Category: Family

That Nagging Fear

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, old age, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

Dead

When I was a boy I really feared nothing
As a teenager I couldn’t have feared less
But as a man when I became a loving father
My life took on all kinds of fearful stress.

You think but worry where your little kids are
You know that they’re at school, at least they were
The horrid thoughts that things might happen to them
Causes panic of the sort we all incur.

But they grow up and they manage to stay in one piece
Then they move away and make lives of their own
Then you get a call to say that one is injured
To the other side of the world you then have flown.

Later still you find your other child is ailing
And you do your best to stay so very calm
While your heart is breaking as you reassure them
This brave person that you once held in your palm.

So yes I fear so many things I never used to
Plus concerns about my body as it grows old
And of course they say we might now live to eighty
But I never did believe all I was told.

But these fears are just the things that keep us careful
It wouldn’t do to let them get to rule our lives
For it’s fear of fear that takes you to the limit
It’s the very thing on which the panic thrives.

©Joe Wilson – That Nagging Fear 2014

The Big Red Wooden Train

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Fun, Loss, Love, Personal, Poetry, TrainsLeave a comment

wooden_toy_train

A big wooden train Dad made and painted red
Or a tricycle I sometimes preferred instead
Sometimes a Jeep or a truck or a plane
Those Dinky cars I played with again and again.

Cowboys and Indians that we played near the shed
At the end of the garden till it was past time for bed
Where I’d read Secret Seven books or Famous Five stuff
Till Mum put the light out and I’d feign a big huff.

It was a leisurely time full of fun with no fear
We enjoyed our school days and held them so dear
But it all fell to pieces on one Saturday past noon
When my beloved father died at years far too soon.

My childhood till then had been fun like a game
But from that moment on it was never the same
Though the standing by his grave in the cold pouring rain
Isn’t the memory I recall, it’s Dad’s home-made red train.

©Joe Wilson – The Big Red Wooden Train 2014

life

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

beating heart
throbbing brow
dying then
living now
make the most
of time you have
or you’ll regret it
later.

find a soul-mate
love them hard
give your heart
play that card
make the most
of time you have
or you’ll regret it
later.

care for one
they’ll love you
be as one
make life anew
make the most
of time you have
or you’ll regret it
later.

ignore advice
stay on own
lonely life
die alone
you made the least
of time you had
you did regret it
later.

 

©JRW2014

Babies – For Mothers Everywhere

On By jovisgoesIn Children's, Family, Love, Personal, Poetry1 Comment

The most wonderful feeling you’ll know in this world
Is holding a baby as its fingers unfurled
The joy in the heart, the tears in the eyes
A genuine happiness you just can’t disguise.

A thing of pure innocence looks back at you
But you’re new like this baby, what do you do
Well now ask for Mum’s help, her Mother helped her
Mothers help daughters, that’s how histories occur.

While men are off fighting or just acting the fool
Mothers feed children and send them to school
Where they will go then, what they will do
The choice is for them, but the guidance is YOU.

‘With Mother’s Day 2014 coming soon,
I dedicate this poem to all Mothers everywhere’

©JRW2014

My Little Life

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, Personal, Poetry, Writing4 Comments

In my little house I live my good life
With my written down words and my beautiful wife.

As the years trundle by and we fight off the ills
I write it all down and keep taking the pills.

I divide my day neatly into eight-hour thirds
Eight of them sleeping, eight on my words.

The remainder I spend entirely with my wife
For without her great love there would be no good life.

Sometimes a thought comes that just makes me cry
I can’t write it down, even hard as I try.

I write all the words that come out of my fingers
And do it real quick while the memory lingers.

Perhaps if someone reads this long after I’m dead
They won’t delve too deeply inside of my head.

But see that with words, my house and my wife
I was really contented with my little life.

©JRW2014

Growing in Love

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, Personal, Poetry, Village LifeLeave a comment

As a boy he’d not really imagined
What his life would be like as a man
He’d had lots of dreams like all boys did
But he’d hoped he could be Superman.

But of course life doesn’t turn out quite like that
And he’d moved through his youth at a pace
As a man he’d set forth and in a grown way
Got a job and joined the rat race.

On the way he met a woman and she loved him
A woman who still has such grace
They bought a small house in a village
And lived life at a much slower pace .

The rat race proved too much for his taste
He got out and then slowed down his life
He wrote down his thoughts each and every day
And he spent more precious time with his wife.

Many years have passed by in the village
The shop’s gone, and the Post Office too
And some of their old friends aren’t alive any more
And they think of them fondly, they do.

They’re getting on now as age takes the years
They still love each other more every day
And they’re happy they chose to live this life
For them it was always the way.

©Joe Wilson – Growing in love…2014

 

Carelessness

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Loss, Poetry, Point of View, Poverty, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Molly wanted for absolutely nothing,
And that was definitely my fault
She’d not accept the worth of the less wealthy
And when she saw them she was difficult.

I never told how I’d started with nothing
Not wanting her derision I guess
I’d thought that by not telling her that stuff
She’d not decide to think me any less.

It was a foolish error on my part
For she rode roughshod over the poor
Till I found I could tolerate it no longer
Removed her allowance and the key to her door.

I said you’ll have to fend for yourself now
If you do it you’ll be better by far
Oh, and take all those things out of your pocket
That’s your phone, and you’ll not have a car.

Downcast she set off on her own way
Cast a look at me, I nearly cried
I’d keep an eye out of course and protect her
But she needed to have worked and have tried.

Two years passed and she found her rock-bottom
But she started to work and she grew
I said to her would you like to come home now
She said she’d stay where she was…thank you.

Fact is, Molly’s lost now forever
She’d survived and she picked herself up
But if I’d raised her right in the first place
She have known about sharing the cup.

So in the end I stand with my great wealth
But with no one to share it with now
If you want to know how not to raise children
Come to me and I’ll show you how.

©JRW2014

Fortunately, for my part, this is a work of complete fiction.

My Family

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Friendship, Love, Personal, Poetry2 Comments

I do not know as fine a girl
Except of course her mother
Nor yet know I a finer man
Than he who is her brother.

Their mother gave her love to me
I keep it in my heart
It warms me up on lonely nights
If ever we’re apart.

Our girl and boy moved far away
But love binds us so tight
And when we meet and chat and things
Our eyes light up so bright.

Nothing stands between us
Our bond will always be
We are the very essence
Of a loving family.

©JRW2014

c

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Illness, Personal, Poetry, vitalLeave a comment

I wait for a piece of information
it is the answer to a question that
has unfortunately had to be asked
I don’t, yet must know the answer,
yet someone else, so dear to me and
so young needs the answer, dreads
the answer so much more. how can
life be so cruel? why after so many
millennia are we so fragile? a life
that is so well spent looking after
the interests and well-being of others
should not be so fragile, but is.

I learn the answer and it seems that
life indeed is that cruel after all.
we will all help. we will all fight.
we will win. nothing else is acceptable.

©JRW2014

Sixes and Sevens

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Illness, old age, Poetry, Point of ViewLeave a comment

He dribbles a little now, he knows, but neither can he help it
Since the stroke that little bit of control is no more
It is the source of so much embarrassment to him
That he has barely set foot outside his front door.

It can’t go on though, it’s come to a head now
His nephew’s getting married and he’s been invited
He doesn’t know what to do, he’s at sixes and sevens
He knows he has to be there, he should be delighted.

The therapist had told him to exercise, “it’ll help a lot”, she said
“Also, you should look in the mirror”, a thing he cannot do
He couldn’t feel half of his face, the stroke had left him that way
“The exercises are there to help, they’ll help to get you through.”

He’d been lucky he knew, he had got his voice back, even though
He now sounded so different, he hardly recognised himself when he spoke
And he also walked unevenly as the stroke affected his hips
So much so that he thought he probably looked like a joke.

But there was one thing that made him feel really better
Two years earlier he couldn’t have even stood
So dribble as he did, embarrassed as he got when he was out
He knew he was making progress and that was all to the good.

And then he felt selfish for feeling sorry for himself
His nephew would want happiness, he deserved it as well
So he’d put on his best smile, he’d do what he could
He’d hide all his fears and hope no one could tell.

©JRW2014