Tag: children

The inhumanity of it all…

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, Armageddon, Belief, Deprivation, End of Days, Faith, Fear, Life, Loss, Poetry, Point of View, political, Regret, Terror, The World, War1 Comment

After the dark shall cometh the light
Exploded into by man’s devilish slight
To ruin the land and dominate all
The Earth falls into a deathly pall.

Sides will get taken along the way
The poor of learning will never get a say
The rich and clever will make the rules
History shows the poor are their tools.

A poor woman begs for work or bread
Her very rich neighbour kicks her in the head
And laws are passed to keep them down
And hidden from view on behalf of the crown.

Arguments start and war then breaks out
That guileless citizens know nothing about
But involved they become as their faith is then tested
Forced into arms for the thoughts they’ve invested.

Only a minority will claim they’re the proudest
But they have the guns and their voice is the loudest
We get swept along and get hurt on the way
Young children in war games with no time for play.

After the dark shall cometh the light
Exploded into by man’s devilish slight
He ruins the land and dominates all
As Earth now descends into it’s deathly pall.

©Joe Wilson – The inhumanity of it all… 2014

Crisis point…

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, Armageddon, Betrayal, Corruption, Deprivation, Life, Poetry, Point of View, political, Poverty, The WorldLeave a comment

Bruised by life one picks up one’s battered self
prepares to carry on into the next belligerence
and stoically turns to face the world
with all its beauty, yet too, horror and indifference.

We are but a small black, pink, brown baby upon arrival
luckier ones will be cared for and loved so well
yet still there are those whose lives will be filled with pain
from that very first beautiful breath yet fearful chest swell.

And as we grow to take on life’s burden of knowledge
some will fall along the way into deprivation
accepting life sustaining scraps as they are given
It shouldn’t happen in a so-called modern civilisation.

It falls to the fortunate to work to end the crisis
but money talks so well, and oft creates corruption
those with nothing have found their voice, their fight
if answers aren’t found quickly I fear inevitable eruption.

©Joe Wilson – Crisis point… 2014

The little red bike…

On By jovisgoesIn Bicycles, Children's, Family, Father, heroes, Life, Personal, Poetry, Time1 Comment
Just a little bit too big to be mine, but similar (1956)
Just a little bit too big to be mine, but similar (1956)

 

With legs pumping like mad, eager to keep up
While his pedals went around very slow
He ambled along giving me exercise
“Would you like me to slow down a bit Joe?”

But I pedalled along with all of my might
And I was keeping up, at least I thought
But an L-driver outside the driving school
Opened his door and brought me up short.

Into the road I flew off my little red bike
But a hand grabbed me and halted my fall
I think it was the L-driver who caught me
He had a handlebar moustache I recall.

Well they all made a fuss about something
And to the hospital I was told I must go
But the thing was I’d lost sight of my father
They watched amazed as I shot off shouting “No!”

In a time like forever I found my father
He was sitting, looking back, one foot down
As I raced up and sat still behind him
His faced changed from smiling to a frown.

It seems that my face was all covered in blood
I was desperate to catch up I didn’t realise
As he leapt off his bike and wrapped his arms round me
I said “Dad! Why are there tears in your eyes?”

The driver’s door had caught me just under the eye
I’d a gash of some length underneath
Being just seven years old I didn’t know why
Dad’s tears were his show of relief.

 

©Joe Wilson – The little red bike… 2014

When I wrote this I was thinking about my Dad. He never cycled with me too much. He became ill soon after I was born and died when I was just twelve.
I loved him so very much.

 

On reflection…

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, Fate, Fear, guilt, Life, Poetry, political, Poverty, Regret, The World, Time, War, Women's RightsLeave a comment

I rise from my nice warm bed
and having made a morning drink
for my beloved wife, and one for me,
I run a bath.
As I luxuriate
in that warm bubbled water
I reflect on how lucky I am.

Later, washed and dressed for the day
I sit at the table and enjoy
a fine meal from God’s harvest
and again I reflect, and I feel…
guilt!

Guilt for the small children
who have no homes in which to feel safe
guilt that so many of them
will not eat again today.

I feel guilt
for all of the poor women around the globe
who will this very day give birth
to babies who they will surely love
but in whose having they had no choice…
no one ever hears their terrified voice.
Poor women beaten by poverty
who still struggle to feed those children
and yet too those who violate them so.

I feel guilt for all the men who cannot be made
to realise that the world is not theirs to design,
and at the way that some men feel
their own importance trumps all other considerations,
and guilt at all of the war ravaged lands.

And when I look down at the bounteous fare before me
I feel only one thing – shame.

 

©Joe Wilson – On reflection… 2014

The word is STOP…

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Point of View, War, wisdom5 Comments

I’ve never killed in my long life
neither enemy soldier, politician, nor wife
This feat that causes me no surprise
Is what we call living in its normal guise.

I would never be so naïve as to say
The pen is always the only way
But it seems to me that war only proved
Who will remain, and who is removed.

And all this killing that leaves nations bereft
With the vile bitter cordite smell that is left
Widows lose husbands, fathers lose sons
Babies are dying from the barrels of guns.

To save nations weapons of course must be used
But there are so many people who are being abused
And when one discusses what is now simply absurd
There is nothing that is mightier than the word.

©Joe Wilson – The word is STOP…2014

 

“War does not determine who is right – only who is left”.
Bertrand Russell

The Wise Old Tailor

On By jovisgoesIn Fun, Poetry, wisdomLeave a comment
Rinaldo Rinaldi
Rinaldo Rinaldi

He sits cross-legged with fingers poised
His needle threaded with fine silken cord
As a bright new pattern takes over all thought
He starts a new coat very soon to be bought.

In each and every coat that he’s made
A customer’s future has been finely inlaid
For the tailor is also a very wise man
And he makes people happier whenever he can.

This maker of scarves and coats of all sizes
Won praise from the King, who gave him nice prizes
The new coat he’s making is for the King’s son
And he’ll sew in much wisdom and lots of good fun.

When the day comes that the boy takes the throne
He’ll be filled with such wisdom as never he’s known
The tailor talks not of such things, he won’t tell
He just smiles to himself to see all that is well.

©Joe Wilson – The Wise Old Tailor 2014

Written for children to enjoy

A Windy Day by the Sea…

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Fun, holidays, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

Walking along on the shingle spit
At Keyhaven near to Milford on Sea
You can almost touch the Isle of Wight
Less than a mile away o’er the lea.

Crab-fishing next at Mudeford Quay
With Lizzie and Sam on the nets
When off flies my hat which then lands in the sea
Chase is given but I’m taking no bets.

Later, me new-hatted, we sit by a pub
Enjoying our lunch and a chat
And we laugh at the turn of events in the day
Particularly at the flight of my hat.

Wearily later to our lodgings we go
Chicken Cacciatore for dinner, by me
We then all collapse and nod off to sleep
This just always will happen by the sea.

©Joe Wilson – A Windy Day by the Sea…2014

In Transit

On By jovisgoesIn Ethereal, Family, Life, Love, PoetryLeave a comment

old-wooden-door

He walked right into the wooden door
time seemed to stand so still
and then it was as if his life
was presented before him to be relived.

He first saw his beloved parents smiling
and Monty, the cocker spaniel he loved
he saw his grandfather with his snowy-white hair
then his brother stood beside him laughing
as a little boy again, at the gypsy who knocked
at the door and was trying to sell lucky white heather.

He saw his sister and her friend playing cards
in the parlour, and then his friends from school
throwing a rugby ball in his direction to catch.

Suddenly it rushed forward to his adult life
his wife, his children, the fun, and all the pain.

And then it stopped and he passed through the door

but

he never went home again.

©Joe Wilson – In Transit 2014

My life less ordinary

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Friendship, Fun, Illness, Love, Personal, Poetry, Point of ViewLeave a comment

contentment-inner-peace (1)

As the years go flying past
you realise just how much
your perspective changes and
when I now look back at how
things were I realise that far
from having had an uneventful life
mine has been one so full and rich
with love and laughter that I wonder
that there was time for it all to fit.

How we laughed as we left the wedding reception
and all those ‘old fogeys’ and drove away
to enjoy our honeymoon together – alone!
and how we loved each other finding fun in
all that we did together, sometimes
just looking at each other – and how
highly amused we were by the ‘jobs-worth’
car-park attendant by our hotel who stuck his hand out
the moment we crossed his threshold and said
“ten pee please”, he did it every time we went
there, often just to hear him say it again, and
how beautiful you looked in that dress that was
covered in the lovely cherry design. I think
everybody else loved you too.

How wonderful the mead tasted as we sat by the
pub fire in a place we’d never before heard of
never letting go of each others hands for a minute
and how the regulars who treated us so nicely
must have thought we were a bit bonkers.

The joys in raising our beloved children and
the intertwining pain of watching them sometimes
get a little hurt along the way, but our always
being there to help them find their own right solutions
has helped weave a rich tapestry through our lives.
The times when you want to take their pain and
make it your own – but can’t, the smile on their faces
and their laughter as they play with friends and
of course the grumpy expressions as they rail against
doing homework and tidying things like bedrooms. But
what pride we felt at their achievements along the way.

And now they too are married, one on a beach
under a lovely blue sky on the other side
of the world, and one in a most beautiful
church in our capital city. We spend such a
lot of time laughing with our grandchildren,
they are so very clever, and so funny – and
they just make us feel so young again.

Illness – illness!! Now there’s an unfortunate
word, one that has been used in our lives rather
more often than we would like. My wife has been ill,
survived and can still love and laugh. I have too,
but I can still love and laugh. Our children are not
unscathed either from this darker part of growing older,
and yet they too still happily love and laugh very much
and with all their hearts. Illness really is just
a small percentage of our time here.

So now when I reflect on my life I realise that
far from being ordinary I have been very lucky
indeed to have taken part in a life that has overflowed
with love and fun and laughter and only the occasional
sadness and it’s then that we help each other through
to the other side of it. It turns out the fact is
there has been nothing ordinary about my life at all.

And I’ll not be bowing out yet – not yet

©Joe Wilson – My life less ordinary 2014

The beat

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Love, PoetryLeave a comment

learning_edited

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