Only the brave…

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry6 Comments

There were so many of them, and they were so ill
But he was a nurse and he went of free will
Into the heart of Ebola-filled houses
Full of sick husbands and children and spouses.
In extraordinary suits that covered the body
With death a reward for doing it shoddy
They covered up everything one’s eye could see
This image is of courage to people like me.
But if you should think that it wasn’t too bad
Let me dispel those fool thoughts that you might have had
For many of the nurses and some doctors too
Died along with their patients, as some brave people do.
This nurse was infected like others before
But he’s fully recovered and gone back to help more.

©Joe Wilson – Only the brave…2015
A small tribute to William Pooley, a nurse who survived
being infected with Ebola and returned to Sierra Leone.

Were we really all in it together…

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, fat-cats4 Comments

The natural home of the poet
Is not among society’s elite
But away from the riches and finery
And the fat-cat country seat.

We’re the eyes for the one who’s the underdog
The one struggling hard for his kin
The one who lost out when they took all the jobs
Who stands in the food queue again.

We’re the questioning voice of the sickly
While hospitals have wards that are closed
Who wonder why governments say ‘We all spend more!’
And ponder where it’s been disposed.

We have Portakabin classrooms that just shouldn’t be
And walls full of mould in our schools
Yet pay and pensions in the Westminster bubble
Go up yet again, as we’re treated as fools.

It’s quite true we don’t wander around with the rich
For our hearts and our minds are elsewhere
We’re keeping a watch on corruption at large
And versing your created despair.

©Joe Wilson – Were we really all in it together…2015

The silence…

On By jovisgoesIn Deafness, Love, Silence2 Comments

I ache to hold you in my arms, my love you are divine
To quietly reassure you, that all will soon be fine
And fill your head and heart with hope, for that would seem so kind.

But life can be quite cruel at times, as you my love have found
And though I tell you of my love, you cannot hear a sound
We will not quit, we’ll persevere, we beat it to the ground.

Darling one day, it will return, you’ll, hear the blackbirds sing
And you will then move on my love, from this, so silent Spring
The Summer will be warm and kind, and music it will bring

©Joe Wilson – The silence…2015

This is for my beloved wife.

The world is our oyster…

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry2 Comments

He cast his hands up in the air and said ‘let there be light!’
And sunshine grew before His eyes revealing wondrous hue
But He alone could see the day and see the dark of night
So midst the stars He caused to live, a planet of green and blue
And on this planet there were put trees, for air that we have breathed
He found that He was satisfied, what wonders He perceived.

So many stars would fill the sky, so many moons would too
Then winds flew from the heavens, to spin them all around
And people he put on this Earth, this place of green and blue
Yet creatures first he let to roam till they stood on dry ground
Thus slowly man developed, and they settled far and wide
Then headed from the oceans in such increasing tide.

And when man looks up to the skies to search the stars above
He sees the soul inside each one and knows if they are good
He looks into the hearts of men and searches for the love
Would mankind ever realise, could it be understood
He put them here to nurture Earth, to tend and love his world
But man has rather lost his way as his arrogance unfurled.

We put our Earth in danger, we care for just ourselves
Fighting wars that ravage land that cause more conflict still
We take more air than we put back, we pack food on the shelves
Yet see another starve to death while others are so ill
But look up to the heavens and take in all that magic
And try to ease the burden and save the world from tragic.

©Joe Wilson – The world is our oyster…2015

Children…

On By jovisgoesIn Children, Family, Love1 Comment

… and as the Winter turned to Spring
Those seeds began to show
The ones we planted side by side
So very long ago.

They blossom by the hour
Our love is satisfied
We look upon our flowers
With deep and heartfelt pride…

©Joe Wilson – Children…2015

And so it goes…

On By jovisgoesIn business, Electioneering, Politics, poor, richLeave a comment

So round they come again, selling their wares
Trying to convince you the worth of the shares
Telling you all of the wonders they’ll do
When we are in power, we’re working for you.
It’s a great con of course, they just want your vote
Post all elections, folk don’t get a note
To say how important that cross was you made
All hopes for the future are surely, put-paid.

The rules are stark and simple, and this is how they go
One side’s for the people, the other’s for business & co.

It more expensive, the challenge, of looking after folk
The side that’s into business sees the poor as just a joke
Some say even she, that woman called of iron
Was kinder to the nation, but that’s a bit of a try-on.
She tore the heart from where they’ll never come back
Under the same yoke again, and we’re under attack
And of course there are several new ways we can think
Yet if we don’t get change soon, we’re all going to sink.

The rules are stark and simple, and this is how they go
One side cares about you, the others don’t, you know!

©Joe Wilson – And so it goes…2015

Perhaps it was an illusion…

On By jovisgoesIn Communities, Family, Growing up, Life, Strikes, Surviving3 Comments

A child of the fifties, born in mid-forty-nine
We hoped for a future where all would be fine.
But many like me became angry young men
Things just weren’t so fine, it was like that back then.
The class system flourished, it was ever thus
Kids from estates discouraged from fuss.
The woollen school blazer was so heavy in the rain
Barathea too expensive, so much lighter again.
But the grammar school system saved so many of us kids
Success was on merit and we rose from the skids.
“You’re the top two percent who’ve got into these schools”
They delighted in telling us, the such snobbish fools.
And then it’s to work and a living to make
You give such a lot just for crumbs from the cake.
And surviving it all was a fight on your hands
The boss on your back with his pointless demands.
Men called for strikes which meant countless lost days
And wages reduced I recall through the haze.
The making of goods soon slipped into the past
Strike followed strike, it just couldn’t last.
But that was the then, and it can’t be retrieved
Ships, pits and steel in which folks all believed.
People took sides, but both sides were so wrong
Communities torn open that were previously strong.
A generation of workers were thrown on the dole
Made to feel worthless by those in control.
When crossing a picket line unsticks family glue
Through it the wives bore the brunt as they do.
Some men retrained to escape from such follies
Others just survived gathering supermart trollies.
And then we moved on into bright retrained days
Technology beckoned and computers amaze.
Learned how to programme them to do work for us
And all about memory and the serial bus.
Then we started to write and note it all down
And the hard looking back made us think with a frown.
It had not been so bad, as the anger suggests
Though life seems to be such a series of tests.
Part way we took turn to raise kids ourselves
Notes put to one side at the back of dark shelves.
With no one to teach us, we plodded that road
Our children, quite wondrous, sound paths they both strode.
Each has now married and set out for themselves
It’s past time to get back those notes off the shelves.
Sitting at the keyboard and pondering life
Casting one’s mind back to those days full of strife.
It could have been different, I think we all know
But protagonists have muscle that they do like to show.

©Joe Wilson – Perhaps it was just an illusion…2015

My beloved and my country…

On By jovisgoesIn Country, Love, Passion, TravelLeave a comment

O road take me back to my country home
Speed me quick for my heart missed it so
For wealth and good fortune I foolishly roam
Now home-bound I once again go.
To the trees and blossom of Springtime
Even to the bare twigs of Fall
Yet even to the frost of a cold Winter’s rime
In the country I feel I am all.

Once I travelled o’er great oceans deep
I saw beautiful skies so bright blue
Yet I dreamt of you whenever I’d sleep
In countryside of lovely green hue.
For much as I love the hill and the ride
And all of the beauty found there
If I couldn’t sense you here by my side
Such bounty would just seem so bare.

So over great oceans I travel once more
I’m heading to you darling dear
My heart it is calling to one I adore
It beats faster as home draws me near.
O darling I can’t bear to leave you again
This journey is the last I’ll pursue
In the country with you, my very best friend
We will live under our sky of blue.

And on days perhaps spent in woods near the lake
Watching woodpeckers , jays and the brambling
We’ll sit by the lake with a picnic we’ll take
Watching lambs in the fields as they’re gambolling.
Our hearts will be full and so satisfied
We’ll walk hand-in-hand by the shore
We’ll play ducks and drakes and watch the stones glide
Who could ever want anything more.

At night our arms each other enfold
We’d lie in passionate embrace
Our love we’d give in manner so bold
And I’d watch your beautiful face.
I’d wonder how lucky a man such as I
Could ever have been so well blessed
Such thoughts would make me silently cry
As we lie in our cottage now at rest.

©Joe Wilson – My beloved and my country…2015

Dreaming of home…

On By jovisgoesIn O. Henry style2 Comments

My thoughts today are of our old home, Clem
I’m wistful and so slightly sad
All the time that has passed since seeing them
No longer a young boisterous lad.
I miss the trees and the creak of the gate
Of the cottage where once we did live
The river that flooded when it was in spate
The forces that will not forgive.

O this town is a fine place to find us, Clem
Though it’s not like being back at home
So today I’m wistful for our cottage again
For the hamlet from where we did roam.
And if son, you’ve these thoughts as mine
As you’re going about your day
Be ready to gather those things of thine
For soon we’ll be back on our way.

©Joe Wilson – Dreaming of home…2015
Written in a style similar to O. Henry
William Sidney Porter (1862 – 1910)

If you could feel as I do…

On By jovisgoesIn PoetryLeave a comment

Everything is ugly, no beauty is found anymore
The unhappiness of troubled youth, garbage strewn by the fold
Those lumbering fools down on the farm, where habits are such a bore
All serve to think you ill of me, and the love for you I hold.

The cruelness of mortal life, is so vile as it unfolds
I wish that I could change all that, and show it just to you
And all the glory of the heavens, and stories yet untold
Tell of the love I hold so dear, my heart belongs to you.

©Joe Wilson – If could feel as I do…2015

Written in the style of W B Yeats (1865 – 1939)
after rereading The Lover Tells Of The Rose In His Heart