Poems

Unfulfilled

One second is the time it takes you

To read this line.

The time it takes you

to decide to do it tomorrow.

To decide to put faith in the future, the next second

that will never come.

The future is a great and terrible thing,

You think.  

It consumes you,

Makes you plan ahead,

And takes away the endless opportunities you have in the second

that you have in your hands.

Precious and Fleeting.

Just like the time you looked past the average looking girl

For the perfect ten that you never asked.

Just like the bus ticket you got

instead of a half decent car.

Just like the party you didn’t go to

because you had to study.

Just like all the times that you hit snooze

on your alarm clock.

Just like your bright future

that will never come.

The time thrown away

with both hands.

And in the second you have at this moment,

There is nothing.  

Save the silence of

Unfulfilled life.  

The Wailing Wall

There is a wall in Jerusalem

It is old, yellow at dawn and dusk

and pale in the afternoon

it is crumbling.  

Cracks running down it,

like the tears it sheds

Never ceasing.

The cement between the bright orange blocks

is non existent.

In the space where it should be,

there are papers.  

The papers all have prayers on them.  

Wishes never granted

Questions never answered

And requests for God to look after those

loved ones gone.

All of the loved ones hold up the wall.

The prayer notes their hands

keeping the bricks in place

Holding up one choice brick are

Jakob Wiesel/468325

on yellowed paper, discolored by time

Sgt Ari Ravshan,

in shaky handwriting with fresh tear stains

Little Sarah, Light of My Life.

In slanting handwriting, that had time put into it.

Uriel, Who saved us all.  

Look after them Lord,

All the people implore

And they send the names to the wall

Which wails evermore

Never My Fault.

Whenever ill fated things happen

It’s not my fault,

Whatever it is,

It’s another man’s doing,

Whatever it is,

It’s the work of God,

None of it is my fault.  

Not the failures I’ve wrought.

Not the people I’ve hurt.  

Not the things I have broken.

Not the people that I let down.

There’s always some excuse  

Convoluted and vague.

This time is no different.  

Whether this time it’s

someone hurt,

or a debt not paid

It’s still never my fault.