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 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

I turn on the music
Light up
Lean back and close my eyes
And I leave here

I swim and surf through the sea of sound
That is my life
My life inside my life
The constant friend and lover

From the rhythm and energy
That makes my old bones move in time
To the exquisite pain that can make me weep
There is music for all moods and occasions

Old loves are remembered through songs
There is music we find
That even helps us through grief
And, of course
Music is at every celebration
But most of all
It feeds my soul

                                     By Phil Roberts

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

                                             By Phil Roberts

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

There were four of us
Roger, Linda, Roy and me
All smoking too much
Banter and chatter fluttered
Roger was quieter than usual
But I think he was decades in the past
Nevertheless, as we smoked more
He got into the swing of things
As the clock's hands moved on
We were just killing time

At last we decided it was time
And we all piled into Linda's car
As we reached the end of the road
The hearse slowly drove across us
Then we saw the guitar on the coffin
His crazy old pink stratocaster
And the years softly fell away
In that wooden box lay our old friend
Memories of his twisted humour
The way he held his arms when he laughed
The way he played that pink guitar
And his wild imagination
All gone forever

                          By Phil Roberts

My mood is foul and I'm feeling vile
I curse anyone that I see smile
It's after noon and I can't wake yet
The rain has stopped but the air's still wet
The dog has dirtied what once was clean
I swear at the TV to vent my spleen
If it wasn't for anger I think I'd be dead
Best start again and go back to bed

                                           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

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

                             By Phil Roberts

Dust amidst dust
A resting place of sorts
However many kites you flew
You never left the ground
You never heard a sound
Beyond the rage you screamed
Tearing down flags
In revolutionary rags
And changing nothing
Going nowhere
Sat in your armchair
Dust amidst dust

                                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 have this virus in my head
And it's called
Thought
It's a wildly infectious virus
Which can be spread by
No more than words
Whether written or spoken
Thought can spread this way
Like an epidemic
But fear not, dear reader
It doesn't seem too widespread yet

                                             By Phil Roberts

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

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

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

                            By Phil Roberts

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

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

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

Self imposed delusions
And external intrusions
Heads and hearts dislocated
Dreams and nightmares mingle

Reality has no place to call home
With outcome and direction unknown
The infectious mania drives
With weariness of political lies
Strangling the status quo

And now at last I find
My aging senses and mind
That always felt faster than the world
Are ready to be left behind

                                                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

Who would place physical beauty
Before beauty of the soul?

                                      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 have little thought for these days
As the future evaporates
And the past grows fat and vivid
I amuse myself with games of flashback
Faces and places flickering
Across an empty mind
Dragging their stories behind them
Dead memories metamorphosing
Into living visceral dreams
Where the flowers of love and loss
Are intertwined so closely
That with the passing of time
They each rob the other
Of some pain and glory
As reality gives way
To a realisation of truth

                                      By Phil Roberts

We were both wounded when we met
And, like fools
We thought our heat would heal us
And the heat became fire
Consuming us in full flame and blinding smoke
But we are too alike, you and I
Both wild and crazy
With matching dualling tempers
Until healing became fresh wounds
And reasons to part

Now we've been here before
And one time too many
I'm too tired for the battle
If we ever meet again
What you always said will be true
We'll meet in the flames of hell
Good-bye Faded Blue

                            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

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

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

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

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

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

THE END

                 By Phil Roberts

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

                                        By Phil Roberts

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

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

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

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

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

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

                            By Phil Roberts

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

My favourite city
The easiest place in the world to make friends
Or to get in a fight
You don't need to ask what people think
They'll let you know quick enough
They have the darkest sly sense of humour
Which can become hilarious and endearing
Once you get the joke
And if you don't get it
Tough ****
No-one will change for you
And I love the place

                              By Phil Roberts

We made a vow, you and I
In the sight of no-one
Other than our souls
Where the truth dwells
And awaits us

Miles apart within these isles
With hearts keeping time
Living within each other
Without touching
We wait
Until our time arrives

                                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

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

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

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

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

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

                  By Phil Roberts

The cold steel blue sky
Gathers silence to her
As she prepares to don her widows weeds
The creeping black of night
Crawling all over the land

And hidden inside this blackness
Dreams drift and float
Invisible and upon unseen currents
Restless and searching
For a mind to nourish

Bright within the night
Is a new-born infant
A baby human too young to see
And dreams find their way
Into the open mind of the child

So visions from beyond and past
A million unseen horizons
Where hopes and beliefs are formed
Give light behind unseeing eyes
Making them see wonders

Then the dawn arises
Flooding the land with light
Overwhelming the light within
Burning away at originality
Making the child just one more

Fight for your originality
Because in the end
It is all that we are


By Phil Roberts

If something needs to be said
Don't let it stagnate in your head
Don't chew your lips or bite your tongue
Just sing it out 'till your song is sung
It may end in love or even a fight
But at least you'll know the truth in the light

                                   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

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

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

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

If you look into
My dark brown eyes
There's nothing hidden
You'll see no lies
But will you see the truth?

If we look at those
We think we know
Is their deepest truth
Ever openly on show
And would we recognise it?

There is a way that
I learned in hard places
Just look deeply
Behind their faces
With practice you'll see all

                                       By Phil Roberts

There are pure souls suffering
Warmed by the same sun
That shines on the hardest heart
The same rain that falls upon
The gentle and the caring
Splashes upon the heads
Of the aggressive and ambitious
The same wind twists around
This turning world
On which all humans live

                                     By Phil Roberts

Dusty dreams clutter my mind
And my past litters the present,
Crippling the slender future.
I walk in the shadow of rumours
And uncomfortable truths
Follow me doggedly
But I refuse to lie
Or hide who or what I am.
I ask no forgiveness for how I've lived
Nor do I seek salvation
Because the truth is, you see
I've had a ball!
And if I'm ******
I'm ****** if I care

                                 By Phil Roberts

Colder than death
A pendulum heart marks time
And a brain spins in timeless circles
All around an anonymous mind
And something probably matters
Though not much
Because nothing matters much
As the planet continues to turn
And life goes on

                                      By Phil Roberts

Writing half-hearted love songs
To no-one in particular
And singing them in public
For a few beers and a pocket full of change
Just fun, after all
Then
Down the long years
And days of broken hearts
The words were lost and forgotten
So, when a song of love was heard
Of course
It was a lie

                            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

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

Writing half-hearted love songs
To no-one in particular
And singing them in public
For a few beers and a pocket full of change
Just fun, after all
Then
Down the long years
And days of broken hearts
The words were lost and forgotten
So, when a song of love was heard
Of course
It was a lie

                            By Phil Roberts