A Weighty Problem

On 12 Apr 2014 By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Regret, TerrorLeave a comment

Writhing against the binding
From weights on my feet I sink
The pain in my chest is blinding
As I struggle for air and to think.

I could have been a much better person
But I wasn’t and I find myself here
I’ll be sitting by Davy Jones locker
Drowned, it’s been one of my fears.

I’m almost at bottom of the ocean
In front of my name they’ll write ‘late’
And because I was always a ‘bad ‘un’
With Old Nick I now have a d…

©Joe Wilson – A Weighty Problem 2014

The image appeared in Punch 10 December 1892

The Juggernaut

On 12 Apr 201412 Apr 2014 By jovisgoesIn old age, Poetry, Point of View, political, PovertyLeave a comment

The Juggernaut that is life marches on
Never stopping for the stragglers on the way
Those less able to cope with the speed of it all
Get further disheartened every day.

But we set up a system to help them
It’s the bureaucracy that now runs our lives
And you get yourself sucked right inside it
Trying to wrestle with the rules it contrives.

But the vulnerable still struggle daily
With the system’s strange hoops we jump through
It’s as if it’s made complex on purpose
And it feels like your feet are in glue.

I’ve a neighbour who can never get out much
And she’s old and not too well off
So she has to decide if to eat or stay warm
And no heating is bad for her cough.

In the end what you find is the Juggernaut
Is the system itself and its weight
With its efforts to grind down the people
And an appetite we just can’t sate.