If wishes were horses the devil would ride

He’d flay them with cruel whips and cut at their hides

Their strides he would lengthen with means all most foul

And scare their souls witless with a blood-freezing howl.

Those wishes are craven, all carved from regret

They weigh down our spirits, we cannot forget

all those lives we would live if times they had changed

and granted desires, hopes and dreams we’d arranged.

Like soldiers in battle ordered and neat

We planned our bright futures, could not wait to meet

the glorious high-life brilliantly displayed

Now disappointed we curse at the path, disarrayed.

Life is not like a spreadsheet, it’s wrinkled and rough

The devilish detail is knotted and tough

It will consume us in moments, time will speed past

Until we’re sighing our last breath, dismayed and aghast

at the time we have wasted on the roll of the dice

For at the end of the last day, no-one lives twice.

******

This poem came to me (yet again) on my travels on the London Underground last week. We were all herded out of the station as a man had suffered a heart attack and died on one of the platforms. It got me thinking about how there are no second chances, that we, a bunch of commuting strangers probably knew of his death before his own family – I found that fact on its own to be desperately sad. I wouldn’t choose to die in a London Underground station, in public – but that’s the point, we don’t often get to select the when, where and how of our death. So this, this is about making the most of every part of your life, because you really don’t know what’s lying in wait for you. Just don’t waste it, whatever you do… 

Please do visit the dVerse Open Link Night for examples of some very fine poetry indeed – and be inspired… Join us! You can link up later at 3pm EST – or whatever that works out to, wherever in the world you may be…