I started scribbling to help pass the night shifts
Soon the scribbles turned into poetry
Not particularly good poetry either
But I persevered, joined the poetry section on
A social networking site
That in turn led me to HP
Anyway I started posting here
Initially without a great deal of success
But I stuck at it and started to gain a following
My message to anyone who loses heart
Because nothing seems to be going anywhere
Is just stick at it
It happened for me, it will happen for you

Live for today,       tomorrow might never come

Yep what's in a name?
Mine is Joseph Francis Cole
Joseph for my father
Francis for his brother
Cole hahaha the surname of mothers first husband
Why? Cos I was born out of wedlock
Do I care no?
I heard a story once that when an American Indian child was born
The father would look out of the teepee and name the child
for the first thing he saw
Who the **** was stupid enough to name his son
White Dog ******* Under The Moon

Yeah sure I was a fool
Yeah sure I failed in school
But what the ****
The state owes me
So why should I fight to find a job
When the state pays me to be a slob
Suckers like you can pay the bill
While I smoke crack and sell some ****
I live in a welfare state
Coin the money and don't give a ****
Oh, Oh at education I wasn't good
But don't ******* me about what I need
A pump of ****** is proper food
You failed me in my time of need
Now the needles bite gives me the feed
Of slow death flowing through my veins
And at thirty I said my last goodbyes

When darkness descends
And doubts fill your mind
Love will always prevail

I thought he was my friend
Anyway I shot him three times through the chest
And watched him die screaming in a pool of blood
And now its my turn to die
As they strapped me on the gurney and slid the needle in
I realized it had all been a misunderstanding

A follow on to I Got Natural Eemunity

You know when I was a kid in a large family
We never had much money
So we had a bath only once a week
Simply because heating water cost money
Something we didn't have
A simple way of life eating simple food
Anyway days at school were spent alongside rich kids
In their spotlessly clean uniforms
With their sniffles and coughs and runny noses
Spluttering over their hygienically prepared lunch boxes
But
Us poor kids with a cheese sandwich in a paper bag
Rarely got a cough or cold

When I was a kid Christmas started on about 20th December
It was a time of surprise, of belief
The anticipating of what was to come
Sadly now Christmas starts in early October
Shops filled with baubles
Second rate American films about Christmas
Where has the Christmas we knew gone?

Something I always do in Summer
Is just sit beneath my tree
Yes, my tree
Why?
Because it's about a 3 kilometer walk along a deer path
Anyway sit under that spruce with its shade giving branches
And you enter another world
The heady aroma of pine resin fills the air
Squirrels chatter in contentment over my head
I watch insects unknown to me
Walk the aerial ways
Ants in synchronized dance
The bark cracks do invade
Even in a gentle rain Mollie and I can share this space
Just sit and crack open another beer
And live for another day
No noise but natures noise
No rancid petrol or diesel fumes
Just the smell of mole turned soil
The sound of natures tunes
You know I love to sit in these lonely places
Mollie at my feet
Sit here with a pen and pad
In this special place where I and nature meet
I come here to sit and write sometimes just to think
But all to often when I leave
The pad is shy of ink
You see most of the time I'm quite content
To sit in filtered sun
Most of all I'm so elated
When I join with nature
When nature and I merge as one

I cast my line into the watery murk
And hooked a Carvò by the neck
I pulled in vain the hold to break
But ripped the head off at the neck
Alas the Carvò did not die
Head and beret floated high
****** droplets fell like acid rain
Causing worthy poets grief and pain
The body was by fish consumed
But once again the Carvò cloned
Again to infest the HP site
With the foul desease of words he writes

Why do we ask for help from above
When we know no help will come?
Instead in times of crisis we look for
Those with the experience to help
Those in a time
When no religion exists

I sit pen in hand but the words have left my mind
No longer can I pen the words about things that I have seen
I cannot find a reason for the blankness in my soul
The words have gone, no longer flow, my mind an empty hole
Where has gone the inspiration? The imaginative sharp mind
Where has gone the urge to sit and write?
The words that can open eyes
No, no, no. The words have gone my pen has stilled the ink no longer flows
The last chapter has been written......The book has now been closed...

I sit here alone in the darkness
Alone with my thoughts
In a few days Christmas
A happy time, a time of joy
But no Christmas now for twenty girls and boys
What madness has assaulted this now sad world?
Where a life can be taken so easily
Without any thought or care
Children, five six and seven
WHY, WHY, WHY?
Tell me now that there's a god
Tell me why he let it happen
No, I dont believe any more
The slaughter of the innocents
Has destroyed all I ever believed in
Animals ****, yes but just for food
But its only mans inhumanity to man
That can destroy so easily

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

I sit here on this lonely windswept ridge
Overlooking a wild place
Of peathag and bog and wild heather
Of outcrops of gritstone rock
Standing like rotting teeth
In ravished gums
Bleak and dreary in the rain
But still a place to be loved
Hardy sheep graze the barren slopes
Watched over by equal hardy men and dogs
Out in all weathers
I'm lucky
Because I know the tracks and trails
Crossing this wild land
I know the streams of fresh water
And the sanctuary for my nights rest
In my small lightweight tent
This is wild Yorkshire
As yet an unspoilt place

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

The wisdom of years is only an extension of the vitality of youth

A **** is just a gentle thing that gives the body ease
It warms the bedclothes and drives away the fleas

**Think about it

Terrorist attack on tourist hotels in Tunisia this morning
So far 19 confirmed dead, where will it end
Worrying times indeed because my daughter and her boyfriend are there
They are safe but I'm still worried

The challenge this week has come early to give you time to think about MAGIC

Having been a virtual prisoner for the last six days (holiday with wife and mother in law) the word freedom came to mind.

So there's the weekly challenge, FREEDOM

Well the last two challenges, The Story Of You and Creativity produced some diverse and very interesting results for which I thank all participants.

This time back to something very very easy

WORDS

Now its an open field but I do want to see word/words there somewhere.

So far these weekly challenges have turned up some truly inspirational works one of which achieved DP status and I would like to thank every single person who has contributed.

This time the challenge is going to be somewhat different in that instead of producing a great poem at short notice I'm allowing one week and please poets do not post before next Friday.

This time four words have to be incorporated into your piece, words you are already familiar with

Leaves...Magic... Tranquility... Freedom..

Oh yes, a maximum of twenty lines and a minimum of ten lines just to make things more interesting

After the last minimally complex challenge I decided to make this weeks challenge a lot more simple.

A grain of sand

In eight lines, again you have one week

In about half an hour I'm heading out of here so the challenge is being posted early and response by Saturday please

Quite simple this time

The story of you

I say I think because I'm losing track. People thought my last poem was part of the challenge.

Anyway here's the brief

Memory lane
Freedom
Tranquility

Yes, write me a poem
About autumn leaves drifting on the wind
About snowflakes settling on your eyelids
Maybe about the gentle spring rain
Or walking by the crystal stream on a bright summers day
Take me back to your childhood
Of days spent in a tent
Of walks in meadows
Resplendent with the artists pallete of color
Take me into that forest where the birds so freely sing
Take me into a world of make believe
Of fairies and dragons
Of mermaids haunting songs floating across the sea
Yes, take me to those places, those beautiful things

Please don't take me to doom and despair
Of suicidal feelings
Oh my girlfriend/boy friend of three days has left me
I can't live without him/her
Don't give me feelings of deep depression
I'm not a phsychiatrist so I can't help you
Just give me poetry

Write not the words that rhyme
If that is not your way
But rather write the words
That have so much to say
A poem is but a story
Of loves long lost, love found
A poem is your speaking soul
A silent cacophony of sound
Poetry is from your heart
On subjects so diverse
Metaphors and cliches
Formed into stanzas and of verse
I don't mind about how you write
Of the subject in your mind
You are the sole creator
And your words cross space and time

OK writing
Most of what I write takes me about five minutes
a word or phrase come into my head
And within minutes a poem is born.
I have to be honest though
Creativity took me twenty minutes to write
But that was written on my phone in a tent
Under a tree with a ****** owl screaming its head off
Above me
Some of you take hours, days, weeks
To write the perfect prose
The unforgettable stanza
Punctuation and spelling absolutely perfect
I don't
I simply can't be bothered with stuff like that

Tell me what inspires you
Tell me honestly how long it takes you to write a poem...

When all you sht house poets die
They'll ***** a monument in the sky
To commemorate your worthless wit
A monument built from solid sht

We all lose someone we love so dear
in circumstances we cant control
We work in a rough tough industry
Where emotions cannot show
And yet in the darkness of the night
emotions fill your mind
No shame in those the tears you shed
in the darkness in the night
But there are others who hold the love
feel the anguish in your heart
We will not desert you
for of you we are a part
Stranger you from a foreign land
but my brother still you are
And we love you oh our brother
you are always in our hearts

A report assembled over 3 years by NAASA scientists has now confirmed that there is life in outer space
They cannot however determine whether it is Martian,  Venusion or Pluterian.

Whatever this life form is we know that it is posing as a great artist with both brush and word although our cryptologists are still trying to make sense out of the rambling messages this life form keeps transmitting.

Our artistic impression of this being likens it to the right frontal lobe of a human brain covered by a beret

Should you receive email or any other form of correspondence from this being you are strongly advised to ignore them as trying to decipher such messages can cause permanent brain damage

Yes you are the kids
You are the future of poetry
I've had my day
Reveled in the glory
But the Baton must be passed
To you, the young, the beautiful
Who write the words
.And so I fade into glory
My time here is done
I ask the young ones here
To make sure the the flag is flown