In a well lit room...
slowly dancing,
heart burning,
mind racing:

"when there's a smoke, there's fire but I'm such a good liar"

The arsonist kept its distance, carving its fuel in silence.
But it wasn't enough to ignite a spark, yet it burned the diamonds.
No ashes but to combust, consumed by the hour: lost in a timeless horizon.

FOR the second time in a year this lady with the white hands is brought to the west room second floor of a famous sanatorium.
Her husband is a cornice manufacturer in an Iowa town and the lady has often read papers on Victorian poets before the local literary club.
Yesterday she washed her hands forty seven times during her waking hours and in her sleep moaned restlessly attempting to clean imaginary soiled spots off her hands.
Now the head physician touches his chin with a crooked forefinger.

I had created a dream
Where everything was what it seemed
No underlying lies
No forming covert ties
I had created a dream
In which there was no time for sorrow or grief
Where a heart could not be stolen
Without any care
As if by a thief
I had created a dream
Where people were not bridges
Used to get to the other side
Where I knew
If something said
Was false or true
I had created a dream

I see birds sitting on chimneys
And telephone wires
And rooftops.
I wonder what it feels like to be up so high
Without an ounce of fear.
To be so close to everything beautiful that gets caught in the air
The stars and the moon and the sun
And have complete freedom
Peace
I want to borrow the raven's wings
The scarlet feathers from the robin
To disguise myself
To escape to the sky for a weekend.

I have always been terrified of birds
But I'm beginning to wonder why exactly that is.
Envy is the only conclusion I can come to.
I will never be that close to the stars until I become one
I will never fly through the clouds without being encased in a metal casket.

I want to fly with the birds.
They will lend me their feathers so I don't get cold
They will sit in their nests
Watching me
Like proud parents.
They will hope I never return.

The loss of their feathers is temporary
They will grow back, and when they do
Maybe the birds will think of me
Maybe they will continue to donate their wings to the landlocked girls with wanderlust.

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