Tag: guns

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

Bashing heads…

On By jovisgoesIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Long Horn cattle by Jess Lee
Long Horn cattle
by
Jess Lee

Our odd tale is set in the Old Wild West
Where stories like this are imparted the best
It tells of the feud of two bitter old men
Who argued quite often and fought now and then.

The fact of the matter is that each had a ranch
And running between was a large river branch
Each claimed the river to be just his alone
They argued the point right down to the bone.

Family members were brought into the fight
Over the years shots were fired left and right
Amazingly no one on either side died
Goodness knows some of the best shooters tried.

Then one day against the family wishes of both
A man and woman from each side did betroth
As they loved despite anger that they had both known
Into each other’s loving arms they had each flown.

They married in secret and needed a home
A small ranch was for sale where cattle could roam
So the new couple bought it and opened their ranch
It was just at the head of the large river branch.

And then they dammed up the river and halted its flow
The ranches below had nowhere else to go
But they said to his parents and also to hers
“Unwatered cattle – or fighting! What’s worse?”

At long last after dozens of years in a fight
Someone had seen sense and had some insight
And had forced the old rivals to both compromise
Grandchildren, not fighting each other – the prize!

 

©Joe Wilson – Bashing heads…2014

 

A fun story about compromise, and the value of water.

…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

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

1914 – A Huge Fraction

On By jovisgoesIn Family, Personal, Poetry, Point of View2 Comments

He still felt deafened by the terrible sound
From the huge field guns that both sides had
Been firing hour after hour for four days. You
Could be scared to death just from the noise.

An eighth didn’t seem like much
Two sixteenths
Four thirty-seconds
Eight sixty-fourths
Sixteen one hundred and twenty-eighths.

Following his recent promotion to Colonel
He was sitting in his new office at his new desk
Hesitating to put his pen to paper
Resisting the inevitable sorrow to come.

He was writing down the numbers – thinking
Thirty two two hundred and fifty-sixths
Sixty four five hundred and twelfths.
Now the numbers looked much bigger.
When he reached
Five hundred and twelve as a
fraction of four thousand and ninety-six
He stopped.

The number now seemed insurmountable
Yet it was still that small fraction.
But he now had to write to that number
Of wives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters
And tell them that their boy would
Never again walk through their front door.

An eighth is so much more than just a fraction.

©Joe Wilson – 1914 A huge fraction…2014

One of a group of poems recognising the centenary of WW1