Category: Regret

I was angry, but it passed.

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, Poetry, Regret1 Comment

anger_edited

The taste left by the bitterness of anger
unlike that which is caused by over-indulgence
cannot be forced away by milk of magnesia
but by humility, understanding and forgiveness.

Oft times it is humility which leads to
a thoughtful understanding which in turn promotes
feelings of forgiveness that are quietly kept
but which serve as unspoken personal antidotes.

But what elation when normal calmness returns
to fill the soul with so much joy and peace
If anger serves to do nought else – then appreciate
that pleasantry which follows the ire’s release.

©Joe Wilson – I was angry, but it passed 2014

Family down

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Loss, Love, Personal, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

sadness_8_by_scarabuss

 
Going down the stairs on that March Saturday afternoon
I looked out of the landing window at the torrential rain
It was then that I heard a loud hollow thump as he fell
And I was never to see my father alive again.

I was just a little shy of my thirteenth birthday
It was the unhappiest and saddest of my days
My mother now a widow had lost her best friend
And the pain that followed hurt in many ways.

Five brothers and our sister had lost a rudder
To the ship that is a family going through life
And the empty place not filled beside the table
Strikes at the heart as with a rusty knife.

Time passes and my brothers number just one
And my sister makes us three and not now six
For over four decades and five my kin have fallen
And that’s one statistic nothing can ever fix.

Never fail to love the ones you care for
Never fail to tell them how much you care
For sometimes if you turn around for too long
You turn your head and they’re no longer there.

©Joe Wilson – Family down 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

that last sad moment

On By jovisgoesIn Loss, old age, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

cowbird

wrapped in melancholy, down at heart
saddened by events you didn’t start
heartless thoughts begin to emerge
pointless lives will all diverge.

feeling lost you grope for life
grabbing hands in utter strife
the sprawl of endless searches failed
the souls are lost the voices wailed.

should we as well wait out your fate
with death’s dark hand you have a date
we all must journey to his lair
but let’s not rush things – let’s take care.

 

©Joe Wilson – that last sad moment 2014

Air

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

air_edited

The air that I breathe
is the air that you breathe
is the air that she breathes
is the air that he breathes
and the air that they breathe.

We should protect it for all of us
for it has become so fragile
from our poor maintenance.

I am ashamed,
we should be ashamed.

©Joe Wilson – Air 2014

The Pointlessness of This Kind of Death

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Point of View, political, Regret, War2 Comments

actual sign_edited

He stood there with his banner in protest,
wanting no more of his people to die.
But the militiaman guarding the building
fired his gun and he took his last sigh.

Why do people stand there in protest
with others who are of the same mind?
And why did the man fire his weapon
and kill a citizen with whom his name rhymed?

The politics go round and gets nowhere
while poor people have to queue just for bread.
And as long as the ones with the guns hold the cards
in that place DEMOCRACY is dead!

The militiaman was beaten to death by a mob
as the media filmed it, we’re depressed.
The man, he lay broken in the rubble and mess
nothing changed in the continuing unrest.

 

©Joe Wilson – The Pointlessness of This Kind of Death 2014

A Magical Moment…and then it’s gone!

On By jovisgoesIn Loss, Poetry, Point of View, political, Poverty, Regret, Terror, War1 Comment

The World Crisis 2012 3

Within that magical moment
The world is at one and at ease
Everyone is loving their neighbour
And we have control of disease.

But it doesn’t last, it cannot last
It will all go back as before
To the dying from hunger and violence
To man’s unending desire for war.

One man plants a crop for food
But another man reaps the gain
The one making life from the profit
While another’s reward is just pain.

If a man is black, or yellow, who cares!
His blood like yours is red
The bullets or knives that pierce your skins
Would make you both as dead.

A man gets beaten in the street
His crime was being gay
Who gave those others the right to judge
Will prejudice never go away?

The ones with strength to dominate
Should nonetheless take heed
When they themselves are wanting help
Who’ll stay to fill that need.

I hear the ever-growing rains
They flood the town and field
Where hardship’s felt so gravely
Where man is forced to yield.

Perhaps we brought it on ourselves
We feel the need for so much
But there are so many with nothing
Who’d benefit from a gentle touch.

Back to that magical moment
It’s the one just before I awake
Where the next moment comes and it’s over
And it can’t be put right with a shake.

 

©Joe Wilson – A Magical Moment…and then it’s gone! 2014

Everything and Yet Nothing

On By jovisgoesIn Love, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

'Bride_of_the_Wind',_oil_on_canvas_painting_by_Oskar_Kokoschka,_a_self-portrait_expressing_his_unrequited_love_for_Alma_Mahler_(widow_of_composer_Gustav_Mahler),_1913

I have everything and yet nothing, nothing at all
I lie sometimes thinking and it’s you I recall
A smile here, a touch there, a moment for us
But perhaps not enough to even discuss
But though they’ve been few and a long time apart
They’ve imprinted you firmly into my heart.

 

©Joe Wilson – Everything and Yet Nothing 2014

A Weighty Problem

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Regret, TerrorLeave a comment

Punch_Davy_Jones's_Locker

Writhing against the binding
From weights on my feet I sink
The pain in my chest is blinding
As I struggle for air and to think.

I could have been a much better person
But I wasn’t and I find myself here
I’ll be sitting by Davy Jones locker
Drowned, it’s been one of my fears.

I’m almost at bottom of the ocean
In front of my name they’ll write ‘late’
And because I was always a ‘bad ‘un’
With Old Nick I now have a d…

©Joe Wilson – A Weighty Problem 2014

The image appeared in Punch 10 December 1892

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