And even now I feel her loving kiss
From times of childhood filled with this.
Yet days as those are so long gone
As now in aging I think the best
Of days of fun and play-filled zest
Such love felt by a mother’s son.
When Mother came and bid goodnight
And blessed us with a tender hug
That never was cast with a shrug
As final switch turned out the light.
©Joe Wilson – A young boy…2016
(Inspired by ‘Childhood by Washington Allston 1799-1843)
Slowly she took a bite out of the peach she was holding
A small trickle of juice glistened on her little chin
She didn’t care, nor stopped to wipe it away
She just looked about her taking everything in.
And in that innocence I think I felt
All the years of joy that we had had
When watching our own two children grow
And the simple pleasure of just being dad.
Slowly they grow and make their own way
Out into the world of unknowing
To hopefully be happy and find that in life
Contentment comes from kindness you’re sowing.
And later perhaps they will understand
That money and wealth aren’t the thing
It’s simply observing your children
That will make a loving heart sing.
©Joe Wilson – Growing up…2016
…and over many, many years
He would magically entertain
From Ziggy to The Thin White Duke
To the fragile Aladdin Sane.
…and we have all been so enriched
In him was so much worth
To us he was just Bowie
Or The Man Who Fell To Earth…
©Joe Wilson – Major Tom has gone Home…2016
How long the journey
Twixt night and day
How hard the nightmares
How tough the affray
Only exhaustion
Follows such nights
That are filled with such horrors
And such frightening sights.
Feeble the body
To sleep again fall
None of the previous
Horrors recall
Deep now the sleep
Peaceful the night
Resting this time
No frightful sights.
©Joe Wilson – A whimsical journey through the night…2016
of which there have been 24,312 others.
In dust motes, her should-have-been trousseau now sat
She’d no heart to throw it away
It sat all forlorn by his unworn top hat
They held bitter memories of that awful day.
For five years they’d lived as husband and wife
In the end they decided to wed
They wanted to commit for the whole of their life
But to sorrow they committed instead.
The sun had been high on that beautiful day
And the sky was so bright and so blue
All had been perfect in that special way
But misfortune attended and away his life flew.
So lovely she’d looked as she stood outside church
He was so often late, no surprise
Then news made its way and she gave a slight lurch
She just crumbled before everyone’s eyes.
He’d been running to church, he was five minutes late
Dismissing the great surge in his chest
He fell to the ground in a terrible state
He’d be late now forever, his last breath expressed.
She has memories to keep to remember him by
And the daughter that they had both had
But the saddest of things, that will oft make her cry
Is her daughter’s soft spoken, ‘I so miss my Dad’.
©Joe Wilson – I remember Miss Havisham…2016
His eyes stared into the darkness, searching
Loneliness was now complete and unforgiving
There was no one there – nor ever would be again
This choice he had taken for his sanity
He knew he was a man of two characters
One of them was a vicious and hard man.
In his saner moments he realised he was losing
But then, all brutal men are lost in a way.
He had been lost for such a long, long time.
Things, anything, just seemed to spark him off
He’d feel himself losing an inner battle
And then he was off again, ranting madly.
The red mist was before him before he knew it
Then he was out of control and so wild
And after — he was always so ashamed.
Thus he lived here in this cabin in the woods
In the wilds, alone, but with many friends
For the wild beasts never questioned his ways.
The wild ones kept him company during the day
And at night he would write or play his harp
Finally he believed he had found peace.
Here among the trees there was no one to provoke
Just a world of creatures going about doing what it took
What it took to stay alive and survive in the harshness.
When an animal got sick or broke a leg
Where they would let him he helped as he could
and the animals gradually got more friendly as time moved on.
He knew he had found his rightful place.
Losing his temper became a thing of a distant past
Visits to the wider world became fewer and fewer
He tended a little patch of crops and lived in peace.
He had found his Utopia and was at last truly satisfied.
©Joe Wilson – In the wilderness…2016
chill
settles
in
now-
snow
edges
ever
closer
white
will
cover
all.
~~~
spring
warily
starts-
as
buds
even
now
burst
forth
yet
frost
still
lurks
here.
~~~
summer
calls
to
me-
I
long
for
shorts
and
t-shirts
and
sun
on
bare
legs.
~~~
and
so
to
autumn-
as
blissful
reds
fill
the
trees
till
canopies
fall.
©Joe Wilson – haiku…2016
written in traditional vertical style.
Obsidian like pools stared back at me
His face a mask of bewildered pain
As through his mental warzone
He’d journeyed so hard again.
And all that I could do for him
Was hold him very tight
To stop him self-inflicting
In his all too frequent fight.
And all the drugs that he’s prescribed
That he swallows every day
They cannot cure him of his ills
They keep it – just at bay.
I know what passes through that mind
And sadly, so does he
For when he looks in mirror-glass
All that he sees — is me!
©Joe Wilson – The mental warzone…2016
Each morning at six
Each morning, promptly at six, he went to his desk.
Every evening at eight
Every evening, precisely at eight, he stood, stretched and left for home.
Each day he spent fourteen hours hunched over his desk come what may
Each week he laboured obsessively on what had become his glorious tome
Each month his family had drifted further and further away
And every year he now spent less and less time at home.
Finally, with a great fanfare of publicity, his mighty tome was complete
So good, its sales soon rocketed to the highest mark
But of life and any kind of normality
There was now not the faintest spark.
So how does he gauge his success my friend?
Where do all his new found riches really go
Well his wife took his children to the other side of the world
He spends it on air fares as he now travels to and fro.
Time will tell if the tome is indeed to be a classic
Or if it is to be a seven week wonder.
But in that he lost his family to success
Well that my friend was his mighty blunder.
©Joe Wilson – A lesson in obsessiveness…2016
The winter tang from fresh wet bark
Brushes senses gentle as I walk by
Across the dew-wet meadow
And over the aged and rotting stile.
A cheeky fox trots swiftly over the way
His keen eye never leaves my sight
He sidles through the hedgerow
I think no food he caught last night.
I hear the screech of hawks nearby
Some little creature met his match
And though it’s sad when they get caught
The kestrels hover over this patch.
Horses whinny in the field nearby
As they shuffle in the cold damp grass
One of them leans across the fence to me
So I stop and stroke her head as I pass.
Steam rises up from her white wet nose
There’s such pride in her noble face
And she’s not too cold with the near high hedge
And the winter coat tied in place.
The sun starts to rise now over the fields
And a warm day’s expected, which is fine
I believe it’s the greatest start to the day
Taking walks within Nature’s design.
©Joe Wilson – A winter walk…2016
Jovis on a Journey... 