The Date(s)

On 13 Jun 201413 Jun 2014 By jovisgoesIn Fun, PoetryLeave a comment

He made a promise to meet her, and she was running late
He decided he’d go and have a pint, where he could watch for his date
But when one girl got off the bus, and then another too
He knew he’d made a double-date and wasn’t sure what to do
And while he sat there wondering whatever would happen next
He noticed clearly both of them were looking rather vexed.

It’s not that he was fly-by-night, he’d made a genuine error
And now he waited in the pub, in a certain amount of terror.
Cowardly he chose to stay and hoped that both would go away
This they did before too long, his back was weak and his instincts strong.

©Joe Wilson – The Date(s)2014

My Grandfather made a double-date such as this when he was a young man in about 1907 I suppose it would be. It was a genuine error, and my Grandmother, who had a better sense of humour than the girls in the poem, easily forgave him. I actually never knew a man with a stronger back and his wit entertained me for hours.

Only Waiting 1992 (re-visited 2021)

On 12 Jun 20143 Dec 2021 By jovisgoesIn Loss, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

Bury me where you find me, bury me nice and deep
Bury me, remember me, and sleep a peaceful sleep
And dream of joy, not sorrow, dream of peace, not fear
And dream of your tomorrow, for I’ll not disappear.
And dream of us throughout your life, keep me in your heart
And though you’ll go through utter strife, we’ll never be apart.
And dream of all the love we had, dream of all the laughter
And dream, and dream, and don’t be sad, we’ll meet in the hereafter.
And dream of happy lovers, dream of you and me
And slowly you’ll discover, you’ll smile again, you’ll see
And dream of me when you’re alone, and you will see my face
And you’ll not be all on your own, but in my warm embrace.
Bury me where you find me, bury me nice and deep
Bury me, remember me, and I will go to sleep.
But I will wait for you my dear, through every lifelong storm
And when you come to join me here I’ll help to keep you warm.
Bury her where you find me, bury her nice and deep
Remember her, remember me, and we will go to sleep.
©JoeW – Only Waiting 1992 (re-visited 2021) as J Richard Wilson
Printed in the Anthology – A Question of Balance
ISBN 1-56167-038-3 (1992)

I wrote this poem after I had a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage that required immediate surgery, and some serious heart problems too, that also resulted in bypass surgery, and a devastating career loss. However, I was thirty-seven when that started and I’m sixty-five next week, and having realised the inevitability of death, I decided that it would not be yet, not yet!! Live long and love, and smile ❤

A Place of Tranquility – 1994 (re-edited 2014)

On 11 Jun 201411 Jun 2014 By jovisgoesIn Loss, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

The wind was howling and the trees were bare
I called your name, there was no one there
The darkness gathered all around
And stillness – there was not a sound.

It was then I saw Him watching me
With eyes so sad that I could see
He felt the sorrow and sensed my pain
He knew I’d not see you again.

He surrounded me with a kindly peace
As if He knew there was no release
And all my tears welled up inside
Emotions that I’d tried to hide
All came tumbling, tumbling down
And fell like raindrops to the ground
And in that moment I think I knew
What He, Himself, had once been through.

I stood and looked into the night
Of Him there was no longer sight
And thus I left that Holy place
Myself at peace, and you in grace
And though my life will just go on
Forever now we’ll be as one
But when I go back to that place
I’ll hope to see His peaceful face.

©Joe Wilson – A Place of Tranquility 1994 (re-edited 2014)

Some Choose Suicide

On 11 Jun 20144 Jul 2016 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

The beat

On 8 Jun 2014 By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, PoetryLeave a comment

I’ve lived my life and to the full
adventures some, excitement yes
and now my time begins to shorten
one thing that I know for certain
that one thing is this
– children are the beat.

The greatest gift we can bestow
upon our child, boy or girl
is nurturing their sense to know
their sense to seek, to seek and learn
and of that learning
– what to discern.

The heartbeat of the new young child
the uplift to all our spirits
will make us all feel young at heart
they are the beat, it’s what they do
and in return we love
– the beat.

©Joe Wilson – The beat 2014

We just keep going

On 7 Jun 2014 By jovisgoesIn Poetry, wisdom, WritingLeave a comment

Wasted moments ere we tarry
Time not always on our side
Making plans but not completing
They get swallowed in the tide.

Of life that seems to sweep before us
Courage fails to stir our soul
Ideas falling by the wayside
Stay the hand from touching goal.

And chance may come to make our mark
We reach to grasp the offered boon
By working hard for gifts so rare
Success may come, but not too soon.

And so we plough the furrow long
All working at our chosen craft
The joy of being published shines
Especially if you’ve next work’s draft.

©Joe Wilson – 2014

The Strive

On 7 Jun 20147 Jun 2014 By jovisgoesIn Poetry, wisdom, WritingLeave a comment

Weaving our way out of obscurity
side-stepping the positively bland
we seek to bypass mediocrity
and strive for supreme quality
in the hope of making our stand.

Sitting, quills, pens, or fingers poised
we wait, we wait, as thoughts emerge
then off we gallop, focussed, keen
often lost within our thoughts
patiently creative, the ideas converge.

Looking perhaps to distant past
chance could we upon a worded track
down which the writers have all moved forth
noting down with deft learnt skills
they raise their voice and don’t look back.

That we can match such contribution
the aim of all who follow along
the thoughts that all need writing down
ere minds play tricks and they get forgotten
Transcribed then and to us they belong.

©Joe Wilson – The strive 2014

Always thinking

On 4 Jun 2014 By jovisgoesIn Poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Swirling visions of kaleidoscopic shapes
fill the head with conflicting thoughts
The mind in free-fall as it makes its way
Through the complex outing of a typical day.

Kandinsky perhaps summed the mind up the best
In the broadest proud shapes that show up the tell
Of the brains complexities in the thoughts they go through
As we all wend our way in the journeying we do.

It’s a hell of a ride so welcome aboard
The mind goes to places and takes us along
Our imagination rich with creativities mood
As it takes information and turns it to food.

A Whale shouldn’t die like that

On 1 Jun 20141 Jun 2014 By jovisgoesIn Anger, Poetry, Point of ViewLeave a comment

The giant fin whale swam along with the tide
A nineteen-foot calf was swimming by her side
They were swimming away from her mate’s now dead shell
Trapped in a lagoon and then all shot to hell.

She’ll raise her young calf on her own from now on
Not mating again as they only take one
Her mate had followed a herring shoal in with the tide
And for a short while there were those who had tried
To help him turn and head back to sea
But the cruelty of nature would not let it be
At eighty feet long and a shallow cliff lea
It could not turn around to escape and be free.

And then a vile streak in the locals took hold
A most wicked shooting match began to unfold
The most handsome of whales was trapped and revealed
As shooters took aim and young children squealed.

They fired and they fired and they fired and they fired
Stopping only to reload and then when they got tired
They even drove speedboats across his shot back
Leaving deep deep prop cuts as a further attack.

And when they were done and the whale was no more
His body burst open and in death he’d now score
For the stench of his now rancid corpse was so rotten
This beautiful creature wasn’t easily forgotten.

There was a man who tried hard to get him free
But one man alone is as a wood with one tree
And by the time he had got national press all aware
The whale was now dead, so bored, they’d not now care.

Many years ago I was enthralled by the work of Farley Mowat the renowned Canadian environmentalist who died last month. From reading his book, based on real events ‘A Whale for the Killing’ published in 1972, I took to studying whales as a hobby and I quickly realised just what a perfect creature the Fin Whale is. It is the only whale that is match coloured along both sides giving it the same symmetrical beauty as a dolphin and is the second largest creature to live, the Blue Whale being the only creature bigger. It is so amazing it can lift its entire body out of the water. Why on earth would you fire thousands of rounds of ammunition into a creature so beautiful? Why?

This is a small tribute to the memory of Farley Mowat (May 12, 1921 – May 6, 2014) and to people like him who try so hard, such as the Sea Shepherds who try to stop the massacre of bottle-nose dolphins each year in Taiji, Japan ostensibly for food, even though most Japanese people shun the whale-meat.

Locked-in here

On 30 May 201430 May 2014 By jovisgoesIn Illness, PoetryLeave a comment

he could see the nurses moving round
as they fussed about his bed
he could hear each word they spoke of him
as if he was already dead
and yet they knew he was alive
or why would he still be there
he’d already be burnt to ash and dust
and been stuck on a mantle somewhere.

it was odd the way that it started
he was walking home from work one day
his legs just started to feel very strange
then he collapsed as they both fell away.

he was rushed to the emergency hospital
where his condition had got better each day
but suddenly he went into a spasm
that ended with him lying here today.

locked-in syndrome he heard one doctor
say to a colleague talking over his bed
and while they were wondering about him
he silently screamed in his head.

all the things they were saying were scaring
and he couldn’t tell them what he knew
he felt lost and alone and so frightened
but about it there was nothing he could do.

he’s been lying like that for six months now
they’ve assisted his breathing as well
but they don’t chat as if he’s not there though
and to him that now feels worse than hell.

he stopped breathing

CRASH

they started his breathing this morning
but they’re worried that he’s getting frail
and inside his head he’s still screaming
and weeping though no-one can tell.