Category: Point of View

An Inadequate System

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Illness, Loss, Love, Poetry, Point of View, politicalLeave a comment

can-stock-photo_csp16531921

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

The Juggernaut

On By jovisgoesIn old age, Poetry, Point of View, political, PovertyLeave a comment

juggernaut3_edited

The Juggernaut that is life marches on
Never stopping for the stragglers on the way
Those less able to cope with the speed of it all
Get further disheartened every day.

But we set up a system to help them
It’s the bureaucracy that now runs our lives
And you get yourself sucked right inside it
Trying to wrestle with the rules it contrives.

But the vulnerable still struggle daily
With the system’s strange hoops we jump through
It’s as if it’s made complex on purpose
And it feels like your feet are in glue.

I’ve a neighbour who can never get out much
And she’s old and not too well off
So she has to decide if to eat or stay warm
And no heating is bad for her cough.

In the end what you find is the Juggernaut
Is the system itself and its weight
With its efforts to grind down the people
And an appetite we just can’t sate.

 

©Joe Wilson – The Juggernaut 2014

The Old Manor

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Point of View, RegretLeave a comment

Ruins

The old house had finally decided to die
It has threatened to fall down for years
It had seen men arguing in the Civil War
Who’d not returned to the house any more
Who’d left wives and a vale of tears.

It’s being picked at by experts who are looking
For evidence of hideaways in the attic
A Cavalier scallywag had once hidden in the roof
When questioned by Roundheads the owners were aloof
They were then lectured by Puritans didactic.

For many years the farmland round its boundary
Had fed cattle of all sorts and colour
There’d been Jerseys and Guernseys for decades
The last century even saw milkmaids
Now it’s Gloucesters ’cause there bodies are fuller.

But it’s coming down now and it won’t be the same
The park all around here has changed
Huge estates of new houses of characterless hue
So many now needed for me and for you
But designed by a mind that’s deranged.

 

©Joe Wilson – The Old Manor 2014

A Village

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Personal, Poetry, Point of View, Village Life, WildlifeLeave a comment
The Local Pub
The Local Pub

The Victoria plum-tree that we planted this year
Is now full of blossom that looks lovely from here
The creamy white flowers and the brightest green leaves
Makes beautiful colour as Springtime relieves.

The garden of Winter, this year so wet
Does blossom herald a ‘best Summer yet.’

It’s quite true of course that village life so snug
Can have a tendency to make one feel smug
But for years our’s has struggled, it now has no shops
And a pub that’s near closure though it still sells the ‘hops.’

We don’t take it lightly the community here
For we know we could lose it which would cost us all dear.

It’s not really the money though the costs would be great
But there’d be no Village Hall and no Summer Fete
No chats with our friends over stiles by the field
Nor any more eggs from the local chicks yield.

We don’t take it lightly the community here
And we will fight to keep it which will cost us all dear.

 

©Joe Wilson – A Village 2014

Economic Nonsense

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Point of View, politicalLeave a comment

economics

Gordon did rather badly
Georgie does much worse
Both of them arm wrestling
With the British Nation’s purse!

Playing around with the figures
Fiddling, not half, with the pounds
They tell you they’re easing the country’s woes
But they’re just making hollow sounds.

It doesn’t ever get any better
It often gets very much worse
That is the absolute shocking truth
Of the Downing Street C of E curse.

C of E also means Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer’s always mean.

©Joe Wilson – Economic Nonsense 2014

1914 – From Aldershot to Braille

On By jovisgoesIn Loss, Love, Poetry, Point of View, political, WarLeave a comment

injured soldiers 1914

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

1914 – Final Thoughts

On By jovisgoesIn heroes, Poetry, Point of View, WarLeave a comment

1914_1918_gewonden_ieper

To a war that they’d never understand
Were sent men who hadn’t a clue
Because men behind doors make decisions
While the dying’s for me and for you.

So thousands went off into battle
To places that they’d never known
Over the top and shot down to die there
In fields where red poppies have grown.

Is there ever a point to this mayhem
I struggle to find one, I do
History will record that I stayed here
So it matters not, except to a few.

©JRW2014

One in a group of poems recognising the centenary of WWI

1914 – It’ll Be Over By Christmas

On By jovisgoesIn heroes, Poetry, Point of View, WarLeave a comment

Malthus-1914-08-17

His mate sent a letter to his girl back at home
All the houses in their road put out flags
They were led to believe that the war wouldn’t last
By Christmas they’d be back at home smoking fags.

But it wasn’t so, he was still there on Christmas Day
With others just like him who were terrified
He’d heard they’d played footie somewhere miles away
But they carried on shooting and more men died.

He’d not really known how much a man could hate mud
But when it got in your food, then your eyes
And when you slept in it, and lived in it day after day
When men died in it their blood made dark dyes.

And the deafening noise of the guns just kept on
Till his eardrums had burst and made him deaf
The noise carried on like a dull thumping sound
He’d have run, but he’d got no run left.

All around him his friends were all dying
His mate with the letter had now gone
From the hundreds who’d been in the trench yesterday
Of the twenty-nine left, he was one.

What was this madness, again his heart cried
These men he must kill and for why
He couldn’t understand why the generals back home
Sent here all these young men just to die.

Then a round hit him just under his rib-cage
And the blood that oozed out was dark red
There was no medic nor anyone near him
So he bled out on his own till he was dead.

So another man lay in the mud dying
Still the reasons of why would remain
He just knew that those back at home waiting
Would get the sad telegram of pain.

©JRW2014

One in a group of poems recognising the centenary of WWI

The Global Traffic Jam

On By jovisgoesIn Driving, Personal, Poetry, Point of ViewLeave a comment

Swirling lights, rushing rain
Driving headlong, motorway pain.

Getting there tired and bleak
Sometimes too stressed out to speak.

Roads congested far too much
The town and country travelling crutch.

Hell on earth is in the car
That’s in a jam and can’t move far.

Fifty feet the last move made
Cars around me variously splayed.

Once again grind to a halt
On thinking brains like common assault.

Will I get there – who can tell!
Life moves slow in concrete hell.

 

©Joe Wilson – The global traffic jam 2014

On Sodden Fields

On By jovisgoesIn Nature, Poetry, Point of View, political, Seasons, Story Book, WildlifeLeave a comment

The rains seem to have finally subsided
At least it seems so for now
Mopping up the sodden devastation
Amid many an insurance row.

Some now say that dredging will not work
But surely history proves that it’s right
Though never a complete solution
At least it reduces the plight.

But politics now comes into play
It’s crucial to be seen in the right
So decisions that were taken only yesterday
Can so easily be changed overnight.

Climate change is with us for good now
It’s become part of our way of life
And solid steps will need to be taken
To end frequent bad weather strife.

But Chancellor’s have always cut budgets
And none have done more so than this
In fact in all of the service programmes
People see themselves staring into the abyss.

It’s all about how they look to the voters
For we carry their careers in our cross
For otherwise I think most politicians
About the plebiscite just wouldn’t give a toss.

We have wards now closing down in our hospitals
There are schools that are never repaired
A benefit system, though flawed, is besieged
Yet the rich tax avoiders still get spared.

So the land, like these other things will lose out
The efforts will cease as will the rain
Till the next time that the heavens all open
And ordinary folk again feel the pain.

There are houses that are ruined forever
Some insurers refusing the bill
Flood defenses that seem barely adequate
Properties from before empty still.

On sodden fields where houses keep rising
And new concrete covers over flood plains
Where tenants often get such poor insurance
And the country just never sees the gain.

But it’s the ‘I’m alright Jack’ way of the politicos
Who mostly live in their ivory towers
They’re the ones who aren’t making decisions
Yet the ones wielding all of the powers.

So the’cross’ is our one powerful weapon
It’s the most powerful thing in the land
We should all make so sure that we use it
And make all of these fools understand.

 

©JRW2014