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  May 2016 Joe Cole
Roger Turner - Poet
Little Toy Soldiers going off to war
None will ever live to  see age twenty four
None of them even  know what they're fighting for
Little Toy Soldiers going off to war

The world has always been this way
With Emperors and Kings
Fighting with toy soldiers
And the glory that it brings

Land, beliefs, religion
The basis of the war
fought by young toy soldiers
Who all die by the score

Time has taught us nothing
But, it's changed the way we fight
War is a full day job
Now that it is fought at night

The boards of little armies
Are now shown up on the screen
With all the little soldiers
Lit in different shades of green

They used to be all metal
Painted up in nice bright shades
With a General on horseback
Leading all his smart brigades

Then, the men were plastic
glued to bits of wood
Behaving as a unit
Just like a soldier should

Now, the war is different
They're up there in different hues
You can watch them fight in real time
Just like on the nightly news

The only thing remaining
The thing that's stayed the same
Is that nobody in power
Know the Little Soldiers names

Little Toy Soldiers going off to war
None will ever live to  see age twenty four
None of them even  know what they're fighting for
Little Toy Soldiers going off to war
Joe Cole May 2016
For all our younger poets*

I am a sower of seeds
Hello Poetry is the soil that nurtures the seeds
You are the tender young plants reaching for the sky
Soon to blossom in your full glory
If you're ever on the riverside
where the sun beats your head
you would see the old man
selling hats of palm leaf
but you care not to notice him
having already smelled the sea
and too keen to cross the river
travel southward on the island
till the saline wind scalds your eyes
your skins itch to jump into the waves
yet the man with the palm leaf hats
would not cease to tell you
how burning would be the sun on the sands
and so badly you need to protect the head
by parting bucks that mean nothing to you
but a world to the mouths he feeds
and before you stamp on him a final no
she has one atop her hair
beneath which her eyes flutter like butterflies
her sun rouged cheeks untimely blush
and two born anew lovers
merrily head for the sea
having bought romance
for forty bucks.
Joe Cole May 2016
Write no more of self inflicted scars
Of brutality, pain, suffering
For all those things only increase your suffering

Instead write of a rich green forest *****
Alive in the sunlight
Alive with the sounds of nature
Of animals and birds

Write about the beauty of the common flower
Struggling up from a crack in broken concrete
A flower not filled with despair
But instead offering it's beauty to your eyes
As though giving thanks for its existence

Yes, sadness and despair we can all feel
For we are mere mortals
But for despair there is a cure not written on the pages of a book
Take yourself to a rocky place overlooking the sea
Watch the seagulls effortlessly ride the wind
Read stories in the foaming breaking waves
Smell the ozone in the air

Or

Take yourself to a sunlit forest glade
Close your eyes and listen as nature calls your name
She will tell you "leave despair behind and write no more of it"
Free your mind of dark thoughts
You have no need of fancy words
From one with letters after his name
Your despair will be washed away by scalding tears
Tears of happiness, as nature plays her game
Like most people I have my darker moments and my answer is the above, no matter what the weather nature will always give me the release that I seek
Joe Cole Apr 2016
I left behind that place of dying
And entered the damp dark world of the woods
Sitting alone in the rain, dark thoughts in my mind
But then I realized, the forest was alive
The rustle of small unseen creatures in the leaves
Butterflies flitting in pale sunshine now breaking through the clouds
Best of all, birds singing their sweet refrain
It was then I realized that life has to go on
Even in your darkest moment, life is still worth living
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