I have everything and yet nothing, nothing at all
I lie sometimes thinking and it’s you I recall
A smile here, a touch there, a moment for us
But perhaps not enough to even discuss
But though they’ve been few and a long time apart
They’ve imprinted you firmly into my heart.
©Joe Wilson – Everything and Yet Nothing 2014
He sat there, always looking out of a small round window
That could easily be a reflection of his tragic mind
Since the day he knew he’d been left on his own
It seemed like there was nothing in there left to find.
Every day from half-past eight and all day till five-past five
He sat immobile staring out, a sad look on his face
He’d never notice anyone, nor speak a single word
He’d sit there never stirring from his lonely lonely place.
He may have wondered where they’d gone, for they looked after him
But his parents, both of them now dead, had done their very best
Now here he was at fifty-three, an only child yet still
Just left to stare through windows, in old pyjama bottoms and vest.
He’ll be swallowed up by the system, and churned back out to the street
He’ll wander about in his own little world, and we won’t understand
He’ll be doing his best with what he knows and what he tries to follow
But our complex welfare system just won’t deal with his demands.
©Joe Wilson – An Inadequate System 2014
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
Again last night the shadow men called
As I finally dropped into the softness of sleep
Bringing with them the memories of tortured souls
Of those not quite dead who can only weep.
Those who went suddenly and left those who cried
Who then later joined them when they too had died.
I felt like I was falling for a thousand miles
Into a great hole so flooded with their tears
The palpable sorrow that penetrated my soul
That seemed to wash over me for so many years.
I was lost, I am lost, I know not what to do
Amongst all these souls I am searching for you.
Why do these cruel images keep entering my sleep
They go as I wake, but they ever come back
The souls seer their faces right into my heart
And their sorrow brings to me the dog that is black.
I search every time for your beautiful soul
Nothing left now, it’s my life’s only goal.
©Joe Wilson – Soul Searching 2014
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
In that last photograph I’m transported back
To a time when there wasn’t pain for you to bear
To the time before you felt you had to go.
And when at length I dry my eyes you are no longer there.
Where have you gone?
Where are you now?
Why did I hurt you?
Why did you go?
How could I have treated you so ill that you would leave!
How did I become so foolish that I was last one to know!
The days have since become a blur
In my rage I drink and curse
Perhaps I now see what you saw
Or maybe you saw worse.
I hope you’re happy where you are
You deserved much more than me
I cannot ever forgive myself
My redemption is that you’re free.
©Joe Wilson – Your Freedom Was My Redemption…2014
I remember how you gave your heart
Wrapped up in a kiss and a sigh
You loved me with your passion
Did I really, really try!
I think I did, I think I did.
And yet your love, amazing love
It never ever waned
You always gave me all your heart
And I never saw your pain.
I was always looking the other way.
I could never bear my company
But I find myself alone
With guilt that I cannot forgive
For sins I can’t atone.
I will go unredeemed unto death.
©JRW2014
Just the faintest touch of sunshine
And another day began
Twenty-four beautiful hours that make
A day-long wondrous span
With seven of these together
A week is made each time
The weeks will then turn into months
Each twelve will make a year
And in every one of those with you
I hope my love was clear
For the rising every morning
Would be nothing if you weren’t there
I’m so happy that you found me
And we’ve had such love to share.
©JRW2014
He was sent to Aldershot for training
He would learn how to kill or be killed
The training was all done with broomsticks
When he thought back it made his blood chill.
His unit was sent down to Portsmouth
To board a ship and go over there
It was packed to the gunwales with weapons
And the rations left no room to spare.
He practiced with his rifle on the journey
Like others who’d not held one before
He’d no sense of the horror he’d be facing
Nor the violence he’d always abhorred.
It was such a small piece of shrapnel
Caught both eyes as a shell case shattered
He never saw his two boys as they grew into men
Missing out on so much that had mattered.
His wife who he loved always helped him
And a life with new interests grew
He learnt how to read the braille papers
It pleased him he’d still know the news.
But the trauma from the experience scarred him
And ire with politics grew by the day
So he took to his new odd braille keyboard
And wrote articles and letters to complain.
He could sense the new way that the wind blew
In the corridors of power in the House
There was money to be made in new weapons
And politicians ignore those who grouse.
Then again two decades later it started
Another war that would mean more dead men
The obscenity rose like a bile in his throat
So once again he took to his ‘pen’.
©JRW2014
One in a group of poems recognising the centenary of WWI
It was years ago he saw her
He loved her from the start
But she was not to be for him
Though she had stolen his heart.
As years went by and friendships grew
His love not once did wane
Though they both found and loved others
It barely masked his pain.
There had been times of quenched desire
Those times so very brief
The love was heightened so much so
As he slipped away like a thief.
And here he finds himself today
His love survived intact
In circumstances difficult
He loves her still in fact.
©JRW2014
Jovis on a Journey... 