Phillip Erb

Within the walls of a breathless instant, the entire world falls asleep
And another one becomes alive, opens its eyes, checks the clock and heaves a sigh.

Fascinated with lackadaisical dream visions and the conversions with vague
...

I was wondering how many sacrifices it would take
To hold you down locked in that simple moment
When you're looking into my eyes from across the room
I don't want to throw away the roses and cuddle warm,
...

Blue jay perched on my flagpole
The only color contrasting against
A fall gray making haste to
Chase summer skies away
...

The wind steals my breath away
My words never weighed much to most folks
And nowadays I don’t listen to what I say
Words can be so very hard to make
...

Sometimes during the witching hours
when the moon disappears over the horizon
and the sun is opposite the earth from me
I get so lonely I pull at my hair and it
...

Train your eyes to see through the midnight darkness and above
the miasma of fatigue, choose carefully which scenes of sleep’s cinema to believe,
because the God of the New Age doesn’t reach out through prophecy
it is more likely the voices that speak through the passing dream
...

A gutter runs down the brick outside the front door
I live in the room on the other side and count footsteps in the rain
I draw the blinds,
drape out the light,
...

Like a king about to address his people,
I look down at the world from my balcony
as she stares back boldfaced at me.
A blue lawn chair throne is my royal seat,
...

On my knees praying
'Please, God, release me! '
The moonless ocean of the void
Seems as if longing to speak
...

Seventy-two hours
I've been chewing my teeth
Plugging my face with the demon
I’ve been stabbing fingers
...

My watch is broken, all the electricity is gone,
The batteries that powered the obligatory skeletons
Of technology are dead – neglected to the shadows,
Buried beneath the dust of a graveyard underneath
...

I began this song at four a.m. in an attempt to make friends
With an empty room, and lettered keys instead of my pen,
You know it’s hard as ever opening myself to someone new
Most time I just leave the room like there’s something to do
...

One moment mister, pardon me if I’m
Right in your way, in your place, wasting time.
I cannot afford to pay you mind, and I am so tired,
It’s certainly possible I might go blind if I don’t set aside
...

Gravel veins link the quiet arteries of a ghost town,
From my roost, two or three scattered denizens
Wear faces bewildered - if not altogether lost -
Around in circles a young girl promenades;
...

You can not really tell if his eyes are peering
Beneath a pair of lightly stoned-sleepy lids
If you’re looking for him in or around
Where you are looking now, I’ll be asleep,
...

A short, black skirt with blonde hair walks a mutt,
laughs aloud into a tiny telephone at this time everyday.
I wrote her an invitation - even though I don’t even know
Her first name, how she spells it, what she takes in her coffee,
...

Creeping through my window softly,
the morning is born again.
My computer is playing a sad song
about fake plastic watering cans;
...

If you would walk on in
You must remove your shoes
Party members come in pairs, in threes,
at the neighbor's house next door
...

A golden locket makes its way to the walk
After the chain that held it captive to a neck for so many a long and sweaty year
Snaps under the stress of time, salt, and gravity.
It cathes the light thrown from the sun and sends the entire spectrum across the street to me -
...

Mister do you have the time?
I've looked all over, but I just
Can't seem to find mine.
When I was last here I knew
...