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

A regal white heron,
a bird of passage
that had followed
it's beloved dream
a long, long distance,
sits quiet unmoving,
atop a flowered lemon tree
on the bank of a tranquil pond
that wasn't known to it before.

Fish, enjoying freedom,all along
play meddling it's reflection
as if daring the heron to act
by trying to catch it's attention.

The crowned heron,
more placid than the pond
on the wings of an elating thought
resumes journey chasing it's dream.

In restaurant
a professional man
with a laptop,
just moved out
from neighbouring table
leaving water
on the drinking glass.
we saw,
One friend said, "Half full.."
another friend said, "Half empty.."
Listening to our conversation
then the bearer came
and said, " what a way to waste
scarce natural resources.."

where faces are poems
forever written
across our minds

the memory of you
indelible ink
a song sung

poets are clouds
incandescent flames
a thunderstorm

you come and go
and come again
a face in a crowd.