Silence

Digging
The search for words
Leaves me empty and blister-handed
Despair and thought swirl in a voiceless dance
Between my ears and
Any will I've had to speak
Disappears where my breath meets my lips
Guttural instinct has me know
There are things that need to be said
Words to be exchanged
Explanations waiting
Perched
Perilously on the edge
Of solving all
And no going back
And yet

Silence. And everything is dead.

Stay the moon
Cloudless and glowing
In her naked splendour
With her silver-white light
Cutting shadows
With sudden edges
Sharp enough to shave a man's face
Let her alien ambience
And constant strangeness
Reshape perception

And how stars sparkle
Heavenly diamonds on velvet night
So very many to see
And more beyond numbers
That our eyes will never see
And every moving star
Holds it's clutch of planets
An uncountable number
Of unheard stories

                                    By Phil Roberts

Your heart is full of fire
Coal black but gentle as the moon
Your sun is fierce and full of grace
Are you mad at the way
The earth revolves around them?
Or is your soul yearning
For the stars that give life
To the endless summers?

Her wishes are constantly
Dancing on air
Feeding on lightning bugs
Phosphorescence rubs off on her teeth
Dazzling the competition
As her twinkling toes
Bruised and bound
Point way toward
First prize
In the Dolly Dinkle Dance Recital
"Here Comes The Sun"
Sang The Beatles
Sang the beetles

skin slightly paler and just trusting enough
the younger twin by two minutes explained
sometimes mom gets this way
standing at the open trunk of the ‘84 Mazda 626
feeding the feral dog old bologna
somewhere in the deepest humid South
late summer, two-thousand two –
driving her home from school
the oldest sits double uncomfortable
with cramps and an upset stomach
while watching me
doing the strangest dance of delicacy
as who knows the mystery of the first moon cycle
…safe! –
tromping through the stream bed
string-less sneakers barely remembered
against all odds and laws of physics
face still ***** with a sugary ring
smiles fly as the biggest agate of day
lay in stubby strong fingers –
strange prompt without limits
on this second day of poetry month
two-thousand sixteen
invoke old memories of strangers
becoming a family….

one day their children will call me Grandpa,
and Sam will quietly slip away –