Lasting longer than I thought
And thinking lasts too long

                                   By Phil Roberts

every word
is bitter now
each slowly
turns to smoke
some fires take
too long to die
these ashes choke my throat

But bright hope begins to clear the flu
as brooms do sweep the hearth
stronger flames burst bright anew
And joy dances!
Sing my heart!

And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah*
a cry you hear at night (my nighttime vocabulary), the same repertoire as the daytime residents, yelps and screeches, groans and screams, bleating whelps and yelps, grunts and curdling silent  low moans and pierced wails, crues du cœur, (cries from the heart)  but at night when these orchestral sounds are released without modification, freed from the governor of self-consciousness, the embarrassment of waking mirrored witnesses, atonalities as raw as a violin string snapping, the terrible sounds, twice as harsh as the scrape roughened roaring sound of the  hoarse word, raw, when spoken out loud but I count them all as friends, these then my nighttime vocabulary companions.

each deed, each sin, committed, lifelong repetition, dances in a chorus line, across my eyelashes, each demanding my punishment with a different matching sound; the reciprocal noises of the lives I shed, the lives I've taken, the forsaken forsakings, the blatant ones done with no excuse, no pretend rationale, these are my very own
songs of the night, conductor, musician, audience, one for all,
all for me, my torment of endless and relentless unforgiving sonality

a timid girl
seventeen years of age
her smile reminds
me of my mothers face -
a springtime swirl
green leaves dancing in the rain
a light drizzle, softening all
of life’s struggles and pain

- t.m

I am an alcoholic
Drunk on you
Sober 52 minutes and counting;
Down to the next glass.
You're bad for me,
But I keep swallowing the burn
And I crave you after a long day
After a hard day
After a good day
With every meal
And for every celebration
And to spend those rock bottom moments
On the rocks with you
But the ***** is
You're my whiskey and coke
And you leave me there, with only
My loneliness left down to choke.

writing for non-recognition**

“It was exhilarating to get the chance to be useful, which is always an issue for a writer.”
          Garrison Keillor


a hundred readings, so flattering,
the heart tickled, nicely fluttering,
then one day it is a thousand,
and the crushing soul flattening
has set a new higher,
a low base needs an achieving
in every thing

**** writing for recognition,
need a few thousand, ten will fill the bill,
now
to consider myself ok average,
which shhh,
I know I am

now have to choose each word
with great daring caring,
worthy of the great writer
whose devotees demand,
offer a simple choice, want want
pleasured ooh ah's of perfection or
face sacrifice
on the poetry altar
of the Feed Me Seymour plant of
being ignored to a
vegetative death

**** writing for recognition,
you want my I-curse,
steal my purse,
reach in, take my cigarette styx,
exhale a **** poem

**** writing for recognition,
please don't read my hand crafted,
diamond cutter designed,
succulent crap
go away, don't like me, and for god's sake
don't dare love me,
that's a killer,
then my busted ballon ego can't be taped
back together again by Humpty Dumpty's men

after this will never revisit the prior past,
that will not - shall not exist

one anonymous poet
spilling with unfazed unglued fluency
disregarding what pleases,
writing spilling that which surged
that electrify
my soul
and then never
to them return

**** writing for recognition,
no more subbing
no more sinning
no more using
just me using me
up