You sit at your screen
fingertips flying in the face of decency
like a spigot attached to a vat of arsenic
dripping your poison, slowly, surely into the ears of the unthinking.

You justify the burnt skin, the orphans, the unending torture as deserved.

Deserved?

How can it be so?

Go tell the orphan, scarred and screaming that her fate was deserved.

Go stand beside mass graves and thumb your nose at the deserving corpses, stained by the blood of ages.

Where is your heart? 
does it choke and sputter,
buried beneath your all encompassing loathing?

You call me stupid, maybe so,
my views naive, my compassion wasted
yet my heart beats proudly, swells with love 
while my tired eyes drown at the unfolding horror.

War is not a spectator sport,
it is not justifiable, nor deserved.

Call me stupid if you will, ridiculous if you must
call me any number of names in your attack on my spirit
I will not care, I will not bend or bow.
Your hatred will be your undoing.
Not mine

They sat in blankets as they tried to keep warm
penniless with no heating and no coal to burn
while outside they heard the violent storm
the blizzard of snow and ice all churn.

Slowly they both began to freeze to death
there was no-one to help or ease their plight
they were just poor and lonely old sisters
who would probably die in the dark of this night.

They were just another statistic of winter
a cold one much worse than some others
they had eked out their money on eating
so they now huddled together like lovers.

There are so many who suffer in winter
and we really should spare them a thought
we should all keep an eye out for our neighbour
as help due to their pride is not sought.

It is dawn now and the sisters are frozen
one died and the other breathes slow
but there is no-one to even take notice
and in a short while like her sister she’ll go.

©Joe Wilson – huddled together like lovers…2014

From the back
of a quiet
bookshelf
inside a dusty
***
she heard
her husbands breathing
rattle and
stop,
she heard
the bedside sorrow
in a tender kiss
farewell
then stirred her ash
with menace
and welcomed him
to hell

Somebody painted
a face
on my time
and pretending
that it
was a game,
they numbered
my days
and stood them
in line
and made
every one
look the same.

Somebody gave it
two hands
and a voice
that isn't
allowed
to stop,
it can tell
if Im late
and Im learning
to hate
the sound of
their
tick tocking
clock.

Theres a hill
made of wind
swept heather
and rock
where the time
that it takes
when I climb
to its top
is the same
that these words
too often unsaid
take to climb
from the
thickening
mist in my head.

Life is wonderful

I will scream into the void with you. Take my hand, let me calm your fears.I will weave my words into a shelter, a place of grace for your troubled heart.

Walk with me until the stars dim forever, until the sun implodes and only dust remains. I am here with you, there with you. Let my tangled thoughts be your remedy, your darkest dreams my salvation. Take my light, for I would rather walk in darkness unending than see the weight of sorrow on your pretty brow.

You are my privilege, my haven, my friend, this will always be, as long as there is breath I will use it to sing of my wonder at your strength and my joy at your existence.

If you believe in nothing else, I beg that you believe in me