In streams of verse and congealed words or metaphors' twists and turns,
a poet paints upon minds canvas a view of where visions do etch souls with their burns.

Unique the transcribed observation to reveal the newborn vistas as witnessed there,
Perhaps to light the great mysteries of love and hope or uncover veiled shadows of death and despair.

With each new vision transcribed and the telling of what that mind has known,
Comes the realization by the transfixed readers that they truly are not so alone.

Shared idea, thought, hope and dream to which we can see and draw some link,
where poet reminds we are all but human and not as different as we so often think.

So difficult a thing to give the inexperienced a way to understand.
Why I am shaped the way I am by things I had never planned.

I could tell you of those things in the hope they would shine a light.
But unless you have been there you just couldn't see them right.

Now I know that from the outside I may look the same as you.
But I also know that on the inside I can see a different view.

Those unplanned things that changed me in oh so many ways.
Leaving me without a point or purpose facing lonely empty days.

So deep the changes made that I struggle to leave my own door.
In a head that despises minutes and asks what all the hours are for.

In a mind that knows me Oh so well fearing you can see inside.
Withdrawn from your society is my only safe place to hide.

My mind is not so broken that I have forgotten all my past.
It knows full well that by choice hope and love have been outcast.

To the inexperienced from a mind that survives a life in this way.
I hope you have clearer understanding of how I live my every day.

I have no wisdom to offer or warning of a path you should avoid.
External views wont show you why survival has been employed.

Where choice has different meaning, instinct plays a bigger part.
And mind suppresses both hope and dreams of a broken heart.

I am become who I am by the path my life road has turned.
I am this shape by instinct to survive, not from lessons I have learned.

In lethargies grip and restless mind,
I come again upon the day.
Where demons of my minds design,
find acres bare to frolic and to play.

An emptiness that invades my core,
until only black thought dwells in there.
Where tiredness is all I can feel,
and darkest depression is thoughts heir.

No calming thoughts to ease my mind,
and no safety can my lost soul yet feel.
The endless sensation of putrid stagnation,
no layers to other emotions have I left to peel.

Foreboding and deep weariness dark as shadow,
accompanies each thought and task within my day.
And though I seek escape by non-participation,
against thought there is no strategy I can play.

Turmoil to life's patterns of sleep and wakefulness,
where a soul and mind each attacks my own mortality.
Until left with just one clear and rational thought,
Of how simple and complete my final escape can be.

I recall many years ago...
An acquaintance who through misfortune and misadventure had severed three toes from his left foot. Although he eventually recovered and adjusted to this misfortune he always walked thereafter with a pronounced limp.

Several years after this incident he had the further bad luck to be involved in a cycling accident and this time he lost four toes from his right foot. Once again with the aide of professional help and prosthetics he was able to adjust.

Although he made physical adjustment he could never let go or refrain from telling of these two incidents on every possible occasion. In my mind it became his key to acceptance and seemed to be his way of gaining some sympathy for his hard done by life. I became aware and felt quite ashamed of my lack of empathy and was alarmed at just how irritated I could become whenever around him. I determined that I should seek help of my own... to discover why I felt irritated so irrationally.

I consulted with my GP and explained the circumstance in detail. I related how over the years the more I witnessed his actions and attitude the less restrained I could be in his presence. I would become both agitated and borderline aggressive when he would enter the room.

My GP listened and after brief pause to ponder upon the story I related to him he reassured me that my reactions were quite normal and were not as uncommon as I thought them to be.
I asked him if it were a defined medical condition and did I have need for concern.
He replied.... "you are quite simply lack toes intolerant"

I have called out often to you
and I have craved your intervention.
Never really sure if you exist at all,
I still sought for your attention.

I searched the faiths a many
and I have tried to understand.
What it was that I must do
to reach out to your open hand.

My faith has wavered greatly
as my time has ambled on.
Yet often did I pray to you,
though at times my faith had gone.

So many times did I reach for you
from the depths of my despair.
Hoping for some magic sign
that you were standing there.

I have looked upon the world and universe,
To see its beauty and its terrors too.
In some unseen and mystifying way,
these things all cry out a testament of you.

I have come to think that we,
are not at the centre of your plan.
Your universe so vast in purpose,
for the tininess of a single man.

Endless chaos and reconstruction,
on a scale that a lifetime can't comprehend.
Recycling endless matter,
on a path seemingly without an end.

Yet you gave me mind and time,
to see this snapshot of the plan.
Giving cause for hope that you can hear,
the prayers of this small man.

I come here to purge my words and thought.
To cast off webs in which my mind is caught.

To mend a soul defeated by life's battles fought.
To understand the lessons that experience has taught.

Where others say that life is much too short.
My mind just asks why I go on multiplying nought.

Lessons learned but so very dearly bought.
Isolated mind my safety and protective fort.

Ideas and frustrations my writings have tried to sort.
And sorted through I conclude I did it all for naught.

By degree I feel the present turning,
as the sun yet once more comes to rise.
Eastern sky that lightens by the minute,
as it pushes heavens starlight from the skies.

One more day upon the pathway,
of where time does bid the flow.
As if by gentle stream or sometime rapids,
and fate compels the path I come to know.

Uncounted I recall repetitions,
on so many long ago, half forgotten days.
Where relentless turning of the Earth,
would shine a light upon life's awaiting plays.

Once light that shone a wonder,
on mystery and promised dreams.
Abundant in every kind of possibility,
to overflowing like flooded streams.

The flow of fate and time,
that set love and dream out upon the flow.
Until only memory of such sunrises,
is all my heart can now hope to know.

The turning will go on forever,
and so too the coming of the light.
But even at this hour I sense the dusk,
and I can feel the closeness of the night.

To dream, to love, to hope... is to live.
To be without dream, love, hope is to merely exist.

In a world where traits such as bigotry, greed, narcissism, non-empathy and some level of superiority (in ones own mind) are the key attributes to ensure success and some sense of purpose and fulfilment... I am less distressed than I should be to have failed at life.
I have come to appreciate simplicity and things that are genuine and wonder what reality looks like to the successful. Do they value a warm embrace and a soft kiss and the company of someone who likes them for who they are in the same way I do? And when (if) they feel and experience these things in a genuine way does their success still feel good when they reflect on what made them? Do they even reflect upon such things... or would they be less successful in their own minds if they saw themselves for who they are?
Can you be happy if your aspirations are something other than to love and be loved in return? Without these all is deception and you are both the deceived and the deceiver.

You step out into the world and its tendrils seek to entwine.
It takes away my hopes and all the dreams I once held as mine.

You are faced with expectations and choices so not of your own.
You come to think it not so bad when life is both empty and alone.

It becomes just easier to forget about hope and any form of dream.
Responsible to self and away from expectations endless scream.

You close the world outside behind your safeties solid door.
And give up on love and dream like clothes discarded on the floor.

You accept a life of little value and so too the feel it will never end.
All for reassurance outside consequence wont reach in to offend.

I write of being sad and lonely in many of the poems that I write.
But I am conscious, it is I who cast love and hope out into the night.

So long ago was the wonder turned to real by the Eagle flying by.
A child in awe I watched that miracle outside of Earth's blue sky.

In grainy black and white the world united in an up turned gaze.
To dream a unified dream for all, in those long ago heroic days.

A dream for all of mankind and your words they called it so.
Joint in belief of great achievement of how far our species could go.

You carried the heroes of a decade that paved a road up to that day.
You caught the minds of others and set new heroes on their way.

There was Mike and Buzz and you and yet others there would be.
Who would follow that first footstep that you left upon the sea.

Of dust both stars and we are born and so to all will each return.
But in between, dust gives a heart a need for loves' enduring yearn.
In times' course on cosmic scale all particles are drawn to another one.
And so stars and love set adrift, until once more, all but dust is gone.

Like a hungry shark has loneliness again come to feed upon my heart and mind.
Ravenous and savage it feeds upon a soul that warmth and love has left behind.
Once again a mind and heart that love avoids is to the darkness lead.
Bloodied, mauled and torn to shreds, remnant carcass left floating dead.
Never sated and without remorse it tears, as it feeds there in the empty dark.
Savagely, ever feeding, ever gnawing, ripping into my souls last hopeful spark.
Hungry, starving, ravenous and in frenzy and seemingly never fully fed.
No worth, no value, adrift, no purpose to any futures' plan but still I am not dead.
Razor teeth intent upon taking every ounce of my last mortal dream and hope.
Until mind is convinced that it's only peace is best found in a loop of sturdy rope.
This is the game that shark and loneliness play so often within my heart and mind.
The shark, the loneliness, love or a length of rope who wins I am still yet to find.

She was once my beautiful damsel and I was once her knight....
Then we went to twice a knight and the universe seemed alright.

Me and the guys were cool and cruising,
in my mate Robin's new car.

The cops had slapped a defect notice on it,
and so it was decided we wouldn't venture far.

With Robin at the wheel and I alongside in front,
we headed via back-roads out to an old dirt track.

There was Dale and Steve and Joe and Andy,
and they were all squashed up in the back.

Six teenage boys intent on adventure,
when we finally found dirt road to suit.

I can't recall whose idea it was but Joe and Andy,
were encouraged to climb out onto the boot.

Robin kicked the throttle the car springing off its mark,
fish tailing and raising clouds of dust as it sped upon its way.

I could hear the sound of Joe and Andy screaming,
but I couldn't make out what they were trying to say.

Now some way down the road yells and laughter,
still coming from the guys riding out on the back.

Robin saw the road had been washed away,
a two foot ravine cutting right across the track.

Robin reacted swiftly and stomped hard upon the brake,
I expected to see a cloud of dust but clear as day instead,

Was the startled face of Andy as he did a springing handstand,
from the hood to a perfect landing twenty yards ahead.

Now Joe was a considerably bigger guy,
and depressed indent of roof gave me several tips.

Until Joe slid out onto the windscreen,
giving a human impression of a daytime partial eclipse.

Two thoughts forever are stuck with me ever since that day,
would we have laughed so hard if Robin missed timed the pedal,

But the other one that really haunts and  plagues my mind,
Could Andy's stunt have won him an Olympic gold medal.

Far across the water sits a little Chinese man,
who has his own ideas of life's most desired plan.

On the other side of the ocean is yet another guy,
whose plan doesn't agree with a Chinese minds eye.

Petty is their game but they just don't see it so,
and so they push each other in a destructive to and fro'.

Two school boys being bullies is the policy that they choose,
Both belligerent and stubborn, both determined not to lose.

Surely they must see that the other guy wont ever give in.
Preferring total destruction over allowing the other guy to "win".

They cant see that neither side will ever accept to give,
Both intent to destroy it all than allow us all to live.

All can see it coming but no one dares make a sound,
until the mark of mankind's passing is just craters in the ground.

I see the beauty of you such as no other woman holds,
Cast in radiance and uniqueness by natures precision moulds.

And though others may not see you as my eyes perceive the view.
I live for the grace and the beauty that my dreams perceive in you.

My eyes are drawn to beauty's smile written there upon your face,
like a touch of heaven when we join in love's warm embrace.

I feel my heart skip to match the rhythm of your gentle sigh,
the softness of you near me forcing my every sense to high.

Your sensuous, delicate lips that I am so longing to know and kiss,
where my soul yet sings aloud to make a moment such as this.

I am captivated by every soft curve and all of your alluring charms,
sure my heart will know completeness with you there in my arms.

Two souls content by touching, set on lighting passion's hottest fire,
ignited by the bond of two lovers totally consumed by deep desire.

Feel of naked flesh pressed upon my own bodies now made as one,
with universe as if vanished, all else but us seemingly now gone.

Unified realm of heart, mind and soul's most contented place,
as we lose ourselves to loves inspired intoxicating embrace.

Caught and bound by love's true bond each for the other one.
who knows if one day I will find it, but until then, I dream on.

Born in the age of free love and still paying off the debt.

All lives matter!!

Why is it do you suppose that as a species we have been given the senses to perceive, be curious of and bear witness to fourteen billion years of the wonders of the Universe.... yet we have not the common-sense to know or be assured of our own tomorrow?

Somewhere out there it is quite possible that intelligent life exists... but it certainly isn't us.

Sometimes I remember just how my heart did feel,
and it reminds me how, love used to be something real.
Back in the days my heart and mind were still young.
When I could hope and dream of sharing love with someone.

It seems so long ago and oh so far away.
Years ago before I came to despise each day.
Back in the days my heart and mind were still young.
When I could hope and dream of sharing love with someone.

So many lonely hours trying to find out what went wrong.
When did I become deaf and to afraid of life's sweetest song?
Wish I could go back when my heart and mind were still young.
When I could hope and dream of sharing love with someone.

Life is an empty thing without a love to share.
And a future is nothing without someone to care.
Wish I could go back when my heart and mind were still young.
When I could hope and dream of sharing love with someone.

Once I had a dream that I would know loves embrace.
And love would take us to our own special place.
But my mind and heart are no longer young.
And mind and time tell me there will be no one.

Phase one to have the compulsive need to be close to them.
Phase two to share a desire for someone who inspires your passions.
Phase three to know lust and be unrestrained by needs and desires.

More than just a pleasure seeking and the sharing of intimacy... a craving shared by two.... inseparable... entwined... a mating of spirit and soul.

The evidence of true loves power to make two souls rejoice.

We may not share the same path or length of time on life's journey.... but we do have in common that each day takes us one day nearer to its end.

There is a scream that lives inside born of endless pain.
It takes me down by every thought residing in my brain,
So hard for me to keep a world that resembles even being sane.

A feeling of sad deep despair grown from within my inner core,
I feel it rise again and know that it is here to stay forever more.
So long the question I've asked myself "what do I go on for?"

There must be a reason and there has to be some way...
So many are the wounds that lead me to souls dark decay,
Struggling to find reason to go on even just for one more day.

When you know that love and hope and dreams are long dead,
How to stop the dark thoughts congealing within your head?
What is there left to keep your world sane and a soul well fed?

You know you gave everything and it has all become to tough,
And the face I show now to the world is all a front and only bluff.
When all the future I know lays ahead just cant be enough.

I have become pointless and a soul so depressed....
Not yet expired, but a ghost of who I was, not yet laid to rest.
And by my own judgement I have failed life's every test.

A heart that craves for loves sweet embrace,
for all joy that such love entails.
A mind that bears the scars and wounds,
of when trust and belief in love yet fails.

A heart that longs for shared joy and warmth,
entwined with the passion of one who cares.
Weighted by all the hurt and sad lonely memories,
in a mind that remembers a love it no longer dares.

To love again hearts and minds war is fought,
and frequently though trust in love yet prevails.
Through mind ever conscious there is no one,
the thought by which it constantly assails.

It is said that the saddest love is of an unrequited kind,
and that it leads a soul to deep despair.
Yet I know this to be false for the saddest love,
is to crave love with all you are and to have no one ...
in love to share.

Is it still real if my best memories are not kept by others in them?
What if those dreams and memories are the regrets and nightmares of those with whom I shared the moment?
Am I who I thought I was and am I able to believe in who I am if my memories are not shared?

It is not as sad to die alone.... (relief, escape, freedom, end)
As it is to live alone and die the slow lonely death of never giving the love you wish to share and feel.
It is a sadness that only the bearer can know for the witnesses only ever saw loneliness' outer shell if they even noticed at all.

Let your heart touch mine as mine craves your touch.
Let your soul feel what mine desires and needs so much.

Share with me in what only true love shares.
Share with me what only a joint soul dares.

Eyes for only you with mind and heart enslaved to you.
Come with me where devotion and love compels us to.

A universe with you as the light that guides my future path.
All who follow will know that passion and love is our epitaph.

My heart calls to you as it yet again repeats its lonely prayer.
Mind that feels the emptiness, but yet hopes, that you are there.

Many are the droplets that bead upon the windows pane.
As I look beyond the misted glass at the slowly falling rain.

Low hung wisps of white race upon the grey-est sky.
And puddles form with unheard splash before captivated eye.

The ground is damp and made sodden by the ever steady flow.
And so to now runs a stream that follows where kerb bids it to go.

Leaves upon trees seem now burdened by drops so hard to bear.
Made to shed their cargo by the motions of puff of dampened air.

A distant roll of thunder to accompany the patter on roofs tin.
A symphony by nature heard, whilst warm and dry within.

I look on as melancholy witness through drizzles on the glass.
Melancholy not through rain, but rather, from knowing it will pass.

I have had a little problem for the last four days or so,
of when I go into the toilet I just can't seem to go.

I get myself all seated just as comfortable as I can,
try to make quite certain I am centred on the pan.

I wait for things to happen but nothing seems to start,
no motions seem to occur not even some hint that I might ****.

I decide to try and push it and build pressure by holding breath,
but all that seems to do is put me close to suffocated death.

I grunt and squeak and gasp until an ear popped gasket blows,
all I end up doing is going red and blowing bubbles with my nose.

I tried a change of diet and drank gallon upon gallon of fruit juice,
but still there seems no evidence that anything is coming loose.

I have tried a change of position with my knees against my chin,
but I found it really awkward and ended up falling in.

My belly has gotten very large and feels as tight as a drum,
so much so I contemplate if you can use a crowbar on your ***.

I am sure outside the toilet they are hearing more than mere moans,
Looks I get quite often suggests surprise I've still got any bones.

I know that sometime eventually this thing will have to pass,
I just hope that when it does I can still use paper on my **.

I thought to tell a joke to lighten up and bring a smile to the day.
To bring a little laughter and set my words on out to play.

I started with the Englishman, the Irish guy and a Scot.
But someone called me racist so the first line was all they got.

I then started to tell of a woman in the guise of a blonde joke.
But no sooner had I started all the feminists did I provoke.

As I sought to carry on to bring a smile to someone's face.
I found that all types of what was humour today is out of place.

I find that I am judged a racist and even sexist or a homophobe.
And you can no longer laugh at women or talk of **** probe.

You cant talk of a shuttle **** washed up on a Florida beach.
And any joke about the clergy is well and truly out of reach.

I don't think there is a topic that the world finds hilarious anymore.
Unless that is why Trump was elected and what we have him for.

Happy are so many memories...
But better still is the instance from which they are born.

Sometimes I feel the darkness
as it draws itself yet oh so near.
Shrouds of blackest pitch,
Like a shiver of the spine,
caused by a scream I feel but do not hear.

All pervasive gloom
that shrouds my world to never ending black.
Dragging down both soul and sense,
Like a craven remorseless killer
intent on demonic inhuman attack.

I feel it in my body and I sense it
as it encroaches on my mind.
Taking both warmth and light,
Leaving never ending blackness,
devoid of hope of any kind.

At times the will to fight
has been totally taken away.
Rational mind and tired limbs,
Made to give up all reason
to stand and fight for one more day.

I sense an endless wave that drowns me
in utter dark despair.
Kicking through all defence,
Until all will to live yet one more moment,
evaporates into thin air.

The fight is ever daily
and the waves they come and go.
Random depths to which I fall,
How I survive amidst the darkest waves,
I really do not know.

In days gone by the waves have compelled me
to physically react.
More than one failed attempt,
Still I yet remain by fluke,
compounded by the lessons that I lacked.

I know that I have learned
and can push all normal fears aside.
In life we learn from failures,
And it is chance and not hope,
keeps me safe where I now hide.

The fourteenth day of May approaches and skies are turning grey.
Forty years it will be since the cancer took you away.

You never knew your grand-kids or saw me take a wife.
But you taught me how to live and lead a decent kind of life.

The fourteenth day of May will always bring me oh so low.
It will always mark the first step on the lonely life I now know.

I try to push aside dark memories to recall only good times we had.
I think on how I yet miss you, still oh so proud you were my dad.

The things we would wish to forget become our recurring nightmares, for often they are attached to people we would never choose to forget.
How can you lose only the nightmare when your heart cant forget how good it once felt?

I came upon the page and thought to write of who I am and who I was.
I thought it best to explain the things that people saw when they looked my way.
How I came to be what I see in my own reflection.
I gave benefit of doubt that they would or could then have some understanding. Perhaps naivety was my flaw?
The more I wrote the fewer looked.
Is it simply me or the openness that makes it so?
Is it what they see or the not wanting to really know?
Could it be that honesty is a frightening thing?
Am I better off to keep secrets and carry a facade?
Would then perhaps more be interested in who I am?
Would they then have the time to stop a while?
Or is it simply having seen they see no value?
And yet it is that I still need to fill the page...
and to hope someone will see me and stop a while.

Can my arms hold you, protect you, give you warmth?
Can my lips know the soft touch of yours?... their taste, their wetness.
Can my lips caress yours, gently **** upon yours and my tongue explore them?
Can my hands know the softness of your skin? The warmth and wonder of your smooth enticing flesh?
Can they explore the curves of your body as my lips continue to explore yours?
My lips upon your neck? To trace the gentle soft curve to your shoulder? To your chest, to your *******, to your ******? To kiss a while, to **** and to cherish and worship you?
Can I breathe the scented warm air of your cleavage? To kiss there as my hands trace your soft sensual curves?
Can my lips and hands and eyes know your beauty? Can my senses feast upon your loveliness?
Can I kneel before you? To kiss you intimately, to touch you with firm strokes upon your flesh, thighs, calves, hips? To draw you onto my lips and tongue.
Can I make love to you as a goddess is meant to be desired?
Can I wake beside you? Holding you all through the night? And in the morning can my eyes take delight in your soft beauty?
Can I kneel before you and worship you for the goddess of love and beauty that you are?

If yes please phone 05717 657 7512 and ask for big John.

All I have are the footprints that show where I have been.
Passing natures beauty and all the faces that I have seen.

The empty road ahead seems darker than it ever has before.
My mind whispers to me that it cant do this life much more.

I have seen the things aplenty and I am tired of the view.
My days are filled with replay and there is never any new.

I'm not afraid to end it and it certainly holds little fright.
Yet I see others fighting to survive so to end it cant be right.

A sense of being trapped like a mouse treading upon a wheel.
Just knowing that until the last I breathe that this how I will feel.

Do you know these feelings and the empty lonely days?
To wake upon to the morning to curse the suns new shinning rays?

Like you I know not when or if this today will be my last.
But I wont mourn a life of no future and of only never ending past.

Tired of the expectations of what life compels each and all to do...
And loneliest of all my empty days no one dear to say "I love you".

My life is but a long memory of someone no longer there.
I who have no purpose, destined to vanish as if smoke upon the air.

In thousands they stand to face the demon unseen.
Faceless they are but you know who I mean.

Doctors and nurses, shop keepers and drivers,
that give us yet hope that we may yet be survivors.

Churchill once said "so much to so few"
Now in this time we owe that tribute to you.

Without your brave stand then we all would sure fail,
you give cause for hope that we may yet prevail.

You fight for all that we love and those we hold dear,
Our world owes you so much for facing our fear.

It is a debt that in a lifetime I could never repay
with all of my heart, thank you so much, is all I can say.

How many ventilators can you buy for the price of an Aircraft Carrier?

When young I believed that age and wisdom travelled hand in hand.
But as I grew much older I began to understand.
That what I had thought of as one of nature's golden rules.
In truth it is that as you get older, you just find much older fools.

Hear the call of a lonely heart that knows that love is blind.
Seek for me as I seek for you and perhaps some day we'll find.
Every day you are a world away and are hidden from my sight.
Yet still my heart does cry to you for some comfort day and night.

A world made much more sad and lonely than it even was before.
Lost by distance of uncertain times, greater than some far off shore.
The sound of two hearts calling as they share a dreamers beat.
Never really knowing, yet but hoping, that they will one day meet.

I will choose what it is I want to hear,
I will see only what I want to see.
Thus by doing so I can avoid facing up,
To what is now everyone's new reality.

I will believe what I have always done,
I will ignore all the hints of bad news.
Thus it is by doing so I can avoid having,
Unwelcome things I'd have to choose.

I will shut out all outside voice,
That threatens my imagined safe world.
Thus it is by doing so the glue will hold,
My version of reality wont then become unfurled.

Yes I will select all I want to hear,
and all it is that I may want to see.
By some fake  logic and false illusion,
The outside will have no reach on me.

I am frustrated by those who refuse to understand.
The panic you see from the Governments of the world has true foundation and the measures of isolating, distancing and quarantine are our only effective weapons at this time.
The formula is simple....
Known Deaths/Known Cases x100 = %Death Rate

Published figures as on 7th April... World totals
Known Deaths = 78,268
Known Cases = 1,381,014

The maths gives a resulting figure of 5.6%
Unchecked in a world population of 7 billion (assuming that to be the current figure) would mean more than 390 million deaths.

It is an alarming and fearful figure.
But give it some context... bring the maths to your personal world.
Before the end of the year these things could be so.
At least five in every one hundred people you know would not have made it. Family, friends, colleagues, neighbours.
The numbers explain why herd immunity is not an option of preference. No one knows who will succumb and who will survive. There is no way of knowing.
Keep in mind... the figure of 5.6% is how it stands with all that is being done. Outbreak areas in parts of Italy, Spain, UK and USA show that the virus can be even more lethal than only 5.6%.

I do not write this to cause fear and panic but rather as a persuasion to give understanding to those who refuse to understand the magnitude of what is happening.
Please...
Do what is being asked. Help to save some of those 300 million or more people... some of whom you know dearly. By doing so then something less than 5.6% can be the outcome.

for the 78,268 dreams, hopes and loves the world will miss...

Forty thousand dreams that have come to sudden unexpected end.
Yet millions more tainted by fears with which they must contend.
Who will dream those dreams now that they have gone their way?
Can we hope to dream as we did before when tomorrows pass away?
For now my dream is simple and my hopes and motives true.
When nightmares are over, there are better dreams for me and you.
But if by fickle fates hand my dreams should perish too...
I will hold until my last breath that good dreams return to you.

The air lays still and lifeless giving no leaf a need to care,
No sound of passing traffic or kids laughter in the air.
Everywhere seems silent as if the world has lost its voice,
Even birds seem silent, bereft of song as if without a choice.

So eerie and pervasive is the silence right there outside my door,
Shouting aloud in its hush change to all things that went before.
Long periods of empty air, devoid of usual sounds I once ignored.
Leaving silence etched in mind where fear has seared and scored.

March of last year I posted my first mutterings on HP.
For all the feedback, for all the energy and inspiration, the sharing of thoughts and circumstance but mostly to those who gave me an ear or shared a view... thank you.
You are an inspirational lot.... I am honoured by your company.

In a world of isolation where I have come to live a solitary life,
There is hardly any trial in the new contamination dictated strife.
The way of things and even loved ones we will yet come to bemoan,
To face an uncertain future where we face prospects to yet die alone.
Where is the wisdom and the knowledge our boasting said we had
Seemingly replaced by irrational hoarding and a toilet paper fad.
There is no surprise in the reaction or that people do what they do,
Believing that this is short lived and good times can be returned to.
Fewer friends and loved ones than on the days before,
In a used toilet paper world, on a selfish, remote and lonely shore.

I have long since come to accept that you chose a different way.
I can even say it out loud to myself and my tears will stay away.

Sometimes I am convinced that I am well and everything is fine.
Yet still come days of soft shadow, remembering how you were mine.

From the moment I was born and society taught me how to live.
Expectation was given it's priority and there my energies I did give.

Through culture and my peers I was taught all right from wrong.
And without question or any form of doubt I went right along.

I learnt what I was meant to as society did dictate for me to do.
Becoming fluent and accepted because I shared their social view.

I managed all the toil and trials that was expected of my role.
I gave my every effort to what society said was my goal.

For sure I was born lucky and graced by dint of birth.
Secure, safe and protected from the terrors of this Earth.

I even watched the news each night to have a worldly view.
Despite all I saw, on the morrow, I did as I had been taught to do.

So far from my daily life and not part of my despair.
I got about my life's business and continued on without a care.

I don't know what caused a change, in how I view what life brings.
It seems that luck and randomness determine all varied things.

Through all of this I have come to doubt the culture of my youth.
I see the lives of the majority and doubt my world's so called truth.

I now see the selfish shape of the life that we are taught.
Where looking out for number one is the underlying thought.

My society favours wealth and it has an ingrained need.
To close it's eyes to despair in any form and to service only greed.

My eyes only ever were opened in a very temporary blink.
I feel the guilt and know the shame of how I was shaped to think.

Now without that social purpose that anchored my very sanity.
I feel despair at a world eyes closed, to the value of true humanity.