Tag: death

War zones…

On By jovisgoesIn Life, Loss, Poetry, political, Terror, WarLeave a comment

Each side at pains to prove their own case
they can always justify their way
never considering their citizens plight
Ordinary people rarely having their say.

Then the bullets start to fly
followed by mortars and tanks
apartments get blown up causing homelessness
and then there’s a run on the banks.

Foreign media all fly in
obviously to get a good scoop
around the demolished buildings
with their cameramen they all troop.

Folks entire livelihoods go up in flame
for them it has now all gone
they rely on the aid available now
it’s just the choosing which one.

The cards have been dealt
a crisis may have passed
but the so needed PEACE
is unlikely…to last.

Joe Wilson – War zones…2014

My beloved parents…

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Illness, Loss, Love, Personal, Poetry, Regret, WarLeave a comment

His now withered hand hardly moved
and yet I still knew what he meant
but it hurt me so to see my Dad
once a man so powerfully strong
be brought down by a bad heart
and by arthritis and so cruelly bent.

His last eleven years were all in pain
it was plain for all to see
he worked all through the second vile war
sometimes in long eighteen-hour shifts
but he died at only fifty-two
in front of my siblings and me.

I will never know how my dear Mum coped
there were six of us to raise
and though she struggled, oh how she struggled
she fed and clothed us by means
It was only much later as an adult
that I understood and looked back in praise.

©Joe Wilson – My beloved parents…2014

…it will never stop…

On By jovisgoesIn heroes, Life, Loss, old age, Poetry, War, wisdomLeave a comment

old-man-reading-200x200

He sits there reading, happy enough now in his own company
what is it he reads -ah yes – a Tale of Two Cities
a favourite, but one which evokes an old memory
of long ago when he was just a young man.

Of a time when war raged across Europe like a plague
when it was in the grip of a madman bent
on seizing power everywhere and not caring how
and men like him and many of his friends went.

But then there seemed a real purpose to it
and besides, he met Françoise and loved her so
and later with many of his friends now dead
it was over so he went back home with Françoise instead.

Now she also is no more, killed by muggers who were armed
and he sits all alone, no girls, no sons
wondering why his country’s leaders
can never see the futility of all the guns.

Once more the planet rages with war
once more there will be unnecessary deaths
he finds himself wishing the impossible thought
the non-invention of guns, and it leaves him short of breath.

Sadly men would have just found another way to kill each other
– and that is the real problem. It never goes away.

 

©Joe Wilson – …it will never stop…2014

His weird mania – (Superstition)

On By jovisgoesIn Belief, Fun, PoetryLeave a comment

black cat_edited

He lives his life holding a superstitious breath
And his mania is of other people’s or his death
If ever he encounters a funeral any day
He dives over a wall till it’s passed by his way.

He’ll wander round graveyards and look at the stones
And tell you the nature of the owner of the bones
For if flowers were growing he’ll tell you for free
The bones of a good person lay down underneath.
But if weeds there are growing they’d died in disgrace
For flowers could never take root in this place

He saw a white moth once fly into his home
So straight-away he said that to him death would come
And he totally refuses to call at his best friend’s flat
For he’s driven me crackers and I’ve bought a black cat!

©Joe Wilson – His weird mania 2014

Only Waiting 1992 (re-visited 2021)

On By jovisgoesIn Loss, Love, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

graveyards
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 ❤

Consequences

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, Betrayal, PoetryLeave a comment

9915036-concept-diagram-wordcloud-illustration-of-domestic-violence-abuse-international

As he staggered through the door drunk
so his wife knew she was in for a beating
she could forgive him the anger he felt
she was the one who had betrayed him
she was the one who had been unfaithful
what she could not forgive were the beatings
he had no right to do that to her, he had no right
she had never imagined him to be a violent man
but since he felt the betrayal he had drunk
he had drunk so much he could often barely stand
but still he had no right to beat her, he had no right.

One night he went completely crazy and broke both of her legs
he broke one of her arms too but with the other one
she stabbed him to death with his favourite knife
she stabbed him so hard they couldn’t get the knife
out of his stomach till they did the autopsy
now everyone’s life is ruined, his, hers
the children’s, and his parents
and her parents, and their friends
and their neighbours, their work colleagues
and everybody they knew in some small way
has been affected and altered in some way.

She was wrong, he was wrong, everyone suffers
none of us are perfect and there are always

consequences!

©Joe Wilson – Consequences 2014

 
My wife and I have had a lovely marriage that is still beautiful after forty-two years.
I just wish, rather naïvely perhaps, that others could be as fortunate.
Violence is no answer. ❤

that last sad moment

On By jovisgoesIn Loss, old age, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

cowbird

wrapped in melancholy, down at heart
saddened by events you didn’t start
heartless thoughts begin to emerge
pointless lives will all diverge.

feeling lost you grope for life
grabbing hands in utter strife
the sprawl of endless searches failed
the souls are lost the voices wailed.

should we as well wait out your fate
with death’s dark hand you have a date
we all must journey to his lair
but let’s not rush things – let’s take care.

 

©Joe Wilson – that last sad moment 2014

The Pointlessness of This Kind of Death

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Point of View, political, Regret, War2 Comments

actual sign_edited

He stood there with his banner in protest,
wanting no more of his people to die.
But the militiaman guarding the building
fired his gun and he took his last sigh.

Why do people stand there in protest
with others who are of the same mind?
And why did the man fire his weapon
and kill a citizen with whom his name rhymed?

The politics go round and gets nowhere
while poor people have to queue just for bread.
And as long as the ones with the guns hold the cards
in that place DEMOCRACY is dead!

The militiaman was beaten to death by a mob
as the media filmed it, we’re depressed.
The man, he lay broken in the rubble and mess
nothing changed in the continuing unrest.

 

©Joe Wilson – The Pointlessness of This Kind of Death 2014

1914 – A Dream In This Nightmare

On By jovisgoesIn heroes, Poetry, WarLeave a comment

1914_1918_gewonden_ieper

I was sitting at home with my beautiful wife
We were enjoying a simple cup of tea
Our son was astride his white rocking horse
Our daughter sat giggling on my knee.

The room seemed so lovely as the sunlight shone in
The children so happy in their play
Our world seemed exquisite and so full of joy
I remember as I wipe tears away.

And I’m again plunged right into this nightmare
Where there is nothing but misery and death
Where each time the shrapnel drives into a man
It will spell their last painful breath.

From the horror of all of this killing
So senseless, so cruel and obscene
If any man walks away from this carnage
He’ll scrub but he’ll never feel clean.

©JRW2014

One in a group of poems recognising the centenary of WWI

1914 -Your Chums Are Dying, Why Aren’t You?

On By jovisgoesIn heroes, Loss, Poetry, WarLeave a comment

war_edited

They marched off with no idea of those forthcoming horrors
For many, many thousands there would never be tomorrows
They were summoned, without a choice, off they had to go
They were simply fodder to the big field guns that bellow.

Men who only yesterday were working on the farm
Sent out to shoot down other men who’d never done them harm
Young men who’d risen to answer the nation’s clarion call
Went to The Somme and Ypres to simply die and fall.

The nightmare that were trenches, the cries into the night
The black lines through the letters home to cover-up the plight
The new men just conscripted who died on that same day
Who fell from a hail of bullets before their very first pay.

The young soldier who was killed at the point of a vicious knife
The sad telegram the captain sent to his new and pregnant wife
The horror there was for one man as he had to kill another
Standing next to a stranger now, a man he calls a brother.

The smell of the smouldering cordite that lingers everywhere
Accompanies the terrible stench in this deathly sad nightmare
The brutal noise that deafens, that damages your ears
Fearing cowardice charges most young men hide their fears.

Men started this obscenity in quiet, comfortable rooms
They never do the dying nor end up in white war tombs
But they will take all the glory that any victory can afford
That surely is for those beneath that lonely foreign sward.

©JRW2014

One in a group of poems recognising the centenary of WWI