Category: Poetry

The Unlikely Joke

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Point of ViewLeave a comment

back in the days of vaudeville
which was way before my time
men joked about a lady’s ankle
it was really too risqué
but now they tell much dirtier jokes
they joke about women’s breasts
well we are so much more modern now
and of course now it seems OK.

but is it I ask? is it alright?
to crack these smutty jokes
about the half of the population
who’ve struggled to shed their yokes.

a joke should be a good story
it should make you laugh out loud
is there a comic who doesn’t insult?
he’d surely stand out in a crowd.

sadly I’m not too sure of this
it’s quite a pity in a way
for I really would look forward
to hearing that joke some day.

©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

1914 – A Huge Fraction

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Personal, Poetry, Point of View2 Comments

He still felt deafened by the terrible sound
From the huge field guns that both sides had
Been firing hour after hour for four days. You
Could be scared to death just from the noise.

An eighth didn’t seem like much
Two sixteenths
Four thirty-seconds
Eight sixty-fourths
Sixteen one hundred and twenty-eighths.

Following his recent promotion to Colonel
He was sitting in his new office at his new desk
Hesitating to put his pen to paper
Resisting the inevitable sorrow to come.

He was writing down the numbers – thinking
Thirty two two hundred and fifty-sixths
Sixty four five hundred and twelfths.
Now the numbers looked much bigger.
When he reached
Five hundred and twelve as a
fraction of four thousand and ninety-six
He stopped.

The number now seemed insurmountable
Yet it was still that small fraction.
But he now had to write to that number
Of wives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters
And tell them that their boy would
Never again walk through their front door.

An eighth is so much more than just a fraction.

©Joe Wilson – 1914 A huge fraction…2014

One of a group of poems recognising the centenary of WW1

A Bad Man But a Father

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Poetry, Point of View2 Comments

It was a solemn affair
The funeral
Everyone who’d ever known him
Was there
Some even liked him a little
But most
Had just come to make sure
He was dead.

Amongst these folk a little arm
Reached up
To hold a grown-ups hand
His lad
His eyes squeezed tight, so tight
Lest he cry
To him at least he’d been
Just Dad
To this young boy the man had been
His Hero
Criminal in life the man had left behind
The Innocent.
Only time would tell if that would
Remain the case.

©JRW2014

A Hard Rain

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Poetry, Point of View, SeasonsLeave a comment

Relentlessly the hard rain falls
Filling rivers, then people’s halls
From coast to coast across the land
Built-on flood plains, foolish plan.
Water’s nowhere left to run
Clearing mud off floors – no fun
Twenty years, no rivers dredged
Agencies failed to keep their pledge
To support environments welfare
I wonder if they really care.

They say that it will get much worse
More than one has left by hearse
Meanwhile winds have picked up too
Downing trees as roofs unglued
Causing damage at bills untold
Premium help-line costs unfold

The political football has now been tossed
As always, it’s the ‘us’ who’ve lost.
Ministers forced into too-late action
Doing it to just gain vote traction.
It should have happened years ago
Sadly it’s how we always go.
Nothing happens till lives are lost
And that becomes the priceless cost.
Somethings that can’t be replaced
Perhaps at last it might be faced.

©JRW2014

A Poor Woman

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Poetry, Point of View, Poverty4 Comments

Angelic voices called to her
She faltered at beauty’s sound
She’d thought that she was doing well
Surprised that now she had been found.

The monsoon rains had brought her down
A fever struck so deep
Her strength gave out eventually
Her will began to seep.

She’d worked out in the harshest place
She’d dug and picked and sown
On land that others made profit from
The land was not her own.

She’d even had a child once there
And then just carried on
The baby wrapped up on her back
Her plaintiff cry so wan.

But now the time had come for her
Worn out at forty two
Amidst the constant poverty
Her death was nothing new.

They buried her and carried on
No tears upon their face
The crops still needed planting
Her daughter filled her place.

©Joe Wilson – A poor woman 2014

Zombies

On By jovisgoesIn Fun, PoetryLeave a comment

Black is the night
Black is the mood
Dark is the spirit
All evil imbued.

‘Tis now the zombies
Will walk the earth
Never finding peace
In their lifeless worth.

If they catch you
They’ll bring you down
Zombies live inside your mind
And not beneath the ground.

©Joe Wilson – Zombies 2014

Winter

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Poetry, SeasonsLeave a comment

Quietly the winter enfolds the once verdant land
Nature closing down in its seasonal dormancy
But wait! A squirrel’s out hunting, trying to add
Those last few precious nuts to its winter supply.

Leaves all frostbitten, now needles come into their own
It is the time of the evergreen and conifers to show
Streams and rills no longer flow, held back by the ice
That has made miniature icebergs from the frozen snow.

A once bright canopy of berries has all but disappeared
Grazed voraciously by a flock of redwings in desperate need
There’s not a single blade of rich green grass in view
All covered now by the Winter snow’s cold white hue.

©JRW2014

He Remembers

On By jovisgoesIn Personal, Poetry1 Comment

He remembers
back to a time
when the black dog
hung around his neck
like a heavy yoke, he
could never be rid of
the terror that the pain
would not someday return
to seek him out and strike
him down again, and the knowing
how close he had come to succumbing
to the excruciating pain of the blood
pouring out of his brain and down his
spine only to lodge in his vertebrae.

He remembers edging closer to the crowded
platform’s edge too filled with fear to realise
the probable selfishness of what he was about to
do, only vaguely aware of where he actually was but
just able to register that touch on his right arm
and the voice that quietly whispered to him “I don’t
really think you want to do that.” He remembers turning
round to see who had said it and seeing that there was just
a crowd of commuters all going about their business, of the
owner of the voice there was no sign, but it had been enough, it
had been enough to make him realise where he was for the moment
passed and he made his way back, back to the arms of the woman who
had always loved him, and who had carefully, lovingly nursed him back to
health over such a long time, and he wept, he put his head on her gentle
shoulder and he wept as he had never wept before, he wept for all pain
he still felt and he wept for all the selfish pain he would have caused this
woman had he let himself fall, for that surely had been his intention.

©Joe Wilson – He remembers…2014

The Nuclear Department

On By jovisgoesIn Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

Lonely is the waiting room at the hospital Nuclear department
Everyone there is lost in their own private thoughts
We’ve all come to this place, and we’re looking for answers
To the pain and the questions these answers are sought.

The doctor comes, the tests begin, the isotope injected in
And then the scan, the gamma rays, but answers come there none.
I’ll be back again in three weeks time to do it all again
To see if anything is leaking or clogged, or actually just – gone.

©JRW2014