.

breath of lanterns, song of sky

my kisses flock to you

--

hold me, the cloud whispered to the mountain

--

listen to me reading you

with fingertips

I shouldn't have been
Too careful,
Too restrained.
Because now you will never,
Never ever know
How much I've loved you.

You never noticed,
No,
Not even a bit.
But there's a part of me wishing,
Wishing so much it hurts,
That you did.

Now you'll be out-of-bounds,
Where you can't hear me anymore.
I'll break the rules
Just one last time,
By saying 'I love you'
After I've said adieu.

Your King and Country need you, men.
Kitchener, glaring in full kit.
Khaki is the color of the day
and everyone must do their bit.
A mighty Empire girds for war
yet unprepared to bleed and die.
Then bands still played patriotic airs;
We cheered them as they marched away.
Belle France’s fields were soon entrenched;
protected with barbed wire fence.
A generation sent to war
will lie forever beneath those fields.
This was the cost too few foresaw
of this war to end all wars.
A cost paid many times since then;
paid in young lives by bad old men.

When I feel lonely
I love.

He woke up
thus it was a good day.

By the time he was dressed
he was just about ready
for his first cup of joe.

He walked down to the nearest eating place
and ordered breakfast, plus their largest coffee
– black.

The eggs were good, the bacon too and
though the coffee was only adequate
sadly it just had to do.

He got out his phone and called his partner
who must have been waiting for him
as he was there in minutes. He too had a coffee
– black.

He put some money on the table
and they both left.

So far it was still a good day.

Things change and sometimes
in the least expected way.

They got in his partner’s car and
his partner pulled away from the kerb.

They both heard the loud grinding noise
a lifetime before they ever saw anything.
the force of the out of control wagon
drove their car right over an embankment
and down a four foot bank into deep water.

Had they not been killed by the crash they
would have drowned anyway as the car was
buried in the mud at the bottom of that
particular gravel pit by the weight of
the wagon on top of it.

It hadn’t been a good day after all.
Not a bit of it.

©Joe Wilson – Unintended consequences 2014