There but for fortune …
before your spring flower wilts
and deathly cold makes you shiver
don’t let your desire for quiet numb you,
’cause there but for fortune go you, or I
you walk down the dirty city streets
not seeing the homeless and weary …
you hear the shouts from next door
ignoring he drinks and beats his wife …
you religiously watch the evening news
so full of horror, yet you’re numb:
a mother killed her own child today,
then guilty jumped to meet her death …
a man lost his job and home
then shot himself in early dawn …
our bombs fall on a foreign city
killing randomly at night …
wilted lives gone stale and bad
“others” shiver in unbidden horrors,
hidden in your desire not to see …
you forget that yours is just good fortune.
© G.s.k. ‘15
3 Word Wednesday
The words for Three Word Wednesday were: wilt, shiver and desire
Another version of “There But for Fortune” which I’d never heard:
This poem was inspired by one of my readers. Over the past week, she’s had occasion to write: “there but for fortune …. ” and today I just couldn’t let it pass without reflecting on the song .. and the differnt aspects of our world today, where there but for fortune may go you or I … Here’s to Jen from Blog it or Lose it! with many thanks.
Bastet and Sekhmet's Library 
So very deep my dear..makes one thing alright! Beautifully penned, cara x
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Thanks … Jen has said at least three times in a very short time, in comments to my work “there but for fortune” and so it got under my skin 😉 I’m really glad you enjoyed it.
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I did and read it a few times too:)
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Have I been repeating myself THAT much? Oh dear! Sorry! But — at least a really moving, really well-written poem was born as a result. 🙂
The wheel of fortune — always turning — we’re all two steps from disaster — so we need to be more open and more sympathetic, don’t we?
Great work, Georgia — and thanks so much for the kind words, too. 🙂
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I think that perhaps I’ve been repeating certain subjects that kind of lead the way open to that particular comment .. I really do hope you enjoyed it. I wrote it then rewrote it and I’think it might do still with a little more of a polish. Thanks for the inspiration!
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Oh, I do love it!!!! And glad to provide the inspiration.
Speaking of inspiration -there’s a ghazal in the dungeon. [Yes, hell might have just frozen over.] LOL
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YOU … a ghazal! … My word … now I’ll have to write a fordjwhatever … or one of those lovely Filipino poems …. Just teasing .. I’m off to open my mail box and will jump right over!
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Very deep – great work, Georgia
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One of my favorite mantras is ” There, but by the Grace of God, go I ” .
Outstanding piece.
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Thanks 😀 lovely response!
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Words’re flowing as song, and yes, really penetrating. Powerful gratitude line: ‘you forget that yours is just good fortune.’ ~ Thank you!
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Very welcome and I thank you!
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There but for the grace of always runs through my thoughts too…it is good that we have such beliefs in a collective consciousness…we can build our own little hells (well, speaking for myself) but really…compared to out there…it is far from true suffering
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I hear you … we all sometimes get wound up in our own world … but outside our front door .. it’s often so bad for it to be unimaginable.
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