Category: Poetry

When rain my eyes…

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry2 Comments

‘Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.’
JAMES THURBER, Credos and Curios        Harper & Row 1962

On looking back along the course the year has taken
Immediacy brings a sense of such great sorrow and pain
Yet, where at first my thoughts were steeped in anger
I’m calmer now, reluctant to travel that sorry path again.
For though it’s true I’ll never yet more see her face
She is in my heart and helps to stay my grief
I look back now at all the things in life we shared
Her life so very full of goodness and self-belief.

So with her in my heart I’m feeling rather brave
For she would brook no choice to sit things out
Adventure was a watchword that I think drove her
And family of course, that first, there was no doubt.
Thus when I’m huddled down and my eyes begin to rain
My heart feels crushed to the smallest ravaged pieces
I think of her throughout her life and am restored
And once again my mind is smoothed of creases.

We take our personal journey and do with it as we will
And help along the way can sometimes be expected
For if there’s none perhaps our route is far too wayward
We should get on track and then we’d be accepted.
Yet those who cannot bring themselves to care
Are still our brothers in this strange odyssey
Thus we should wish them well as we move along our way
And convince ourselves the crazy ones are never you or me.

©Joe Wilson – When rain my eyes…2016

Prideful consequences…

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

I gaze from my window at mid-Autumn sunshine
A breeze lifting those few leaves that still cling on
And I think back to the times that I spent with you
Just memories now, for you’ve gone.

And every flower that stood so proud
In the garden we both grew and cherished
Has fallen now to the chill of the frost
And the fruits on the trees are but perished.

I think that they miss you as I do now
If they could they surely would wonder
How foolish is man who drives such a wedge
That sends love away like a loud bark of thunder.

Here now as the cold has settled itself in
Self-pity takes a hold as it will
For each blames the other for this wrong, or that
Yet each loves the other so very much still.

So you went and I fear that I drove you
I was foolish and prideful and wrong
And now on my own with my pity
I realise alone I’m not strong.

Slowly the leaves have now fallen to ground
Soon the winter will start to take hold
I’ll do anything to win back your heart
So our memories won’t die in the cold.

©Joe Wilson – Prideful consequences…2016

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

I’ve recently been reading a debut book by Barbara Nickless (Blood on the Tracks). Having thoroughly enjoyed it, I looked at her website which also became a thoughtful and enjoyable experience. Her lead character is Special Agent Sydney Rose Parnell of the railway police, a former marine with Mortuary Affairs. It’s also worth reading ‘Shade It Black: Death and After in Iraq’ by Jessica Goodell and John Hearn for real insight into that which we don’t really want to know, the recovery of dead soldiers. I felt rather compelled, I hope no one is hurt or offended…

Ghosts – survivors guilt…

Along the ridge, bit by bit we crawled
Slowly, pinned down by well-equipped rebels
There had been so many of us at first
We were now like a small bunch of pebbles.

There was Al, a baker back in easy street
Who regaled us with tales of his cakes
Who wanted to get home to his wife and kids
As we all did, for Heaven sakes.

He drove us mad sometimes…

Tim, a horologist in the world that was real
Course he mended everyone’s clocks
Got caught on a desert road one day
We just found his watch and his socks.

Time just seemed to stand still for a while…

And there was Jess, at only five foot four
Perhaps the bravest soldier I knew
Got shot to death by sniper fire
After rescuing two of her crew.

We all feared the bloody snipers…

And then there’s me, a corporal in charge
All the officers gone, and Sarge too
I’d like to be home with my poetry books
But there was killin’ work there left to do.

There was no fun in that at all…

Finally we managed to reach an end
Then the drawdown came and we flew
But dead soldiers faces oft haunt me now
As for so many soldiers they do.

Goddamn politicians can’t explain that away…no Sir!

©Joe Wilson – Ghosts – survivors guilt…2016

The gentleman in the velvet chair…

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

top-hat-eerie

 

And here I sit amidst this pall
As I await the fools who call
They enter down my bone-strewn way
To find it’s their last earthly day.

And such surprise upon the face
When first they look upon this place
For I am sat like gentle man
Soon mesmerised, they’ll wish they’d ran.

The axe comes up to strike them down
Their rashness draws from me – a frown
And see my face they never do
For all I show is shadowed hue.

And from this chair I make them grieve
I welcome in All Hallows’ Eve
From here I dispatch young and old
And any fool who’s feeling bold.

The axe comes down and heads fall off
They never scream nor even cough
For so entranced are they by me
The axe that chops they never see.

So venture not into such places
Filled with now dead haunted faces
For you may soon yourself join them
As heads dis-join from spinal stem.

©Joe Wilson – The gentleman in the velvet chair…2016

The tear-soaked mud…

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

hand-in-mud

How long the furrow that man must plough
How deep the mud so filled with dread
How sad the tears that fall to earth
Now mud that takes us when we’re dead.

And all along, and all along
The good man keeps his godly faith
But sad the man who feels so sinned
That he might rise as driven wraith.

And all those souls of bloodied gristle
Who smite the sinned by means so foul
Will feel the pain and share the fate
As when they fall the wraith will howl.

And when the good man falls to sin
As feet of clay oft make him do
The tear-soaked mud now draws him down
He’s now sin-free, yet what of you!

And all along, and all along
The furrow stays yet still to plough
For sinners yet to make their mark
A simple matter of when…and how.

©Joe Wilson – The tear-soaked mud…2016

Loss…

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

The bitterness is no longer a surprise
It is a daily taste to relish
Nothing seems to mean that much
Those reaching out can’t feel my touch
I have slowly immersed myself in grief
And loneliness with the crowd
Is found to be a small relief.

And yet, I ask myself tonight
What right have I to shun my friends
For there I’ll find a sense of peace
As bitter feelings find release
For they may feel such pain as I
And hurt inside as much – and feel
That awful, awful need to cry.

©Joe Wilson – Lost…2016

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

nature slows right down
plants will start their Autumn rest
as Summer wanes.

green then disappears
chlorophyll leaches away
gold and red glow bright.

squirrels gather food
as frost nips at tiny feet
building Winter stocks.

now the leaves can fall
Autumn sees their dive for earth
skeletons have stayed.

canopy all gone
only branches now remain
to rustle no more.

©Joe Wilson – haiku…2016

Surviving…

On By jovisgoesIn A depressive state, A life in summary, Desolation, judgement, Poetry, Surviving, ThoughtsLeave a comment

boat-man

Slowly, he sunk to the ground
His legs giving way in the mud
He tried and tried to get back up
But he was stuck there now
—- it did no good.

A perfect metaphor of his real life
Where he’d slowly fallen down
He’d done his best but it wasn’t enough
For he never succeeded
—-he viewed life through a frown.

And here he was, stuck as never before
Half way there, stuck, and not knowing
Should he pull himself out and carry on
Or should he give up and fall back
— and leave self-pity growing.

It comes to us all at some withering point
We get hurled to ground by a sense of disgust
The world then is no longer our oyster
As we reel from mistakes
—- in a life filled with distrust.

And at this crossroads we find ourselves
Will we crumble where others may thrive
Do we possess the courage it takes
To man up and gain
—- a chance to survive.

©Joe Wilson – Surviving…2016

An ill-fated journey…

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

 

cross_on_observation_hill_mcmurdo_station
The Observation Hill Cross, erected in 1913 as a memorial to Scott and his party.

O God, it is so harsh and very cold
But onward and driven, we must go
Our journey South so frighteningly bold
To reach a Pole where nought will grow,

Rations frozen, now frostbitten fingers
Fallen canines reluctantly eaten
And feet unfelt where pain just lingers
We battle on, we cannot be beaten.

But yet we lost, Amundsen beat us
We’ll leave a mark to say we arrived
There was no cheer, nor slightest fuss
A bitter taste for those deprived.

So few of us remain, a smaller fire will burn
Captain Oates stepped out last night, so gallant
He said he would just be awhile, but didn’t return
Such men have been my comrades, such talent.

Heroes all, this unfortunate company of gallant men
Edward Wilson, Edgar Evans, and Henry Bowers
Their strength of character I’ve known not when
Each one above the norm now towers.

And yet now here, failed, and trying to reach our shore
I feel our journey now will end, we are so feeble
“It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more
R. Scott — for God’s sake, look after our people.”

©Joe Wilson – An ill-fated journey…2016

Robert Falcon Scott made it to the South Pole,
though he was beaten there by Roald Amundsen.
He and his men died on the way home
just eleven miles from food supplies.

Sticking plasters…

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry2 Comments

Run cold the silent weeping heart
Yet warm the tears that fall
While memories of that once keen love
Get harder to recall.

How long the bitter taste can last
As sadness fills the mind
But how the recollections hurt
Of times when life still seemed so kind.

And as with sticking plasters
That cling for just so long
Till wounds that feel so painful
Will leave one less than strong.

Courageously one battles on
To struggle to that bitter end
In hopes, that even loveless
Perhaps one has at least one friend.

For what is life if spent alone
A dark and dismal place
Surely life is more worthwhile
When one can see a smiling face.

—————-

It’s fortunate that I have been
One love is all I shared
With one who chose to stay awhile
The only one for who I’ve cared.

©Joe Wilson – Sticking plasters…2016