Category: Poetry

In faith

On By jovisgoesIn Belief, Faith, Poetry, Point of ViewLeave a comment

church-pews-001

The church bell rings out every Sunday
As the faithful are all called to prayer
Though it has been for some generations
Congregations fall and the pews remain bare.

The new very modern thinking fellow
The clever chap who knows his way round
May still call out for his God’s assistance
When the world gets too much and he’s down.

For we all need some thing to believe in
It’s faith that will help us along
The belief that we’re not all alone here
Gives us courage and makes us all strong.

Attendance in the pews will still go down
Modern living habits just make it so
There are swimming clubs and other stuff these days
That just mean they don’t have time to go.

But I have faith in this young generation
I believe that their goodness is real
For their feelings are often for others
And in that their faith they reveal.

They’re more thoughtful about belief these days
And they don’t always believe in a God
In the main though they’re such good young people
And in that way belief gets its nod.

©Joe Wilson – In faith 2014

Gladys (a limerick)bejeebers!

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

Gladys Thatcher

There was a young lady named Gladys
Who tried for a position with Addis
They gave her the brush-off
She now works for Bug-Off
Causing death by destroying flies caddis.

Joe Wilson – Gladys (a limerick)2014

Surviving

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

thankful

 

Strenuously pushing against inevitability
He fights desperately for every breath
But the overwhelming coronary attack
Has surely guaranteed his death.

In those last few moments that remain
He reflects upon the sum of his life
Filled with regret of such magnitude
That he’ll never again see his wife.

For their’s was a bountiful marriage
A life full of children and love
A life that he really didn’t want to leave
For it fitted him just like a glove.

He awoke some twenty hours later – alive
Saved, this mere mortal man
He’d live a much more thankful life now
For it seems death was not yet in his plan.

©Joe Wilson – Surviving…2014

Charabanc on the run 1900

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Fun, PoetryLeave a comment

https://jovisgoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/charabanc-on-the-run-1900.m4a

charabanc_edited

Racing now, well out of control
the charabanc rushed away down the hill
the man from in front who was carrying the red flag
ran after it with a powerful will
but the old charabanc had a full head of steam
and was not going to stop on its own
the driver it seems had left off the brake
and he too chased along as he moaned.

The speed limit set for this new kind of bus
was just four miles an hour at the most
but the speed it had gathered as it fair raced along
would easily get it first past the post
but this old charabanc was running on steam
so its boiler was pushing out clouds
and eventually all of the water ran dry
when it stopped in front of the crowds.

The driver caught up, the flagman caught up
as it happened there was no damage done
so they filled it with water and started it up
and sheepishly drove away from the fun
with the flagman in front with a frown on his face
as he listened to the charabanc’s hiss
for he no longer trusted the driver and his brake
and he was sure he’d not signed up for this.

©Joe Wilson – Charabanc on the run 1900

I dedicate this to my late grandfather-in-law, Norman, who as a boy carried the red flag. He later went on to own the company and I was very fond of him.

The sound file is inserted just for fun. If you read this aloud with as broad a Lancashire accent as you can manage you’ll get the idea I’m conveying. 🙂

My love lies beside me

On By jovisgoesIn Friendship, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment
"Lasting Love" Metallic Print. LilacPOP
“Lasting Love” Metallic Print. LilacPOP

 

Inwardly smiling as the thought just returned
Remembering the shame as advances were spurned
Still going red at the thought’s recollect
No romance that time, another chance wrecked.

Ah adolescence and all the things new
The callowness is borne like a fedora askew
The so spotty face that we tried hard to hide
By growing our side-burns enormously wide.

And now decades later and still happy in love
With the woman who always fits me like a glove
Those teenage angst years are now way in the past
But we have to go through them for the now things to last.

To be loved for decades is a wondrous thing
My heart wakes each morning and just starts to sing
For my love lies beside me as we welcome the day
In my heart I now realise it was always this way.

©Joe Wilson – My love lies beside me 2014

The Date(s)

On By jovisgoesIn Fun, PoetryLeave a comment

bus-stop_edited

He made a promise to meet her, and she was running late
He decided he’d go and have a pint, where he could watch for his date
But when one girl got off the bus, and then another too
He knew he’d made a double-date and wasn’t sure what to do
And while he sat there wondering whatever would happen next
He noticed clearly both of them were looking rather vexed.

It’s not that he was fly-by-night, he’d made a genuine error
And now he waited in the pub, in a certain amount of terror.
Cowardly he chose to stay and hoped that both would go away
This they did before too long, his back was weak and his instincts strong.

©Joe Wilson – The Date(s)2014

My Grandfather made a double-date such as this when he was a young man in about 1907 I suppose it would be. It was a genuine error, and my Grandmother, who had a better sense of humour than the girls in the poem, easily forgave him. I actually never knew a man with a stronger back and his wit entertained me for hours.

Only Waiting 1992 (re-visited 2021)

On By jovisgoesIn Loss, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

graveyards
Bury me where you find me, bury me nice and deep
Bury me, remember me, and sleep a peaceful sleep
And dream of joy, not sorrow, dream of peace, not fear
And dream of your tomorrow, for I’ll not disappear.
And dream of us throughout your life, keep me in your heart
And though you’ll go through utter strife, we’ll never be apart.
And dream of all the love we had, dream of all the laughter
And dream, and dream, and don’t be sad, we’ll meet in the hereafter.
And dream of happy lovers, dream of you and me
And slowly you’ll discover, you’ll smile again, you’ll see
And dream of me when you’re alone, and you will see my face
And you’ll not be all on your own, but in my warm embrace.
Bury me where you find me, bury me nice and deep
Bury me, remember me, and I will go to sleep.
But I will wait for you my dear, through every lifelong storm
And when you come to join me here I’ll help to keep you warm.
Bury her where you find me, bury her nice and deep
Remember her, remember me, and we will go to sleep.
©JoeW – Only Waiting 1992 (re-visited 2021) as J Richard Wilson
Printed in the Anthology – A Question of Balance
ISBN 1-56167-038-3 (1992)

I wrote this poem after I had a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage that required immediate surgery, and some serious heart problems too, that also resulted in bypass surgery, and a devastating career loss. However, I was thirty-seven when that started and I’m sixty-five next week, and having realised the inevitability of death, I decided that it would not be yet, not yet!! Live long and love, and smile ❤

A Place of Tranquility – 1994 (re-edited 2014)

On By jovisgoesIn Loss, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

jesus_christ_image_005

 

The wind was howling and the trees were bare
I called your name, there was no one there
The darkness gathered all around
And stillness – there was not a sound.

It was then I saw Him watching me
With eyes so sad that I could see
He felt the sorrow and sensed my pain
He knew I’d not see you again.

He surrounded me with a kindly peace
As if He knew there was no release
And all my tears welled up inside
Emotions that I’d tried to hide
All came tumbling, tumbling down
And fell like raindrops to the ground
And in that moment I think I knew
What He, Himself, had once been through.

I stood and looked into the night
Of Him there was no longer sight
And thus I left that Holy place
Myself at peace, and you in grace
And though my life will just go on
Forever now we’ll be as one
But when I go back to that place
I’ll hope to see His peaceful face.

©Joe Wilson – A Place of Tranquility 1994 (re-edited 2014)

Some Choose Suicide

On By jovisgoesIn Illness, Loss, Poetry, Point of View, Regret5 Comments
Vincent Van Gogh Old Man in Sorrow (May 1890)
Vincent Van Gogh
Old Man in Sorrow
(May 1890)

Cast down beneath a waterfall of sorrow
Begging to know if there will be a tomorrow
While sinking into a morass of self-doubt
Unable to see if there’s a possible way out.

The voices one hears have so many sharp edges
Some driven right down to jump of high ledges
While ghouls stand around to share an excitement
Victims themselves, their lack of enlightenment.

The last-minute thoughts of where life was breached
A finality of purpose is sadly now reached
One step and it ends and the pain goes away
There’ll be no more living and no more next day.

What causes some people to end things this way
That last final action that takes all away
Perhaps it’s our failure, we’re not watching out
We get wrapped up in our life and don’t hear their shout.

There isn’t a person whose life ends this way
Who’s not shown the signs of unhappiness’ sway
But we’re blind to their problems, we don’t want to know
As blithely we miss all the pain that they show.

It’s only much later when it’s far far too late
When notices come with a church service date
That we express surprise and say ‘course we will come’
But the signs were all there, we were just far too dumb.

©Joe Wilson – Some Choose Suicide 2014

The beat

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, PoetryLeave a comment

learning_edited

I’ve lived my life and to the full
adventures some, excitement yes
and now my time begins to shorten
one thing that I know for certain
that one thing is this
– children are the beat.

The greatest gift we can bestow
upon our child, boy or girl
is nurturing their sense to know
their sense to seek, to seek and learn
and of that learning
– what to discern.

The heartbeat of the new young child
the uplift to all our spirits
will make us all feel young at heart
they are the beat, it’s what they do
and in return we love
– the beat.

 

©Joe Wilson – The beat 2014