When you're alone and tired
And your mind aches too much
To find hope or peace
Close your eyes and think of me
Feel my arms around you
Feel my warmth against you
For you know I'm always there

We will leave the pain behind us
And we'll gently fly so high
Through the soft and blue
Warmly cradling sky
Where every breath we take
Becomes a lover's sigh
Just close your eyes and feel it
For I'm here by your side

                                                By Phil Roberts

compromise
is
the
default
position
most
find
themselves
in,
again

To the joy
We dance, we jest and joust
The complex interplay of two
Souls recognising selfness
Seeing the edges fit

To the sorrow
This memory fades, surely, swiftly
A conversation half remembered
The realisation that ..
I can't recall your voice

To the sweetness
A softly remembered moment
The curve of a finger
Tracing line across memory

To the senses
That I can't feel those arms
Lightly, a tear traces a path
I feel it slide down my cheek
Then unseen weight grips

To the Anger
Against moments expectation unmet
When the collision occurs
And unwanted words come forth
The rage unchecked

To the self
The clash of the ego and id
tripartite vying for casual dominion
Eros and Thanatos war
Action dictated by thought

To the internal
The experience of
A lucid world of love
of longing, of joy
And it's counterpart; sadness

As I remember that I will
Never see you again
We will never speak
You will not know
How much you are missed

To friendship
To the joy of finding each other
To the gift of you, selflessly given
To the kindness
To both sides of a being


To the present
To Finding ways to exist Sans those who've faded
Always to persevere
The interlocking of past and now
Always seeing and remembering the essence of their being
Just breathe

To the heart
No words exist for this journey
From innocence to sorrow
And back
But when led with..


Nothing is insurmountable

In the narrowest of lanes
I found the sweet shop.

Behind dusty crumbling glasses
dozed the old keeper
smelling of sugar, milk and sweat
over fossils of Paleolithic sweets
on a time machine from the century
he never was
to a millennium he doesn't bother about
clinging onto clay by pottery
not succumbing to synthetic
counting not on android
but accounting on parchment
with the art of finger's arithmetic
most intricately scribbled with pencil
announcing progress is a trouble
not designed for the simple
and contentment has no more nitty-gritty
than price and quantity.

Over his head
spiders worked and reworked
from the ceiling to the glass
as have been doing
since Carboniferous.

Deft hands cut precise whirrs the ceiling fan
closed eyes bar view the scene can't scan
before they reach the ground take windy spin
falling in scattered piles gathered for coffin.

Shreds of gray and black dot the white shroud
little to write about nothing to be proud
don't reduce anymore that's about fine
add not to the growing woes says hairline.

Cool the clime crawls the clock at its own pace
halts the head to think about the changing face
would it look better or yield a worse clown
ridiculed by one and all folks of the town.

Nothing can be done enough damage is done
fiercely to blow the heat waits fiery sun
over sir says barber open my eyes
the one in the mirror doesn't look any wise.