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AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS & WRITERS FOR PEACE
The World And Its Soul (Part II) by Allen Jesson

[Above] Photo of Allen Jesson by Jill Maidens, 2003.

Allen Jesson


The World And Its Soul (Part II)

I have been blessed and cursed with perception,
because I can see what life has in store,
and my dreams of eternal peace,
seemed to have been dashed for ever more.
I have four beautiful children,
My God! What sort of life have I given them?
A world full of hatred?
With hopes and dreams condemned?
I have this dreadful feeling,
that we, as one, are on the edge,
and peace to you my fellow man,
is what I really want to pledge.
But how can life carry on?
With this cancer held within?
Without freedom of speech and movement,
where on Earth can you begin?
And when I think of my children,
from new born to troubled teenage,
how do I love them on the one hand,
and contain this burning rage?
I walked with my youngest son today,
a beautiful spring day in all its glory,
but the sun had lost its golden touch,
it had lost the magic in its story.
I keep trying to look for the positives,
and look for hope on the other side,
but then I cry me a river,
and gee, how I've cried.
I do hope for peace,
but I know we must do our battle first,
we need to satisfy our anger,
we need to quench our bloody thirst.
And hope springs eternal,
and may these days into history fade,
and may we all be very proud,
be proud of the roles that we've played.
Today, I took my four year old to the beach,
and this maybe, comes as no surprise,
because I saw the answer to our dilemma,
when I looked straight into his eyes.
He didn't care too much about what had gone,
but he did care about the sand in his shoes,
and then I thought about his tomorrows,
because he has literally everything to lose.
We all still have that hate and anger,
but we need to temper that callous steel,
we need to look at our family,
and think of how others might feel.
Retribution won't be denied,
but we need to dilute with common sense,
we need the world to survive,
we still need our children's innocence.
Love is stronger than hate,
and love and justice will prevail,
and I hope my children's children,
learn from and live to tell this tale.
So, I am still bitter,
and angry on a whole,
but we need to rebuild, not destroy,
the World and its Soul.

About the Poet Allen Jesson

In 1998 I hooked up to the Internet and purchased a book "How to build your web-site in 24 hours". Four months (!) later, I had my first web-site up and running and waited for the mass of visitors to come and view my work. It was then I struck on the idea of writing poems for charity, because I had already started writing poems for friends and family's weddings, birthdays and anniversaries. I approached a couple of "Free Sites" to feature my site and was literally flooded with requests. So much so, we formed (Poets For People) of like minded poets who gave their time for charity. We did this for a couple of years but became increasingly frustrated with people who would receive the poem and then we would hear nothing back whatsoever, not so much as a thank you. So I decided to "commercialize" the site and charge people up front (I then donate 25% of the proceeds to charities). This has worked really well and the popularity of the site is outstanding. A Gift Of Poetry is now attracting over 10,000 visitors per day and is growing every month!
   [Above] Photo of Allen Jesson by Jill Maidens, 2003.

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