Ten minutes left on the clock
Can feel like the blink of an eye
And forever
When you kiss me

Another lonely night,
And I'm staring at the vast black sky.
It is the eve of my twentieth year
And I cannot help but compare it to yours.
A text at midnight; a present wrapped with a bow;
An I love you waiting, if you wanted it.
Here I sit, waiting as the hours roll by,
Jumping every time the phone rings
Because I hope not hope it is you.
You call me up so often, usually,
Just to break me like a promise.
You are back in the country,
I hear. Back to see me? No.
It is the eve of my twentieth year, dear,
And now I think I should stop writing to you.
This has gone on long enough, don't you think?
It is the eve of my twentieth year,
And a part of me left broken and unruly,
Not yet healed by mountains of therapy
And kisses and love,
Is aching only for you.
It is the eve of my twentieth year
And a part of me knows
That tomorrow I can **** myself.
No broken promises on my part.

I am adding more and more poems
No matter what they are supposed to be called
No matter what numbers would define them
This is a life; not yet mine, but
I am building a home
A place where I can feel safe
A place where I can feel ugly
without being ashamed of it
Here is a life; not yet mine, but
I am still fighting
I am fighting
And I am planning to win.

when we met, it was tipsy tuesday and donnie had swollen fingers
and nate sank into his plaid frock and dropped his shadow
on the patio like a heavy slug, and the flies
cavorted in the vortex of our subtext
as the night skies spat stars
at our foreheads.

you were beautiful;  too beautiful then.

i was smitten, i was tossed on stormy seas, unsick.
i was healed. the world spun filth and dull glamour
but your face hurled fireworks
and my mind leaned into my heart
and i knew i loved you.
whoever you turned out
to be.

i babbled and groped, as the inertia
of falling, filled my sails
and I was purposefully adrift -
in your brown-black eyes;
as a dog fetched a frisbee
for an illiterate.

and i think i bit my lip a bit.

I saw you for the first time.
for the last time
in my life
and was never
the same.

my heart, now more precise.

you had fierce speech
underneath your sweet speak
and long hair.
i had you in my soul's yurt
on a plain of windswept pavilions
with free horses and costly
remoteness.
i was ' there ' less
and more somewhere else
alone with the perfect you
reading my lips
as they tremored
delight of it.

i babbled speechless.

i remember you tossing your locks
at my cage. and i was set free.

please add me to your wishlist
and complete me.

In another life,
I would not be the girl
I am today.

I would not be
too pale
too freckley
too fat
too awkward
too lonely
too quiet
too much of a pushover
too oily
too pimpley
too plain.

In another life
I imagine myself
as a silent assassin.
With power and might;
I glide the rooftops
and dominate the night.

In another life
I am a sassy bad girl.
I'd pop off in seconds,
and attack with cunning skill,
so that none would mess with me,
unless they'd want to get killed.

In another life
I am a thin and hollow body,
a nameless maiden who roams
halls of white tile.
Donned in a buckled down
white jacket that crosses
at the arms so I constantly
get to hug myself.

In another life
I am not
the girl I am today.
I would be someone,
with a story worth telling.

Sitting in her wheel chair
Anne stared at the sea
from the beach
where I’d pushed her

from the home
her dark hair
toyed by the breeze
her hands

on the arms
of the chair
her one leg showing
from her short

red skirt
they say the sea
gives up its dead
she said suddenly

I nodded
they say the moon
is 283,900 miles
from the Earth

I raised my eyebrows
they say the stars
we see in the sky
at night often

have burnt out
years before
so that we are seeing
ghost stars

I looked at her head
the center parting
the straight hair
they say the sun

is 93 million miles
from our planet
I stood behind her chair
gazing at the sea

and the few swimmers
out there
do you hear me Kid?
she said

yes
I replied
I hear
then answer me

do you think
I’m talking to myself
like a loon?
no

I thought
you were thinking out loud
I said
no

I was telling you stuff Kid
she said
there was a pause
she scratched

the stump of her leg
Sister Bridget says
she's still a ******
can you imagine that?

Anne said
I looked at a ship
on the horizon
no

I said
can't imagine that
why can't you imagine that?
she asked

why can't you imagine
Sister Bridget as a ******?
I don't know
I said

she looked up at me
do you know
what a ****** is?
she asked

no
I said
that's why
I can't imagine it

she smiled
and looked back
at the sea
means she's not

had ***
with a man
Anne said
I see

I said
I looked
as she rubbed
her stump

with her left hand
are you a ******?
I asked
what do you think Kid?

I'm 12 years old
I live with my parents
I go to school
I’ve one

fecking leg
I wouldn't let
a boy touch me
if he promised me

the moon
yes
I’m a ******
I nodded my head

and looked at the sea
that's good
I guess
I said.

The giant fin whale swam along with the tide
A nineteen-foot calf was swimming by her side
They were swimming away from her mate’s now dead shell
Trapped in a lagoon and then all shot to hell.

She’ll raise her young calf on her own from now on
Not mating again as they only take one
Her mate had followed a herring shoal in with the tide
And for a short while there were those who had tried
To help him turn and head back to sea
But the cruelty of nature would not let it be
At eighty feet long and a shallow cliff lea
It could not turn around to escape and be free.

And then a vile streak in the locals took hold
A most wicked shooting match began to unfold
The most handsome of whales was trapped and revealed
As shooters took aim and young children squealed.

They fired and they fired and they fired and they fired
Stopping only to reload and then when they got tired
They even drove speedboats across his shot back
Leaving deep deep prop cuts as a further attack.

And when they were done and the whale was no more
His body burst open and in death he’d now score
For the stench of his now rancid corpse was so rotten
This beautiful creature wasn’t easily forgotten.

There was a man who tried hard to get him free
But one man alone is as a wood with one tree
And by the time he had got national press all aware
The whale was now dead, so bored, they’d not now care.



©Joe Wilson – A Whale shouldn’t die like that 2014

Many years ago I was enthralled by the work of Farley Mowat the renowned Canadian environmentalist who died last month. From reading his book, based on real events ‘A Whale for the Killing’ published in 1972, I took to studying whales as a hobby and I quickly realised just what a perfect creature the Fin Whale is. It is the only whale that is match coloured along both sides giving it the same symmetrical beauty as a dolphin and is the second largest creature to live, the Blue Whale being the only creature bigger. It is so amazing it can lift its entire body out of the water. Why on earth would you fire thousands of rounds of ammunition into a creature so beautiful? Why?

This is a small tribute to the memory of Farley Mowat (May 12, 1921 – May 6, 2014) and to people like him who try so hard, such as the Sea Shepherds who try to stop the massacre of bottle-nose dolphins each year in Taiji, Japan ostensibly for food, even though most Japanese people shun the whale-meat.