You know I've walked on the wrong side of hell
Felt the stinging bite of shot and shell
Seen the bodies and smelt the blood
Of those so young

Ultimately my choice in life
Cost me my first love who was my life
She couldn't live with what might be a last goodbye
Worrying constantly about the knock on the door

I left the army thinking things might change
And so covert security became the game
In her eyes the risk remained the same
In fact the risk was higher

Combined with nightmares in the darkest hours
When I would scream and yell
And the whiskey bottle always by my side
Was more than she could bare

And so we parted

I was mentally a shattered wreck
Although I always kept my job
The bottle my constant companion
The dreams, nightmares hidden

But one day I started to write
I don't know why, it just happened
And I discovered that I could share my darkest thoughts
With others who would and could understand

Poetry gave me the release from myself
Because talking to you was somehow impersonal
You were just names on a page back then
But now you are a family
Thank you for I have regained sanity
Through you

Firstly apologies to anybody this offends*

Your God(s) more people have died in the names of your
Various Gods and religions than for any other reason
Now surely the great and mighty being Gods various
Have the power to prevent this
My religious friends tell me that this is the various Gods
Testing our resolve to be good

( At this point I usually have a silent laugh)

After all at what point do the Gods decide?

Now my God, nature, well there are no atrocities
You see nature takes only the sick, weak, or dying
And thus the balance is maintained
The strong take only the sick and dying
They don't indiscriminately **** because
The gemsbok doesn't agree with the creed of the lion
The Lion doesn't visit the destruction of genocide
Upon the Impala in the pursuit of total dominance
No the Lion kills only what is needed to ensure
The survival of the species

Thus is the way of nature from the largest to the smallest predator

Humanity in its wisdom says
I have a bigger gun and a more destructive bomb
I'm guided by my God
(In the army I had God, religion and right
Stuffed down my throat)
So God said drop that ICBM and **** who it kills
For it is the weapon of righteousness
For ISIS and their God the weapon is fear
The need of all the so called Gods
Is **** the weak, follow my calling or die
Because I don't need non believers

Well my God is nature
My temple the fields, forests and wide open spaces
And yet some of you will still say I'm wrong

I wander a burnt barren landscape
Beautiful gardens now churned up mud
Ancient, irreplaceable monuments now shattered ruins
Over there a dead woman
Beheaded because she refused to submit
To a way of life devised in hell
People dead lay like scyth cut corn
Laid low by a torrent of religious hatred
Millions flee, homeless, terrified, nowhere to go
And yet among their ranks the enemy lives
Yes, the enemy. Ready to strike, to ****
And all because
We chose to turn our backs on the truth

Gone is the wild unbridled passion of our early years
Hands, lips, bodies in constant embrace
Now, as we grow older yet
We are being overtaken by a deeper love
An early morning caress, the brushing together of lips
The smile in your eyes reflecting the smile in mine
This is real love
When the health of Mollie dog and the cats (our boys)
Are the topic discussed over breakfast
This is the time when we become comfortable
With ourselves and with each other
The time when we can reflect on the good times and the bad
The time to reflect on how lucky we are
To have and to hold, real **love

Like many of you I'm getting fed up
With all the petty points scoring **** on this site
Some of you are brilliant classical writers
Some just write for love
I'm just a simple man
Very little education
But surely we are here for the same thing,
The love of words and the structure of words
You might have a doctorate
The very best money can buy
While I, like very many here have nothing
But does that really make you better than me/us
NO, it doesn't
I see you here on the same level as squabbling children
And yet you are supposed to be adults
ADULTS!!! What a ******* laugh
For the most parts spoiled ******* brats
All trying to score points

This IS a poetry site, ******* well grow up and use it as such

Yes the trees are dying
Leaves withered and brown
Now litter the ground
In unsightly rotting piles
Not the autumnal hues of red and gold
But the hues of dying leaves
Who have given up the fight
The roots of the tree are withering
But many leaves still cling on in hope
The sap now barely rises, no more strength
To feed us
The cancer is spreading
And the cure is yet to be found
And so even more once healthy leaves will fall
To be trampled under the feet and forgotten
There is yet hope for many of those falling leaves
Landed on fertile soil
And the tiny tendril roots of new life took hold
You might say that it's only one tree amongst many
And a few leaves don't matter
But every poet who falls, every poem that withers
On the branch
Is one poet and one poem to many

So, we know beautiful people are leaving
Just as a crab with a soft shell hides under rocks
But the Debs and Donnas only have to hide for a short time
Because we are the rocks of safety
The hate mongers are not poets
Not inspirationalists
They are the ones with a one inch *****
Those who desire the fulfilling *** of poetry
But cannot achieve the ******
And so you who write
Be it good or bad
Ignore the poison barbs of bitterness and hate
Just be yourselves

So she's leaving us
Driven out by the mindless idiots
Who infest this site
I had it with my last daily "Hope"
But the writer had less likes for all his poems
Than I've got in just one
We, we who write and post do it for one reason
We write because we love words
We DO not write for torrents of abuse
And so I say to you
Ignore the abusers because they are lessor people
Than you
There is no love in their words
Simply because they are incapable of expressing love
You, you the poets, you the true writers
Stay, ignore the idiots
YOU are the beating heart that keeps us alive

Forget your childhood dreams for they are lost
Evaporating into the thin air of history
There is no fairystory ending
But death, destruction, ******
And there the fairystory must end
Reality, yes reality
Blood stains on the streets
Because the barons of the drugs decide
Supremacy must meet
It's become so easy to point the gun
Without thought to extinguish life
But they in turn must answer
And they in their turn must die

In the corner sits and old wooden rocking chair
Just as it's sat for the last hundred years
Worn and polished with the patina of age and use

I sit, pencil and pad in hand trying to visualize
What it has witnessed over the years long past
Tears of happiness, tears of heartbreak
Of births and of death

Christmases and birthdays when times were hard
Times when money was scarce
But times when the children understood
Times when children were content, with the little that they had

That old chair has sat there in the corner
For at least a hundred years
I read stories in the grainy polished woodwork
And let my imagination loose

B** Bitter words are spilled across the page
I  Inciting an equally bitter response
T Taking us to places we don't want to be
C Causing animosity amongst once close friends
H Hate and vitriol spreading like a foul pestilence
I  Ignorance taking the place of understanding
N No more the poetic repartee of friends
G Gone now are the beautiful days

Wisdom is in the words of an old man
Passed down to the youths
Who in the their turn will grow old and wise

Put twelve dogs in a pen
And one or two will always be bullies
But
A pack of placid dogs
Will only accept bullying for so long
Eventually the bullies will become the bullied

This grey haired old dog has spoken