By Walter Jones (Age: 71)
Copyright 02-25-2014

We create our own hell, some of us will never escape.

What is life what was bought what was lent?

Picture set, typewriter in a view of a window, a shadow figure appears to be a woman.
Sharp flash of light fills the room for but a moment

So what is fear and what is love, body quick but not quick enough, hearts they play in song.
Who is right yet you know you are wrong.

Money makes evil sing, and trips of fate come again, nothing that will ever end
Raped by love, which will follow, who will lead? Mind cries in pain, watch the sun, feel the rain; touch of life calls a body home. Drunk and drugs love to roam.

She at mirror stands, sees one face, yet many men. Each a price they paid. Sin a practice, wages paid. Mother dear, what is the cost? Body or soul, both lost. In fading light,
that let in the sun, that captured your night, your body wrinkled, they bought your mind, a soul upon a broken bed, you alive, they have been long dead.

A pastor stops to pray, in your eyes he turns gray, no magic left to save, only old bones that heaven has been paved, a side walk to reality, a presence for passion and hunger sung, last step single rung, choir alone, bell rings, single shot shotgun sings.

What was your gift you left, a note signed in red, if blood is what I am about, then the alley won, and the cats sing, roaches will wear my diamond rings, pimp he is hung to dry, no more stories no more lies.

A deep laugh from the dark, you cannot die, I will not allow, your hell is here.

Rolled to stretcher taken away…………… flashing lights siren scream.
Not a joke, reality.

 

Comments on this Article/Poem:
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        05-20-2015     Cynthia Baello

“We create our own hell…” is a tragic truth for us all and yet we also cause our own redemptive rain and rainbow, be our own key out of the prisons we put ourselves into. This is a very human and honest view of life -dreamed, lost, recovered, lost again, and finally, assessed. The last lines take the reader farther and opens us to view the final door or “Exit”, which, as we entered into the world, we also go through it alone. Profound, pithy, and thought-provoking write on life’s realities.


         08-23-2014     Mervin H. Dochterman

Dear Walter,
Title very fitting. Life seems to me to be a proving ground. For many it proves to be hell. Your story tells it like it can be. But it leaves me feeling a little chilled about who it might be about. Never the less you told it well.


         05-01-2014     Ghana (gina) A.

Don’t know how to phrase what I am thinking. This story of reality that you wrote here has really left me tongue-tied. All I can say right now is that, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”


         03-27-2014     Anthony Lane Stahlhut

As we travel through this life we make choices. Sometimes those choices choose us, but we take the road we travel. The tears lost and the cost of missed plans. Life is not fair and even a choice to end it can backfire. Lots of thoughts about this, but in the end we will stand before God, when God is ready.


         03-05-2014     Mae Futter Stein

I agree with you Walter, Hell is here, so there for we must keep ourselves free from it. A great write about what is fear and what is love. It makes one think a little. We all have to die someday, so we need to accept that, and whatever gifts we leave, travels on to the living. Your
thoughts are deep. Reality is life and death.
Thank you for a most intelligent read.

Hugs….


         03-01-2014     Frank Fields

Chilling, my good Walt. Perhaps because it rests too closely. Perhaps because the roaches as final victor just seems wrong.
Perhaps….*brushes away a tear of sadness.*

I go now to recapture my golden brush.

Frank 🙂


         02-26-2014     Susan Brown

Reality for many lives in the saddest of stories. I remind myself in the hard moments, love doesn’t die just people do. This viewing is a good example of how strangers can make the best supporting connections by listening and then telling, sometimes. Sharing in verse this personal tragedy is my idea of backing their earthly play. It is my hope not all their days under the sun were like their last. As you say…here…reality is no joke.
Susan