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

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

Nothing drastic
Nothing pure
Noble stains
Distinct liquid drinking
Slipping and seeping
Coming calm in the world
Knowing nothing
Calling into air
Surviving
Discovery
Certain and uncertain motion
Always motion
Interior rivers pulse
Ancient wisdom
Reawakening
Slowly
Irresistably stretching
Infinitely entwined
Endlessly on

                           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

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

I remember the births of my sons
And I remember the days
They first held their own babies
And the good times and the bad
That have made up our lives
There have been friends and others
Who have come and gone
With the endless flow of time
And constant change

I remember seeing a shower
Of shooting stars in the sky
And watching swans awaken
In the light of a cold dawn
And hearing wonderful music
Which thrilled me to my spine
And singing with the band
Then partying through the night

I remember the first time I felt old
And feeling vulnerable out there
On the streets that were my home
I remember watching my best friend
Dying in a local hospital bed
And I remember his widow
Clutching my hand as she wept
As we stood by his coffin

All these things and so much more
I'll remember 'til I die

                                      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

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 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

You stumble barefoot
Across thorns
Towards broken glass
Everyday
You fight against the tide
The tide of the tears you've cried
Never going down
Refusing to drown
And all that I can do
Is send my words  to you

                                            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

Born to Mother Malice
In a merciless time and place
Where thought so often
Gave way to fight
What chance of trust here?

And so there is no anchor
For a restless wandering soul
Sailing on the savage seas
Of the lost and insecure
On a journey to who knows where

                                              By Phil Roberts

I've got to be honest
I don't give a flying ****
About the queen's birthday
When all's said and done
She never sends me a card

                                    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

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

You can call me hapless,
Hopeless and feckless
All true
You can say I'm irresponsible
disrespectful and disreputable
Fair enough

But don't call me a liar
Not because I'm St Phil  of the Truth
Or because I crave purity and integrity
It's because I'm too ****** lazy
To remember what I've said
So if you think I've lied
You've read what wasn't written
You may have seen what you expected to see
And read words you thought I'd write
But it was not lies
Believe me

                        By Phil Robert

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

                          By Phil Roberts

I can do as I like
As long as I do as I'm told
Oh the freedom!
Somebody better think again

                                 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

Now that I've lived all these years
And experienced so many things
With my march to Oldfartdom
On it's inexorable way
I've been thinking about the things I've learned
Perhaps to pass on to others

Well.......
It's like this
Life is wonderful
And life is ******
Love is elating
Love is devastating
Birth is a true miracle
Being a parent is scary
Money is a blessing
Whilst wealth is a curse
So......
What do I know?

                              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
Ha !

                   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

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

Lay in bed
Nice and warm and comfortable
Bursting for a ***
I stagger to the toilet
And **** like a race horse
I get dressed and I'm ready to go
Sort of
The dog is waiting for me on the landing
His turn for a *** and
His eyes must be watering
Down the stairs and let the dog out
And now it's top up time
Too much coffee and
Too many cigarettes
As I curse and cough a lung up
Until, by now
My eyes are almost open
I'm not good at mornings

                                         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

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

All of the shining mad ones
With their heresies of reality
And other visions and other voices
Are not diminished
By the multitude of choices
That is their truth
Upon each waking day

They are woken by the howl
From beyond the first ear
And into the deeper mind
Where there is other language
And blinding colours of emotion
For madness has the purity of pain
That martyrs can only long for

                                           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

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

Here I go again
Dubious footsteps
Questionable motives
Perusing the dark and restless past
Changing as perceptions change
And perceptions change with
The tolerance of added years and distance
Creating the uncertainty of honesty
Turn black and white
Into grey elusive shadows
And there
Amidst the darkness of my past
And all my pointless journeys
For the first time ever
I see a small white light
Constant and unblinking
And I am aware deep inside
That this is the long awaited
Birth of peace

                        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

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

Suddenly the humble
There is one eye again
Smears
Smoothly down and quick
Spaced
The silent teeth
Graveyard slabs
All scared to white
Bright full-moon night
Glaring like a naked bone
Water taps and drips
Shaped so perfectly cold
This bleakest of light
Casting long and sharp and deep
The wailing pathetic
Are silver shards of shapes
The graveyard owl screeches
This must be someone's dream

Nowhere to go
Still strong currents pull
The places of despair
Towards and away
The tonality of moods
Warming layers
Blending with the background
It's nobody's business

A sigh that trembles
Lives balancing on whims
And then a silver-grey sky
Soaring on a song
The grace of an artless child
Smiles your eyes to smiles
The crystal tumbling stream
hallucinations of diamond water
The endless beginning
Sliding on rolling moments
Changing even truth
Even truth

                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

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

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

"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

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

When it's late
Don't mess with sticky notions
Don't fool with dangerous spaces
There is no peace in such locations
And time shall have all traces
Of the needed restraint and sobriety
To see us to our dotage

But then
How else are we to grow?
And then again
Who  wants a dotage?

Because when it's late
Mocking caverns of reality yawn
And toil tedium and trivia
Are in the eyes of statues
And these cry glass marble tears
Because they cannot move
They cannot leave the ground
Their lowered heads like ageing flowers
Sadly shrunken and dried
With a gluttony of hours
And all love of life long gone
That's when it's late

                                 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

Dripping with gory sarcasm
The sharpest tongue cuts a dash
The house speciality is cruelty
Naturally
And so, gathered revellers
To the evening's main course
An innocent
A babe amongst blades
Who'll carve?

With glinting teeth and cutlery
Feasting on the lamb begins
An ideal from each bone that's chewed
Is spat upon the floor
And they're snatching and snarling for more
More succulent and pure
Fresh blood for the body politic
Come to the party
Who'll pour?

                                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

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

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

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 hope 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

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

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

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

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

Put the kettle on
The Dodger's here
Him and me sat chatting in the sun
As happy as gypsies leaving town
We have a lifetime between us
Over forty years of friendship
And a thousand events and people
Indelible memories
Me teaching him his first chords
Fingers stumbling on the frets
Now he plays like a dream
And he's taking the band
Into the studio next month

All down the years
It's been music and laughter
And a few daft adventures
A few rows but then
We're both fiery characters
And they were soon forgotten
In favour of a laugh or a song

And now we sit in the sun
Remembering old friends
And "Do you remember when"s
The summer of '76 was rich
Guitars in the hills
Writing songs and poetry
Happy days, old friend
Happy days indeed

                                 By Phil Roberts