts

Wistfully
Wishfully
My daydream drift
Takes me eye to eye
And hand in hand
On a sunny morning
Somewhere
Settling dust
Step by step
And side by side
There's a tide close by
Responding to gravity
And gravity of sorts
Draws our souls
Fatefully
Inevitably
Together

                     By Phil Roberts

With your heart buttoned up tight
And your soul scrubbed to transluscence
You tip-toed around mountains
And visited the sand and sea
Contained in your selfness
And at ease in your skin
You glided without leaving footsteps
With the grace of angels
Perhaps a church ***** and choir
Vibrated in the air
But the world moved on
At a less sedate rate of orbit
And sadly
It would not
And could not
Wait

                                 By Phil Roberts

He rolled up yesterday
Out of nowhere
As always
My old friend and me
Sharing news of families
And where he's living now
With a million memories between us
We laughed about the past
Gossiped about the present
Who's with who these days
Why when and where
Gigs and music
As always
But we never mentioned the future
We rarely do these days

                                        By Phil Roberts

Holy mornings
Open my eyes
Upon soft and swollen days

                                         By Phil Roberts

I was in a shop recently
And a voice said, "Phil!"
I turned to see a stranger smiling at me
I said, "That's me, mate but
You've got the better of me.
The face is familiar," I lied
He said his name was ****
Which limited it to the hundreds
Of Micks that I've met

Then he mentioned his surname
And the dusty rusty cogs of memory
Started to slowly grind into life
By the time I was leaving the shop
I knew exactly who he was
From when we met
About fifty years earlier

We both started our working careers
At the same textile mill
About four or five of us kids
Were the butts of all jokes and tricks
Mostly we would pull our faces a bit
Swear a helluva lot
And laugh it off with everyone else
A lot of how we would be treated
Would depend on our reactions to this
It was normal
Traditional even
Never too malicious and no-one got hurt
He brought his ****** mother down!
I think he left not long after

A couple of years or so later
We happened to use the same pub
He had his friends and I had mine
And we didn't mix, might say "Hi" at the bar
Then....
He got the landlord's thirteen year old daughter pregnant
Then dumped her and said that
He wanted nothing to do with the child
He was at least eighteen then

Now, whether through arrogance or stupidity
Or, more likely, cruelty
He carried on using the pub!
Unsurprisingly
He was beaten up outside
It wasn't serious
No hospitalization or broken bones
Just a softener
Then I was asked to be a go-between
Because I "knew" **** and they trusted me

So I went to his home and spoke to his family
A meeting was arranged I believe
And I don't recall any more
So yeah
I remember you
Ya little ****

                                   By Phil Roberts

Walking in the cold rain
Alone and
Going nowhere
Just hiding tears in raindrops

Always dreaming of being lost
Lost and then
The endless fall
Then the gasping awakening

But always the rain will end
And sunrise
Put an end
To the cruelty of night

And life will begin in warmth
And hope
Blossoms
Into the sweetest softest petals

                                           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

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

Lay back in the afternoon sun
Next door's tired child cries half-heartedly
Having worn herself out in the heat
Mother makes soothing noises
As she takes her indoors
And I'm just soaking up the rays
My skin getting darker
And my hair going whiter
I am at peace with my piece of world
Listening to sparrows chattering
And a blackbird serenades
From the top of a nearby tree
As my dog diligently patrols the garden
My eyes closed against the sun
I drift to other places

                                      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

That's me in the middle
In the middle of the world
Just as everyone else
Is in the centre of their's
And we'll never meet
Or even live in the same climate
A thousand miles to west or east
And yet
By the grace of various miracles
Your words may move me
And hopefully, mine will move you
To defy distance and differences

                                                    By Phil Roberts

I've used up the speed I used to need
Running hard at walls
All I got was blood and snot
And a boot in the *****
But it's not over
Nothing's done
Oh no
The fight goes on

I've had knock backs from throwbacks
And been ridiculed by imbeciles
Half wits have had their say too
But I will never give in
The fight goes on
On and on
Until I change their minds

                                         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

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

I have walked this street too long
My legs hurt and my chest rattles
As I light another smoke
To fuel my endless march
Sneaky slow-motion suicide
(note the sibilance of the wheezing lungs)

I have to stop for a while
But though my body fades and fails
My manic mind remains restless
Merciless and remorseless
Pushing punching and prodding
And defiant unto the coffin
Get the lid down quick, boys

                                         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 of hope or 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

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

The only place left to go
Is inside my head
And thereby
Out of this world

                          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

Tripping over words of trust
Crawling backwards
Breathing dust
Mingling with the mental rust
Well, if I must
If I must

I'll march right through the gates of hell
Me and satan
Playing show and tell
The sulphur
And the smell
Yes it smells

I'll crawl through the deepest slime
However hard
I'll keep trying
But there's an end to the line
So don't waste my time
I'm running out of time

                                  By Phil Roberts

Edges of shadows
In the corners of eyes
Too fast to see

Is it true
What you see
Is it me
Is it real
You do not hear my voice
Or know the colour of my eyes
You would not know me in the street

And yet
You have seen my soul in words
Those who care to look
Can know my story
My frailties
My vulnerabilities

The curse and the gift
Of poetry


                                By Phil Robrts

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

"Well, Mr Roberts, what's the problem?"
"Me guts is bad again, Doc."
So here we go again
"Right, let's have a look, then...
Does that hurt?"
"Nope."
"That?"
"Nah."
"There?"
"****!...... A bit."
"Hmmmm.....nothing obvious. Still...."
Blood tests....
If there's any left
Hospitals....
Which ****** one this time?
Wythenshawe.....Mr McDonald
Who's he?
Oh ****
It's the surgeon from the last op
"Just to be on the safe side."
Now where have I heard that before?

                                            By Phil Roberts