Category: Regret

The letters…

On By jovisgoesIn Armageddon, Death, Family, Fear, guilt, heroes, Life, Pacifism, Passion, Poetry, Point of View, political, Regret, The end-game, The World, Thoughts, Time, WarLeave a comment

Heavy the heart
Painful the burden
The messenger’s part
In passing the word on.

Deep are the creases
That now line his brow
The pain never ceases
It’s personal somehow.

His was the book
Which counted the dead
But each killing took
His heart’s peace instead.

They were his men
He loved them like sons
They’ll not sing again
Silenced by guns.

The letters he wrote
To tell of each death
Families he smote
By words of last breath.

The killing decided
There’s no final amount
Messenger lies dead
One more for the count.

©Joe Wilson – The letters…2015

His last breath…

On By jovisgoesIn Decadence, Eternity, Ethereal, Fear, guilt, Homo-sapien, old age, RegretLeave a comment

 

A breath is being taken that’s so shallow
No sound the breathing now makes
The fear of death lurking in the shadows
Immerses the souls in fearful quakes.
For the breathing of man is a precious gift
Yet one taken as a right by this sinner
But the spectre in the shadows is yet waiting
As the rasping sound of death grows ever thinner.
 

A tear now slowly falls from the dying man’s eye
It lands with a mighty clap upon his pillow
For the man is in such pain while he is living
Yet he knows there’s more to come at where he’ll  go.
For not a word of simple kindness did he ever utter
A cruelty to fellow-men was all he’d show
And he never gave but a thought to how we got here
But down there, it’s safe to say, he’ll surely know.
 

©Joe Wilson – His last breath…2015

Hope springs eternal…(acrostic)

On By jovisgoesIn Armageddon, Corruption, Fear, innocence, Life, Poetry, Point of View, Regret, so-called civilised, Terror, The World, Time, WarLeave a comment

Have we really lost our way
Open warfare every day
Perhaps if some could compromise
Earnest talks could open eyes.

Sparing children from seeing death
Plaguing memories till dying breath
Rights of all, to live in health
Interfering warmongers who all get wealth
No money, the poor go to food banks
Guess you dine anywhere if you sell tanks
Somebody making a fortune from others.

Each bullet fired can kill someone’s brothers
Talks round the tables among heads of state
Extracting solutions before it’s too late
Roses should be given by lovers on a date
Not on the gravestones of victims of hate
Armageddon is the end-game we fear
Let’s step back from the edge, it’s dangerously near.

©Joe Wilson – Hope Springs Eternal…2015

 

Moving on…

On By jovisgoesIn carelessness, Children, Family, Friendship, Life, Loss, Love, Poetry, Point of View, Regret, TimeLeave a comment

Thinking back now, knowing it wasn’t then the same
Sex lives free and easy and the rest just a game
But recalling the names of my friends from back then
I find they’re so few now and I miss those young men
And I bless that I knew them as I take up my pen.

It was a time they called ‘swinging’ in the press of the day
But those of us there at the time just made hay
As we carelessly staggered through our wild teenage years
Racing round in cars with bad brakes and crunched gears
Till we arrived at adulthood and took on new fears.

Some of us got married and our lives felt complete
A few drowned in alcohol and lived on the street
While others tripped out just that one time too many
On the drugs that were freely available to so many
You literally could get them at ten for a penny.

But most of us moved on and we raised families
With mortgages or rent life was no social whizz
And our children carried hopes for things we’d failed to do
Such an ordinary tale that reflects me or you
But it all helps to bind us together like glue.

Now we find ourselves older and wiser perhaps
Managing to sidestep some of lifetime’s worst traps
And we pause for a moment and think of those days
Many of them spent in a drug-induced haze
And we’d not change a thing, we just shifted our gaze.

©Joe Wilson – Moving on…2015

The Fall…

On By jovisgoesIn Accidents, Children, Family, Father, Fear, Illness, Life, Loss, Love, Poetry, Regret, TimeLeave a comment

I fell from the top of a tall block of apartments.

How I remember my children growing
and the never-ending beauty of my wife
my boy and my girl, so full of knowing
my darling, the centre of my humble life.

But the ground rushes up at me as I fly down so fast.

I’ve loved the same woman for all of my time
contented and happy and passionate are we
I remember the night full of vodka and lime
when I asked my love if she would marry me.

And still the ground races up at me…

What joy we have had on our long journey here
with some pains that we’ve shared and endured
sadness has crept in and occasional fear
but we beat it all back and we still feel assured.

I hit the ground — there is nowhere else to go…

Did I make it…did I not?
Was it a dream…was it not?

©The Executor acting for Joe Wilson – The Fall…2015

The numbers rise…

On By jovisgoesIn Belief, Corruption, Faith, Life, Loss, Pacifism, Poetry, political, Regret, so-called civilised, War1 Comment

Walked I along this Autumn morn
midst trees with bright red berries borne
where once men stood with with tanks as shields
on Europe’s bloodiest battlefields.

And in extraordinary Worldly War
friends kill friends who’re friends no more
as lines are drawn and power revealed
where once such things had lain concealed.

How many men and women died
for pious thoughts and national pride
whose wasted lives now lie beneath
that trampled o’er when we cross heath.

The bodies fall, the numbers rise
more victims of political lies
and yet some people still would fight
convinced that they are in the right.

Twas ever thus and shall remain
the populace feel power’s disdain
yet even now we fight their wars
with they as pimps and we their whores.

©Joe Wilson – The numbers rise…2015

Desolation…

On By jovisgoesIn Fate, Fear, hitting the wall, Holding tight, Life, Loss, Poetry, Regret, TimeLeave a comment

I see the lights of distant towns
yet hear the noise of happy sounds
while sitting, seeing in my cave
in total silence
……….…..like the grave.

My cave’s a room
within a house
where I sit quietly
….………..as a mouse.

I cannot think
as thought is gone
from brain which stopped
……..…….it can’t go on.

And so to dust
my body goes
reduced by maggots
……………and fed to the crows.

©Joe Wilson – Desolation…2015

The Weeping Book…

On By jovisgoesIn Decadence, Fate, Fear, Life, Poetry, Regret, Terror, War, wisdomLeave a comment

He opened the binding of The Weeping Book
curiousity piqued, he needed to look
but how he wished he had never seen
the horrors therein that were so obscene.

The guilt of man along the passage of time
senseless slaughter without reason or rhyme
each page he turned ill had been done
by book possessed he ventured on.

The rape and pillage of those years before
children the victims of violent war
races were mixed, the one good thing
vicious hecklers of bigotry sing.

On and on through the pages now
the hurt caused pain behind his brow
saints and sinners all listed here
their sins for all to see quite clear.

He saw the vilest sins of history’s pain
enslavement of those for other’s gain
let loose man’s done some terrible things
hope’s voice is quelled by vicious stings.

The Weeping Book so perfect in name
from front to end it’s full of shame
and he a priest of noble birth
would find before day’s end, his worth.

No water passed his lips, nor food
his mind so troubled by soured mood
and then the page on which he gazed
revealed the future of a man gone crazed.

No change could he make to the book
transfixed at his poor fate he’d look
and as he pushed the dagger deep
as fate revealed he went to sleep.

The Weeping Book then slammed tight shut
till guilty man next came and put
his hand upon the tome’s dark cover
then his sad fate he’d soon discover.

©Joe Wilson – The Weeping Book…2014

It shouldn’t be this way…

On By jovisgoesIn Life, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

Our journey is one that’s fraught with danger
In decisions oft our choices make us doubt
But right to our final breath and from the manger
Guidance from our parents should help us out.

Oft-times we think ourselves alone.

The pain we feel can break us into pieces
With wreckage of us strewn across the floor
A gathering sense of wrong creates the creases
Of a life that doesn’t want to breathe any more.

Oft-times we think ourselves alone.

Late at night when shadows begin their taunting
And the world will close itself behind locked doors
Is the time when sorrow begs the most affection
It’s always someone’s fault, even mine or yours.

Oft-times we really are alone.

©Joe Wilson – It shouldn’t be this way…2014

 

I see no compassion…

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Fear, Life, Poetry, Point of View, Poverty, Regret, Women's Rights1 Comment

She was so young
she was poorly educated
she took drugs and drank far too much
she was so vulnerable
so very pregnant
so terribly scared
so desperately poor…and alone.
 

She took a step!

 

She took more drugs
and drunk more booze
and figured to die
she had nothing to lose.
 

But the baby!

 
It didn’t die.
She didn’t die.
 

Did she get help?
Was she given counselling?
Is she now able to breathe a sigh of relief
that someone stepped in for her!
 

No!
 

She is in prison.
She is charged with
the attempted murder
of her baby.

 
Of course she was wrong.
But the law is too strong.
She needed help.
She needs help.
 

She is a victim too!

 

©Joe Wilson – I see no compassion… 2014