Saturday morning
And the sun shines through my window
I should be working
But I'm too lazy to go
So I'll lie in my bed 'till the sun warm's the air
Then I'll go out and I'll grab my share
Of living
Saturday's living

                               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

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

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

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

                                               By Phil Roberts

I made my way
Through the raging years
To a certain tenderness
And I've known
A grown man's tears
And the agony of emptiness

And in my time
I have done and seen
More than I could stand
But what was then
And wherever I've been
I'm just another tired man

                             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

I feel that there are times
when I could reach out my hand
and touch my own death.
This causes me no regret or fear
for I have lived in my own way-
Godless and lawless but
with a belief in knowing
what's right and wrong.
So, as my ghostdom awaits me
I shall not tremble in my shoes
I'll greet him with a wink
and my best angelic smile

                                      By Phil Roberts

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

                                   By Phil Roberts

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

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

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

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

                 By Phil Roberts

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

Having opened one door
He always found another
Interesting one

                           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

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

Slender and tenuous reasons
Run through the droplets of motive
Which impel us in our actions
Direct us to  our self-fulfilling fates
Our cleverly devised mistakes
For we each bear the scars
Of our own fatal flaws
Victims of our own design
As I have been of mine
Haven't you?

I am the saboteur of my dreams
Picking at the seams
Of a braver me
A wiser and unlikelier me
All my tendencies and traits
Conspire and defeat me
To subtly beat me
About my empty head
With every word I've said
Every thought I've had
And that's why

                       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

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

I know that there have been times,
down the bruised and misread years,
when I have been hard and cold.
Perhaps even seeming to be cruel
But, please remember who I am
And where it is I've come from.
Born to gossip and scandal
and raised in the family war zone,
trust and tenderness, at times,
seem illusory to me.
Unknowable.
Like smoke in my hands.
But I still try.

                                  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

I left so much behind
In those places and times
I still see the faces
Though I can't remember names
So long ago
So much has happened
All trickling through ghostly fingers
Pictures in black and white
Life in many tints and hints of grey
Some walked into the sky
With memories trailing and fading
Such memories make up a life
Create a past
Become what we are
Until we walk into the sky

                                             By Phil Roberts

As so often
I find myself telling the same story
Of a reckless young man
Who skated on thin ice
With every move and decision
A gamble
A spin of the wheel
Risking sanity, soul and life
Spin and spin again
Add passion to the grinding day
Add colour to the morbid grey
Oh, foolish young man
Now that he's old and damaged
Boredom raises it's dull-eyed head
As he practises being dead
Spin and spin again

                                  By Phil Roberts

My words and my poems
Are no more than explanations
And embellishments
My means of expression
For my life is my "art"
It's what I am and what I write
It's why I need to write
To make sense of the things
I've seen and done
And there are times when
I think I've done far too much
Then, in deep contemplation
I realise I could have done more
And that kind of inner debate
And discussion with myself
Are a large part of my life
Which becomes my version
Of something like "art"

                                         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 and 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

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

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

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

Quixotically adorned
In a creaking suit of armour
Stumbling from set back to let down
I am learning to smile enigmatically
As though my thoughts are far away
Which is so often the truth
And my memories are bitter sweet
Because that's what they are

And so.....

Behind this slight disguise
I bumble and fumble through life
Assuming a face of serenity
A face which is not really mine
But one I wear for public view
My creaking suit of armour
Protects my vulnerability
And hides my secret heart

                                    By Phil Roberts

Death patiently files his nails
And smokes a casual cigarette
Grinning and eyeless
He says so calmly
"Catch you later
Brave little dreamer"

Despite such brittle certainty
Men and women build
Despite such small mortality
Every space is filled
In the midst of death's destruction
Men and women build again

Fear, like a cringing bowel
Exudes an acrid stench
And whimpers and whines
Simpers and cries
"Don't you dare
Don't you ever dare"

Despite this clinging dread
Some will need to dare
Despite the bursting head
Dreams insist on birth
In the midst of our stupidities
Something wondrous strives

                                    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

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

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

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
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
Haha!
And then tripping out at Fool's Nook
Thinking the water in the stream was diamonds
The mushrooms weren't so magic if you got a bad one
But wasn't it fun!
Going to dodgy Manchester pubs for the gear
Haha, remember that night I nearly got myself shot?
I've never talked so fast in all my life
And now that we're middle-aged
Where are we now, old friend?
You're dead and I'm falling to bits
Such fun

                            By Phil Roberts

My words and my poems
Are no more than explanations
And embellishments
My means of expression
For my life is my "art"
It's what I am and what I write
It's why I need to write
To make sense of the things
I've seen and done
And there are times when
I think I've done far too much
Then, in deep contemplation
I realise I could have done more
And that kind of inner debate
And discussion with myself
Are a large part of my life
Which becomes my version
Of something like "art"

                                         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

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

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

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

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

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'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

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

Never trust the establishment
They do not exist for our benefit
For they believe  that we exist
For their convenience
Their only purpose is self-perpetuation
And they think that our only function
Is to accommodate that purpose
Whereas our true cause should be
To get rid of the *******

                                        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

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

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

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

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

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

I made my way
Through the raging years
To a certain tenderness
And I've known
A grown man's tears
And the agony of emptiness

And in my time
I have done and seen
More than I could stand
But what was then
And wherever I've been
I'm just another tired man

                             By Phil Roberts

I know that there have been times,
down the bruised and misread years,
when I have been hard and cold.
Perhaps even seeming to be cruel
But, please remember who I am
And where it is I've come from.
Born to gossip and scandal
and raised in the family war zone,
trust and tenderness, at times,
seem illusory to me.
Unknowable.
Like smoke in my hands.
But I still try.

                                  By Phil Roberts