Month: Apr 2015

When Mum darned our socks…

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Heartache, Love, ParentsLeave a comment

Thinking back yet again to my childhood
And the shoelace I couldn’t quite fasten
To the many ways Mum used to help me
With those little skills parents pass on.
Six children to love and she really did
She would though, she was our Mum
As well as soothing our often cut knees
She cooked all the food for our tum.
She’d darn our socks and wash our clothes
And iron things we don’t iron now
Then all of it would just disappear into drawers
As if done by magic somehow.
But Mum didn’t have it anyway easy
Dad died at just fifty-two
And Mum struggled on and raised us alone
But at night-time she cried, we all knew.
As the new day began there would be not a sign
Of the heartache her nights brought to her
She got on with the task of raising her brood
To her feelings she’d rarely refer.
Dad had grown vegetables to feed us
He grew dahlias for my mother, his love
They’ve both been long gone now from this place
Now they stroll hand in hand up above.

©Joe Wilson – When Mum darned our socks…2015

Riding a bike with my dad…

On By jovisgoesIn Bicycles, Family, Fun5 Comments

I’m thinking now of my childhood
Of Dinky toys and a bright shiny trike
I travelled for miles going nowhere
On that beautiful three-wheeled bike.
It even had a boot on the back
Like a bread bin between the wheels
That I used to fill with books and toys
Only opened to best friend’s appeals.
The bike was bright red and I loved it
I raced round on it every day
Until that time when I was just too big
And the bike was taken away.
I missed that old red tricycle
It had been my companion for a while
But the two-wheeled cycle that Dad got
Soon turned my lips up in a smile.
It was a second-hand bike and quite grown-up
Hand-painted the darkest maroon
And I rode it for miles, this time with my dad
But it’s fun-giving days went too soon.
My next bike was blue, and a racer
Derailleur gears numbered ten
I wanted to ride out again with my dad
But he’d cycled his last before then.
My dad rode a bike for the whole of his life
Yet he never reached fifty-three
When I’m on a bike now, cycling along
I think of him riding with me.

©Joe Wilson – Riding a bike with my dad…2015

dum vita est spes est…

On By jovisgoesIn Carrying-on, inspiration4 Comments

Mental absorption tires
As life continually inspires
Info grabbed for added strength
Keeping dotage at arms length.
Thinking thoughts for thinking’s sake
Mind in action as we wake
Reading books, writing words
Digging gardens, watching birds.
Adding grist to our brains mill
To keep on going we’ve the will
Brains reluctant to slow down
Till body’s stuck beneath the ground!!

©Joe Wilson – dum vita est spes est…2015

The sometimes unkind weave of life…

On By jovisgoesIn Hearing loss, Love, pain, trauma4 Comments

She looks in the mirror and there she sees
All the hurt and the pain of her yesterdays
Yet the laughter too, and all of the joy
And she wistfully smiles in a way almost coy.

Life for her had never been terribly kind
Yet she still felt that it was a gift, in her mind
Her kindness a legend felt deeply by some
To others, never simply a wife or a mum.

She thought she could still feel the cuts of the knife
As she looked back, just this once over her life
She remembered what had had to be taken away
And the reasons though, why she was still here today.

And though she’d never felt the least singled out
She sometimes just wanted to scream and shout
Then she went to her sun-lounge where it was much warmer
And prepared yet again to face this new trauma.

The sound had gone right out of her days
It was the hardest thing she felt she could face
And try as she might to live with this…thing
She so missed the sound when the blackbirds all sing.

Some of us take such things for granted I know
Never imagining that it would ever just go
To see one you love in this now soundless state
Makes you graciously thankful it isn’t your fate.

One day…we hope.

©Joe Wilson – The sometimes unkind weave of life…2015

(This is very personal therapy, it is much more feelings, than quality.)

Only the brave…

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry6 Comments

There were so many of them, and they were so ill
But he was a nurse and he went of free will
Into the heart of Ebola-filled houses
Full of sick husbands and children and spouses.
In extraordinary suits that covered the body
With death a reward for doing it shoddy
They covered up everything one’s eye could see
This image is of courage to people like me.
But if you should think that it wasn’t too bad
Let me dispel those fool thoughts that you might have had
For many of the nurses and some doctors too
Died along with their patients, as some brave people do.
This nurse was infected like others before
But he’s fully recovered and gone back to help more.

©Joe Wilson – Only the brave…2015
A small tribute to William Pooley, a nurse who survived
being infected with Ebola and returned to Sierra Leone.

Were we really all in it together…

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, fat-cats4 Comments

The natural home of the poet
Is not among society’s elite
But away from the riches and finery
And the fat-cat country seat.

We’re the eyes for the one who’s the underdog
The one struggling hard for his kin
The one who lost out when they took all the jobs
Who stands in the food queue again.

We’re the questioning voice of the sickly
While hospitals have wards that are closed
Who wonder why governments say ‘We all spend more!’
And ponder where it’s been disposed.

We have Portakabin classrooms that just shouldn’t be
And walls full of mould in our schools
Yet pay and pensions in the Westminster bubble
Go up yet again, as we’re treated as fools.

It’s quite true we don’t wander around with the rich
For our hearts and our minds are elsewhere
We’re keeping a watch on corruption at large
And versing your created despair.

©Joe Wilson – Were we really all in it together…2015

The silence…

On By jovisgoesIn Deafness, Love, Silence2 Comments

I ache to hold you in my arms, my love you are divine
To quietly reassure you, that all will soon be fine
And fill your head and heart with hope, for that would seem so kind.

But life can be quite cruel at times, as you my love have found
And though I tell you of my love, you cannot hear a sound
We will not quit, we’ll persevere, we beat it to the ground.

Darling one day, it will return, you’ll, hear the blackbirds sing
And you will then move on my love, from this, so silent Spring
The Summer will be warm and kind, and music it will bring

©Joe Wilson – The silence…2015

This is for my beloved wife.

The world is our oyster…

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry2 Comments

He cast his hands up in the air and said ‘let there be light!’
And sunshine grew before His eyes revealing wondrous hue
But He alone could see the day and see the dark of night
So midst the stars He caused to live, a planet of green and blue
And on this planet there were put trees, for air that we have breathed
He found that He was satisfied, what wonders He perceived.

So many stars would fill the sky, so many moons would too
Then winds flew from the heavens, to spin them all around
And people he put on this Earth, this place of green and blue
Yet creatures first he let to roam till they stood on dry ground
Thus slowly man developed, and they settled far and wide
Then headed from the oceans in such increasing tide.

And when man looks up to the skies to search the stars above
He sees the soul inside each one and knows if they are good
He looks into the hearts of men and searches for the love
Would mankind ever realise, could it be understood
He put them here to nurture Earth, to tend and love his world
But man has rather lost his way as his arrogance unfurled.

We put our Earth in danger, we care for just ourselves
Fighting wars that ravage land that cause more conflict still
We take more air than we put back, we pack food on the shelves
Yet see another starve to death while others are so ill
But look up to the heavens and take in all that magic
And try to ease the burden and save the world from tragic.

©Joe Wilson – The world is our oyster…2015

And so it goes…

On By jovisgoesIn business, Electioneering, Politics, poor, richLeave a comment

So round they come again, selling their wares
Trying to convince you the worth of the shares
Telling you all of the wonders they’ll do
When we are in power, we’re working for you.
It’s a great con of course, they just want your vote
Post all elections, folk don’t get a note
To say how important that cross was you made
All hopes for the future are surely, put-paid.

The rules are stark and simple, and this is how they go
One side’s for the people, the other’s for business & co.

It more expensive, the challenge, of looking after folk
The side that’s into business sees the poor as just a joke
Some say even she, that woman called of iron
Was kinder to the nation, but that’s a bit of a try-on.
She tore the heart from where they’ll never come back
Under the same yoke again, and we’re under attack
And of course there are several new ways we can think
Yet if we don’t get change soon, we’re all going to sink.

The rules are stark and simple, and this is how they go
One side cares about you, the others don’t, you know!

©Joe Wilson – And so it goes…2015