Tag: death

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

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

Our fate…?

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, Betrayal, carelessness, End of Days, Life, Poetry, Point of View, The World, wisdomLeave a comment

world fate

Waking from eternal sleep
To see that fate had played a hand
Destruction wrought upon the world
Impossible to understand.

Air is still so polluted
Not as bad as once before
At least the belching chimney pots
Don’t push out black smoke any more.

Swathes of roads through forests
Means magnificent trees are gone
That vital part of the equation
Giving oxygen to everyone.

Not content with destroying all of those
We pollute our rivers too
Pesticides sprayed across the land
Are eaten by wildlife, and me and you.

We fill our greedy faces
With processed food that’s poor
So many children nowadays
Don’t see real food anymore.

And then, as if that’s not enough
We kill each other too
What on earth do we do that for
Obsolescence for me and you.

©Joe Wilson – Our fate…? 2014

A stolen heartbeat…

On By jovisgoesIn Belief, End of Days, Faith, Family, Loss, Poetry, Point of View, political, Regret, WarLeave a comment

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His death could oh so easily have been avoided
At eighteen he was far far too young to die
But the belief that lay within him was so powerful
Now his family have just the memories and they cry.

Men have always gone off fighting for their ideals
And their kinsfolk are the one’s put under strain
For the sickening news that often gets brought to them
Turns their once sun-happy days to ones of rain.

It doesn’t matter a single jot whose side they fight on
The resulting family heartache is still the same
There are those who would use these young men’s keenness
And exploit them in their own political game.

There’s a funeral now as another boy is laid down
And his family are beside themselves in grief
But governments have been this young man’s killer
Politicians stole his heartbeat like a thief.

 

©Joe Wilson – A stolen heartbeat…2014

The seeds of war…

On By jovisgoesIn Armageddon, End of Days, Homo-sapien, Poetry, political, Regret, Time, War, wisdomLeave a comment

Beneath the veil of nations’ fears
Underneath their eyelids’ tears
Are secrets kept of vile misdeeds
Of many wars these are the seeds.

Adventurers sailed around the world
Their nation’s flags they then unfurled
Then raped the land of all they saw
And stole the wealth found in the core.

Independence now those countries claim
To stand alone, be proud their aim
But our ancestors fiscal curse
We robbed, pillaged and bared their purse.

So now they strike out on their own
The country’s wealth pared to the bone
They end up fighting among themselves
Supplied with weapons from dealers shelves.

This circle will go around and around
Till every human is in the ground
And you my friend when you read this tome
Will wish that you had not left home.

 

©Joe Wilson – The seeds of war…2014

In mortal pain…

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, Armageddon, Belief, Betrayal, carelessness, Fate, Life, Poetry, Point of View, political, Regret, The World, WarLeave a comment

This land has been robbed of all that it had
Nothing is left, even for the slick and the rich
Crumbling edifices to our capitalist greed
Our world no capacity now left for its need.

There were those amongst us who fought agin this
Imprisoned in jails within our own tortured selves
Not enough of us tried to stop the horrors we saw
Now nothing is left, our charade is no more.

Your fathers all fought in such bloody campaigns
There fathers too, and there fathers before
New weapons of destructive powers previously unheard
That slaughtered the innocent in ways cruelly absurd.

Buildings left standing with all inside dead
People didn’t matter, but the real estate did
And thus the corruption swept over the Earth
We were judged by our value but not by our worth.

It angers me now as I feel guilty shame
For I didn’t do enough and that makes me as them
And for you with the mess whatever is left
There’s a world that was rich and is now so bereft.

One thing is certain, save the wealth of the land
The one crucial thing that we never did foresee
Don’t go down the pathway of war-like inventions
Create things for peace and for better intentions.

Think in these ways and you may stand a chance
It’s a message I couldn’t ever iterate to much
War and corruption lie together in bed
Growing good crops gets communities fed.

©Joe Wilson – In mortal pain…2014

The world cries out…

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Poverty, Terror, The World, War, wisdomLeave a comment

Our world cries out in sorrow again
People dying on lonely streets
And blood is shed and spirits crushed
It seems that history repeats.

Would that we could see the truth
Of all that’s good within our sight
That we would see our own great wealth
And help to ease another’s plight.

If we could see and do all that
And in ourselves we understood
Would we not find ourselves at peace
And know at least we’d done some good.

 

©Joe Wilson – The world cries…2014

The cruel hand of fate…

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Fate, Friendship, Illness, Life, Loss, Personal, Poetry, Regret2 Comments

Things were very different in the Sixties
Everything was like new fresh breath
But this sad, true tale of my childhood
Is the tale of a friend’s early death.

Peter helped the Co-op grocers delivery-man
After he’d finished school for the day
He’d sit on an upturned milk crate
And they drove merrily along on their way.

He’d helped the man deliver for ages
It was what teenage boys would often do
But as the van took a corner in Rising Brook
Out to his sad fate Peter flew.

The van only had the single driver’s seat
No one else was supposed to be there
And the doors all slid back and stayed open
Safety wasn’t really thought about to be fair.

So out of the van my friend Peter flew
And fate treated him so very very cruel
He disappeared right under a passing bus
Right in front of the gates to his school.

My best friend was Harry, Peter’s brother
And for him everything changed on that day
I watched Harry wither before me
As his spirit of mischief flew away.

Just a few years later Harry drifted
I’ve not seen him from that day to now
But I hope he was able to find for himself
A way to survive the horror somehow.

I’ve not spoken of this since those dark days
and the flood of the memory is still raw
If only I could step back and warn him
My friend, please, please close the door.

By a sad twist of irony I lost my brother as well
He was struck down by the first ‘Asian Flu’
That memory hurts like a stab in the heart
I was twenty, he was just twenty-two.

 

©Joe Wilson – The cruel hand of fate…2014

Sadly, this is entirely true. Peter was killed falling under a bus in this manner and my brother was a recently married policeman who died of so-called ‘Asian Flu’ in 1970.

Utter bewilderment…

On By jovisgoesIn Life, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

I encountered the man near to an alley-way last night
He demanded my money, like a fool I chose to fight
It really wasn’t as if I’d got very much cash
But the vagabonds behaviour was excessively brash.

So I told him that I wouldn’t give it to him
And he pulled out a knife with a blade long and slim.

He then got so angry and he yelled to me GIVE!!
Or I’ll stab you with this and you’ll just cease to live
But I just wouldn’t give up it’s not how it’s meant
I died with a look of utter be–wilderment.

So I’m writing this poem from up here in the sky
And Peter and my new friends, well we all say Hi!

©Joe Wilson – Utter bewilderment…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