When the voice of a seventeen year old girl holds more wisdom, sanity and truth than those who lead us.
When our leaders trade a prophet for a profit.
When there is easy money to be made from recovery rather than investment in change for the longer term.
When billionaires with vested interests set the policy.
Devastation and disaster, death and starvation have no political bias.
When will you add your voice and when will it be too late for you?
When eyes and ears give rise to voices that call out in fear for our very world will your apathy hold true?
Close your eyes.
Close your ears.
But even so your house will not be immune.

I sometimes take time to write a few lines of verse.
Quite often to express feelings to prevent them getting worse.
Often I express things that are there as thoughts in my own head.
Sometimes its just things that I feel have needed to be said.
I don't always consider the impact or repercussions of things that I may write.
And I don't seek to make it all rhyme as a way for me to seem all bright.
I find it the best way to express how conflicted I can feel.
Inside my head it helps my thoughts focus on what I see as "real".
You may not understand the emotions or maybe share my train of thought.
But I will write how I think and how I feel even if against things we've all been taught.
Its my way of expressing "truths" that I just need others to try and see.
In part an explanation of why I cant be the way others would like for me to be.
I write these lines as often as I am compelled to want to do.
To give understanding and to express the things my mind perceives as true.
Whether challenge or expression of lies life has forced me to be taught.
I use the writing of these words to patch the walls of my emotional fort.
I write the verse as a glimpse beyond my fragile fortress wall.
I do it so all can see my sanity was dented by its fall.
There is little I can do about the glimpses you may choose to see.
Knowing that what you spy beyond the wall is not every part of me.
The words are how I perceive the world not to influence thoughts in your head.
But maybe...you have some understanding of me... from these words that now are read.

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.

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.

Of darkest obsidian like sharp shards the guilts upon my soul.
Deeply cut the wounds I carry that now make me less than whole.
By choice and deed I know who it is that I have hurt and wronged.
Through consequence of choice I made, my torture has belonged.
A price I paid and yet payment can never recompense.
As soul is tattered in self loathing and I am bereft of all defence.
There is no way to make amends or make a penance for my deeds.
My life has no more meaning and my soul eternally yet bleeds.
I cannot ask forgiveness and of salvation there is none.
For all the things I chose in selfishness, will never be undone.
Maybe priest or God will absolve me by the offering of some chant.
But despise my heart and soul, to forgive myself I cant.

If I could live my life just to repair my mistakes...
To turn left when I went right or right when I should have gone left...
To unhurt those I have hurt...
I think I would be one hundred and eighty nine when I was done.
How can so many lifetimes bear the knowing of me?
Even but briefly.
Cause and effect, choice and consequence.... the physics of human non physicality.

Is life just a board-game dependent on some randomly thrown dice?
Are our lives as we see them or are we trapped like some fake mice?
Do we make our own way based on what we learn and know?
Or are we all just using time as we stumble onto "go"?
Do we ride on ladders taking paths we choose to make?
Or are we all just reaching to slide some fateful snake?
Are we just here to gather immense piles of materials and loot?
Or is that not just the most of all trivial of all pursuit?
Are we playing Ludo set on a board in which we roam?
And are all the other players just out to beat us home?
Are we but just players in an organized wordly mess?
Are we born to pawn or king on a battlefield of chess?
Perhaps you have had those times when you search for some life fix?
You roll your di as best you can but you just never roll a six?
Have you shared kind words with a friend going through life's crap?
And all the time your mind is thinking are we all just playing snap?
Is it all just winning at the ending of the day?
Or are important things the rules by which we choose to play?
Each seem on different boards as we struggle in the race.
No consistency of choice, in time, of hope, nor certainty of place.
What determines pawn or king as I stumble along my way?
And will I know if I'm fulfilled when my board gets packed away?

How cruel to say you loved me as sweetly in my ear.
How cruel it was to hold me as tightly, your body oh so near.

How cruel it was to press your flesh so very close to mine.
How cruel to share a passion when as one we did entwine.

How cruel to share a romance and true lust when on our own.
How cruel to give the softest kisses that my lips have ever known.

How cruel it was to promise that you would always care.
How cruel it was to talk of a future that we would one day share.

The cruelest thing of all that will always haunt my mind.
Is to recall the beauty of it all in the memories you left behind.

Have you felt the darkness in the middle of the day?
Have you felt the brush of ghosts you just cant keep away?
Do you know your value or just wonder at your worth?
Do you wish for somewhere else other than this Earth?
Have you felt your weakness and hidden it inside?
Have you been so low that there is no form of pride?
Do you feel you stand alone and have nowhere left to go?
Do you sense there is no end to the depths of your own woe?
Have you lost the path and felt a falter in your stride?
Have you seen your dreams desert you to vanish as they've died?
Do you know this darkness of which I choose to tell?
Do you know the pain of it and the never ending hell?
Have you groped the dark for a hand you hope is there?
Have you fumbled in the dark for a ghost with time to care?
Do you know the emptiness of this unforgiving space?
Do you feel the staring eyes and so choose to hide your face?
Have you seen in shadow others as by random they pass through?
Have you cowered in the dark understanding they cant touch you?
Do you, as I do wish a light could reach you there?
Do you know the shape of light to bring an ending to despair?

I provided you the key to my destruction when I told you that I loved you.
Too late I saw your betrayal with my eyes so blinded to the beauty of your "truths".
Knowingly and willfully betrayal ever your intended game and love the Trojan Horse you used.
With malice and intent you brought me down whilst whispering lies of love still to my heart.
Not contented or completed in the devastation you continued to yet say you loved me too.
Honey coated blindness to the actions and the deeds of your true purpose.
A greater evil I have never known and am sure no greater could exist.
With intent to destroy an other's heart as if it were a game... no greater evil have I known... than for you to knowingly use my love for you... as the weapon for my annihilation.

Which is the sadder life to lead?
To remember that I loved and was loved and it has passed.
Or to forget I loved and was loved as though it never was?

How do you recall the one you loved and forget that they have gone?

Have you ever felt that need,
for someone to hold and kiss?
Have you wandered through the day
and felt something is quite amiss?

Have you felt it on empty days,
that cry of a heart's endless lonely pain?
Have you fought the thoughts aside,
to find loneliness still fills your brain?

Have you longed for that someone,
who can make the days worthwhile?
Have you wondered if some day,
once again you will recall how to smile?

Have you had those thoughts,
of someone to hold and touch?
Have you cursed you heart and mind,
just for wanting it so much?

Have you had loves good things,
seen them leave or pass you by?
Have you felt love's pain,
until all you have left is to cry?

Have you ever told yourself,
after all those times you cried,
that you don't need or believe in love.
Where in heart and mind you know you lied?

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.

It would seem my dropping out of school has cost me in loves game yet again.
Going with a lovely lady to the towns hottest club...
How was I to know that the sign outside "Liquor at the front and poker out the back" didn't mean what I thought it did.

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.

Have you looked upon a western sky at a certain time of day?
When the endless turning of the world compels the sun to go away.
Have you looked across an open plain with soil of rust red brown?
And seen the brightest evening star burn bright as jewel in crown?
Have you seen the stands of trees fade into the black of night?
And watched them all but disappear as day makes final rays of light.
Have you seen upon the far horizon the shapes of ancient lands?
And watched the changing light show of radiant, fiery bands.
Have you seen the shades of fire change the western sky?
And marveled at all its beauty until it wets your very eye.
Have you taken time to note every shade in fiery hue?
And marveled at flame red clouds upon a sky of pastel blue.
Have you stood and watched the glory as it slowly fades away?
Dont despair and make the time, as it happens every day.

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.

Do you know that place where fears are put away?
Do you know that place where pain holds no power?
Do you know that place where clarity abounds?
I have seen there, been there... at its edge.
I have stepped across its border.
By fates hand was I drawn back.
Where fear holds sway, pain endures and confusion is all.
The door forever ajar... fate can not win every time.
There is a freedom in this that many will never accept.
But knowing and accepting it gives me the strength to fight.

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.

Awake or asleep I do not remember my dreams.
Like you I once did dream.
Long since did my dreams abandon me.
Though I know I once dreamt.
I vaguely recall nightmares and I sense I have lived them.
I know the shadows they left and the darkness now, where once dream was possible.
Perhaps it was that I imagined dreams, for my memories recall once believing I was happy.
Or perhaps that is just my dreams reminding me of their death.
I ponder if my dreams... like my memories... are all of my past.
Are they still dreams and is it still dreaming if they are but memories?

I don't write of things of beauty even though I have seen it.
I don't write of things of joy even though I have felt it.
I don't write of happiness even though I have experienced it.
I don't write of hope even though I once trusted in it.
I don't write of love even though I have witnessed it.
I don't write of sense of purpose even though I once had it.
I don't write of companionship even though I knew it.
I don't write of trust even though I once could do it.
I don't write of belief though faith once made me see it.
I write of despair for once I knew them all.

My words seek ears, seek minds to know that I am real.
To touch the world, to leave some mark on where I passed.
I came, I saw, I was and to hope for nothing more than to know...
Someone noticed even just a moment of it all.

When the last of those you trust have pushed you to the side.
And you can see and think of nothing but the ever rising tide.
When there is no joy left for you and you see no way to turn.
And the pain just sears at you like a ever scorching burn.
When you feel the tears are pressing behind your very eyes.
And you see no hope left to you after failing all your tries.
When your heart is refused and not taken by those you wish to give.
And no matter the miles to the horizon you see nothing compelling you to live.
When all you feel is empty and you hurt way down inside,
And you just have no more tears and there is nothing left of pride.
When all you have left to you is lonely, dark despair,
Keep an eye out for me.... I am already waiting there.

So many poems to inspire and convey every passion.
Expression of every emotion, thought and consciousness of place.
Of all the poetic words ever written none speaks so loud as a famous but anonymous and often quoted Australian line of verse...

" *uck me.... I stuffed it.... its *ucked".

No line has held the heartache, self disgust, resentment and sense of loss and desperate despair so concisely. Its brevity adding to its beauty. A full story in a line.
For non Aussies they may not see its beauty... but for an Aussie its high emotion in a nutshell.

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.

Yesterday   = pass
Today         = D+ (progressive grading)
Tomorrow = Enrollment Pending

I look upon my list of friends arranged out on this page.
And there are people on it from my life's every stage.
There are family in a distant land where I lived once as a boy.
I remember them and love them and they fill my heart with joy.
Family less distant and sometimes close enough to touch.
To my older sisters I love you both so much.
Others there among you from when I was but a kid.
Bonded forever to me because of things once shared we did.
There is one of you who helped in the most practical of ways.
Who provided material things so I could rebuild my future days.
One or two among you who worked right there at my side.
Who stood beside me at times when I struggled on this ride.
Even those among you who only know me through this page.
Who took the time to touch me and helped me face the rage.
One of those among you who passed not so long ago.
As a friend she loved me and as a dear friend I loved her so.
One of you bonded to my heart in the most special of ways.
From memories and then seeing you that has made for better days.
I wanted to thank you all as friends you fill my heart with pride.
I doubt I could have got this far without you standing at my side.

A meeting place for souls.
A place long yearned for.
Where voices of souls can be heard and faces do not matter.
Perceptions long seen voiced out aloud for the first time.
All have voices here, telling and hearing things in whispers and shouts. Confronting, supporting, abrupt and with passion.
Exploring ideas and taking thought to word... sharing, caring, provoking, prompting, inspiring.
Even the darkness exposing hidden corners and giving illumination not just to those who dwell there.
Through different eyes to view and to see things as others do.
To challenge worlds and thoughts and deeds and to be challenged.
Strengthening spirits in common bond and causing them to touch.
Opinions challenged or affirmed, shared, exposed, familiar and the alien.
An expansive view that even Everest could not provide even at its peak.
Horizons expanded, explained, witnessed and encountered.
A world so wide that time would not allow a single soul to travel its vastness and to be witness.
A place where love and hope, fear and sadness through words can take on forms we all can see.
Inspiration, excitement, challenge, discovery and kindred spirits all reside here.
I like it here among these souls with voice and thoughts and ideas.
Too numerous to "like" them all but "like" them all I do.
Beautiful things can be seen for the first time and the eyes of others give me the eyes to see.
Veiled expression of things I have never seen giving hint and glimpses of scenes with meaning to others. Reminding me I will never see it all.
But here I see more than I have in so very long. Sights of laughter, sadness, despair and joy in a mixture so deep. Beautiful souls live in this place and I feel good when among them.

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

When the positives just serve to remind you of how badly you have failed. When the negatives become the norm and the expected. When tears are a constant companion. When self loathing is your reaction to a mirror. When hope and love become just four letter words.
You will know my logic.... you will know my life. You will understand the futility....
I never want any of you to understand. I couldn't wish understanding on you.

Do you think of those who enter into your world every single day?
Do you see the things they do and hear the words they have to say?
Do they influence the way you think and occasionally react?
Are there those among them with-whom you hold a pact?
Have you those you cherish and greet with every kind of joy?
Are there those among them there by the tolerance that you employ?
Do you see them as they really are or as you choose to do?
And when they return the look do they see the real you?
If you changed your path would they follow you on your way?
Or do you know that any change would bring the ending of a day?
Do you see them and in return do they see the real you?
Or do you kid each other to keep the things mutually you give and do?
Would the changing of your step bring something to an end?
And if it did would that be the measure of someone once called friend?
As these people pass and come and go or linger on their way.
Do they really see and hear you and let you influence their day?
Can it all be measured by what we give and take?
And who among them all is there for love and your own sake?
Have these things been tested in the life you choose to live?
Who is there to take from you but will never choose to give?
If you changed your life to take on some new guise.
Would you see friends who stuck with you and witness love with your own eyes?

As I grow much older and my senses begin to fade. My hearing never good.
I have come to ponder how we feel and think so alike in many ways.
Are we not the same? Do we not share dreams?
I have come to think we are all one soul.
So many people have shouted this at me over time.... "You are an Our Soul"....
I have come to believe it and I think they are too.

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 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...

Old Macdonald's farm used to contain many happy animals...
New Macdonald's farm used to be called the Amazon and only contains beef cattle now.

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.

So, yet one more year is added to the pile.
Heavy laboured breath before going this next years mile.

Years put in my past that attest to battles I have fought.
Eyes that hold a sadness to reflect my deepest thought.

Years that blur as one I do endlessly compile.
With no pause or break to rest but just a while.

Never really finding what it was I sought.
Aged and withered visage from the lessons life has taught.

Untold years ahead lay hidden as I struggle upon this trial.
Trudging further on in a beaten, battered and weary style.

Days ahead giving rise to new reason to feelings so distraught.
Yet one more year, in the uselessness I find that I am caught.

Long forgotten days that once gave cause to smile.
Leaving ahead but sadness and mistakes to reconcile.

Why does time push us ever forward when we are the sum of all our yesterdays? Every tomorrow that once was and will be is destined to become yesterday? And what of yesterday when tomorrows are no more?

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.