Month: Jan 2014

He Remembers

On By jovisgoesIn Personal, Poetry1 Comment

He remembers
back to a time
when the black dog
hung around his neck
like a heavy yoke, he
could never be rid of
the terror that the pain
would not someday return
to seek him out and strike
him down again, and the knowing
how close he had come to succumbing
to the excruciating pain of the blood
pouring out of his brain and down his
spine only to lodge in his vertebrae.

He remembers edging closer to the crowded
platform’s edge too filled with fear to realise
the probable selfishness of what he was about to
do, only vaguely aware of where he actually was but
just able to register that touch on his right arm
and the voice that quietly whispered to him “I don’t
really think you want to do that.” He remembers turning
round to see who had said it and seeing that there was just
a crowd of commuters all going about their business, of the
owner of the voice there was no sign, but it had been enough, it
had been enough to make him realise where he was for the moment
passed and he made his way back, back to the arms of the woman who
had always loved him, and who had carefully, lovingly nursed him back to
health over such a long time, and he wept, he put his head on her gentle
shoulder and he wept as he had never wept before, he wept for all pain
he still felt and he wept for all the selfish pain he would have caused this
woman had he let himself fall, for that surely had been his intention.

©Joe Wilson – He remembers…2014

The Nuclear Department

On By jovisgoesIn Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

Lonely is the waiting room at the hospital Nuclear department
Everyone there is lost in their own private thoughts
We’ve all come to this place, and we’re looking for answers
To the pain and the questions these answers are sought.

The doctor comes, the tests begin, the isotope injected in
And then the scan, the gamma rays, but answers come there none.
I’ll be back again in three weeks time to do it all again
To see if anything is leaking or clogged, or actually just – gone.

©JRW2014

thoughts

On By jovisgoesIn Fun, Poetry1 Comment

a man needs a study
and a study I have
where I hide from the world
with my thoughts.
I write them all down
and think them all through
they go down through my fingers
that’s how my work grew.
some are quite big thoughts
yet more still are small
some of them don’t bear
much thinking at all.
but they all get assembled
in some sort of fashion
and get moved into poems
in my kind of  passion.

©Joe Wilson – thoughts 2014

First Snow

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, PoetryLeave a comment

There’s a leaf on a branch on a tree in my garden
It’s a solitary leaf, as the rest have all gone
It must have hung on and hung on like Tarzan
For as I say it’s now just a one.

The strong wind out there just never seems to tire
It blows me so cold and with such force
So I’ll sit and I’ll write by my lovely log fire
Till the wind finally changes it’s course.

Winter’s coming and with it we’ll be getting some snow
Though we don’t get it as bad as some other folks do
But our love for it changes as the older we grow
And we feel the cold that much more too.

©JRW2014

The Table, and my Friend

On By jovisgoesIn Friendship, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

I made a friend in May, it was  a long long time ago
In nineteen ninety four, that’s twenty years or so
By the door to a hospital we chatted and generally chewed the fat
Him there after a heart attack, me a by-pass, and that was that.

A table is what we spoke of and the fact that I needed one
He said, ” I’ll make one for you, but a condition, there’s just one
I’ll make you your new table and you must help me where you can.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d walked into, but I agreed to my new friend’s plan.

So together we laboured at it, him working at his trade
Before long we’d made a table, even rails with carvings made
I’m not much of a carpenter, to think I am is daft
But it was a genuine pleasure, seeing my friend alive at his craft.

Time has passed on so very much, a long time since that May
My wife and I sit by that table every single day
It’s withstood things you’d not believe and yet it is still game
And the friendship that was born that day, well that has done the same.

©JRW2014

Schools Out

On By jovisgoesIn Children's, Family, Fun, PoetryLeave a comment

Up we go, up the stairs
To sleep or dream or play with bears
Under cover with ‘secret’ lamps
Beds turn into night time camps
Where special messages are passed about
“Only in whispers, you mustn’t shout.”
’cause we’re asleep our parents think
Our tired red eyes are on the brink…

Then “wake up children, time to go,
one more day at school you know.”
Off we race to get to class
To take some tests we hope to pass
Then running home at end of day
Homework, tea, and then we play
amazing games in the weekends
having fun with all our friends.

©JRW2014

Mrs Pruitt

On By jovisgoesIn old age, Poetry3 Comments

The old hands don’t dust any more for Nell Pruitt
Since arthritis set in they just cannot do it
She shuffles through the flat with the aid of a stick
She was a proud working woman and it makes her feel sick.
To ask for the help that they don’t want to give
She’s certain that they’d prefer her not to live.

Nell had worked hard through the Second World War
One of the girls making bullets and more
Lots of her friends had gone off to the fight
Of some of them that was Nell’s last ever sight.
But she survived thankful and got married to Dan
Outliving their children was not part of the plan.

Dan passed away when he was just sixty two
Nell cried for a long time not able to move
Eventually though she worked her way through it
She was made of stern stuff old Mrs Nell Pruitt
And she did love the garden where she spent most of her time
Growing herbs for her friends, mainly rosemary and thyme.

Now the years have moved on and Nell’s hands are much worse
She looks on them just as another life’s curse
She’s seen the young doctor who’s treated her well
Not holding out hope from his face she could tell
So she shuffles about trying hard not to think
As the pain’s getting worse and Nell’s starting to sink.

©JRW2014

Death by Violence

On By jovisgoesIn Personal, Poetry, Point of ViewLeave a comment

Some people just don’t bloody care
They see injustice with ghoulish stare
But being beaten about the head
Lying bloodied and left for dead
Can leave you a cynic of humankind
Of passers-by whose gaze is blind.

Am I not human like you lot
As I lie here midst blood and snot
Do you not care a damn for me
This isn’t how it used to be.

But no help comes, I’m left instead
I’ve drawn last breath – and now I’m dead.

©Joe Wilson – Death by Violence…2014