Married life – but not as you know it…

bloody knife

She sits alone in darkened rooms
No longer the sound of his footsteps near
Where once her heart would skip a beat
She sits in hatred and sheds no tear.

How fine and charming he’d seemed back then
How bright their future mapped out in joy
How quickly she’d learnt of his violence
How soon she’d become his toy.

A promise of better had long ago seemed
Better by far than the life she’d recall
Yet after the night of the day that they’d wed
Promises were broken, it was no fun at all.

And now here she sits in these cold darkened rooms
She quietly sits as she ponders her life
For one day he hurt her, he just went too far
And she stole his last breath with her knife.

Time passed, and our tale is repeated
Again and again, and yet again
And each time the ending is exactly the same
She’d always just leave the remains.

There’s a strong smell of death and decay in the air
The body was just left on the floor
The stench is the same as in the other three rooms
Where she stabbed and then just locked the door.

I visited the old town via an advert
From a woman wanting to be a new wife
But the local folk warned that I’d be number ten
So I fled…I still value my life.

©Joe Wilson – Married life – but not as you know it…2016

This is just a bit of fun…of course. 😉

An excess of pride…(two sonnets which can be read individually, but my intention is that you read them together as a single poem.)

injured-child

 

For life is not a young man’s game
To flutter like moths around a flame
Yet as we age the larger scene
Will leave the clues for us to glean.
And in maturing as we do
With friends right there to help us through
It’s clear, though some may need a shove
The only thing that counts – is love.

And of the world in which we live
So much war, who can forgive?
And yet forgiveness is a start
More men need Mandela’s heart
A blood-soaked land he turned to loam
By finding peace as he walked home.

——————————–

And so full circle back to dust
Disposed of with respect we trust
Earth to generation new
With baited-breath, what will they do?
For surely now they see the light
As love gets lost in vicious fight
And yet it could with care reside
If foolish men had far less pride.

For battles now need not be fought
If peace not power were what men sought
As children die along the way
Never to see a better day.
Look in their tiny saddened eyes
Sit down and talk, and compromise.

©Joe Wilson – An excess of pride…2016

Should we carry on…

It’s sometimes
so hard
hard to breathe
hard to focus
hard to see any way forward
so hard to want to live.

And yet…

There is still
so much to live for
a child struggling to understand
another thinking she does but hiding sadness
a man so brave but yet so pained
a woman so hurt by loss she cries
she cries herself to sleep at night
and you, a duty to help despite yourself.

And you
and you…
what of you?

Can you make your way again?
through all of this pain…

Will you ever be happy?
Again!

Life
is surely a mystery
and we
can only ever
do our best…

©Joe Wilson – Should we carry on…2016

Utter whimsy…

The first line is the powerful greeter
You see it should set the poem’s meter.

He set off writing in pentameter
At that was his own diameter
Or did he really mean parameter
Bugger, he felt like such an amateur.

His lines were never very long
His mind just wasn’t all that strong
And lost amidst poetic throng
Perhaps they equated to boring song.

But yet the pen moves over page
And words flow over lines like age
And though they’re never really sage
He does his best to you engage.

©Joe Wilson – Utter whimsy…2016

Memories…

Recall a memory and have a smile
Shuffle off the tragic thoughts for a while
And open up your mind to joy
Feelings these days you don’t employ.
For you can see such times you laughed
Till sadness swept through like a draught
But happy memories can yet sustain
A heart that feels so riven with pain.

A holiday snap in Trearddur Bay
Everyone laughing, such a wonderful day
Where happiness spread through childish fun
A good time enjoyed by everyone.
Such thoughts I’ll hold for evermore
I was so lucky, of that I’m sure.

©Joe Wilson – Memories…2016

It was such a great holiday.

His pride…

For despite all that we feel
Even in our blackest of moments
We are not alone…and yet
It is always that most difficult of things
To say – help me, help me please.

And were a man to even note
How hurt he really felt
He’d wrap himself within himself
And cry right where he knelt.

For man is such a foolish thing
His pride forever in his wake
As sees he help as weakness
And only given for pity’s sake.

Such tender words are offered
But cold his foolish soul
Instead of reaching to that touch
He resolutely keeps control.

Until the wreck falls down in tears
And weeps his life of pain
Yet someone always helps him up
As once more she is there again.

And finally he’ll realise
Indeed, we’re not alone
His grief is shared by many souls
it’s not just his to own.

©Joe Wilson – His pride…2016

This Sunday…

Vicky (McMillan)
Vicky

Sunday, and my garden offers me privacy
I sit drinking essential coffee and I cogitate
About all that has happened, all we have lost
The bottles of whisky, my own body’s cost
And I ponder some more and feel second rate.

I wish that you’d known the muse of my life
For so many people loved my beautiful girl
Her courage and her resolve so strong
Friends all say how she was loved for so long
In my last film of her she’s dancing a twirl.

I forced myself , I’ve had to, I really have
To stop drinking whisky every night
I think she’d say I was bat-shit crazy
To spend so much time drinking and seeing life hazy
So I’ve stopped because I know it’s so right.

So I’m digging a hole, in the ground, in the garden
And the sweat runs so heavy down my back
It’s a hole, just a hole, there’s nothing going in
But it’s helping me a little, and perhaps I’ll get thin
And it helps lift the mood when it’s black.

©Joe Wilson – This Sunday…2016

This is very personal to me and I once again beg your indulgence.

war ravaged city

The sun shines very brightly now
Perhaps there is hope in our hearts
We struggle out from warm bedclothes
In sleepy fits and waking starts.
And time moves on as always
It waits not once for us
Tomorrow comes inexorably
Arriving without fuss.

For none of us can yet evade
That relentless passage of time
It’s how we choose to live our lives
Will dictate our chapter’s rhyme.
For in the end it matters
How we chose to live those lives
For life that’s lived in using pen
Achieves far more than sword-shaped knives.

And when the tide of hatred flows
There are those we should consider
Where fires are always being stoked
By those selling arms to the highest bidder.
The bottom line for the armourer
Is not about life, but death
They care not a jot for that innocent child
Or the fact that they stole her last breath.

So thus the sky clouds over
As cordite fills air once more
And some men will make more profit
As others set off to war.
That ever present danger lurks
And fear the watchword now
Where all would like a peaceful life
The ‘bloody’ question is how?

And politicians play their games
They’re juggling with your lives
But they don’t stand and face the foe
Or carry sword-shaped knives.
No sir, that job belongs to those
Who stand at the front and defend
And take the bullets and the danger
While politicians only pretend.

The sun shines very brightly now
Perhaps there was hope in our hearts
But some now lying in their beds
Await prosthetic body parts.
And time will still march slowly on
Though the innocence is no longer there
And the politicians have made their play
And the cost? They just don’t care.

©Joe Wilson – The cost…2016

Olympian choices…

zeus

 

Aches the heart which beats so fast
Blood on fire as round it speeds
Blows the tape through which you race
Adrenaline powers mental feeds.

Honour, victory, move you forward
Cheating drugs not through your veins
Raise the bar and mighty voices
Cheer you on to ease the pains.

Once again Olympian choices
Whether to cheat or play it fair
It’s up to you for you have trained
As history notes what you did there.

Mighty women, mighty men
Take to the track and field
Through the pool the swimmers glide
As fight they all for gold to wield.

Zeus looks down from Mount Olympus
Sees the spectacle unfold
Runners all line up to start
Marathons are for the bold.

Then once again the thing is over
Moves once more the mighty show
Four more years and off again
As reputations come and go.

©Joe Wilson – Olympian choices…2016

Knocking out lines
Ten to the dozen
Me with my pen
My laptop a cousin.
Creation was simple
I wrote what I saw
But now you’re not here
I hurt at the core.
I hadn’t stopped
Nor had I thought
How often your advice
I sought.

And now just drivel
Fills my head
Replacing good stuff
There instead.
My heart is full of you
Such will always be
I guess that I should man up
You’re still right here with me.

©Joe Wilson – Untitled 2…2016