Anxious
sweating
palpitations and fear
results day coming
internal tears.
Hope for the best
plan for the worst
taking the test
mentally immersed.
News again good
sweating all gone
lying relaxing
afraid? not this one!
©Joe Wilson – Fears…2014
He walked down the length of that long lonely street
His footsteps tapping a short rhythmic beat
He encountered no one at that time of day
There was no one to stop him and have their say.
It was a dark three o’clock in the morning
As he wandered aimlessly along the road
But it wasn’t as if he had any place to go
He was only but another poor homeless Joe.
He was on the search for some food or scrap
New enough still to hate this poverty trap
Recently separated, he lost his job and his home
He now find’s himself on the road, where he roams.
He’s tried very hard to keep his dignity too
Not mixing much with the others who do
And he now walks about with an air of fake calm
Thinking that might protect him from coming to harm.
It had never occurred to him that he was always at work
His wife needed more, he understood that too late
Over years it had taken a hard marital toll
So she’d stepped away from him and he’d lost his role.
But he wouldn’t give in, he was determined about that
He desperately told himself every day
He couldn’t let himself live like this for long
He felt if he said so that he would remain strong.
His wife said she still loves him, despite that she left
He caused her such pain and he feels so bereft
But as long as she loves him it gives him some hope
He’ll fight his way back up this steep darkened slope.
He walked down the length of that long lonely street
You could hear a slight lightness to the short rhythmic beat
His eyes filled with tears as his wife filled his heart
Determined he walked on to make a new start.
©Joe Wilson – A new start…2014
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
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
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
Were I a man less fortunate
If I could not my words express
Would I not humbly shun the light
And all my boundless thoughts compress.
My heart is full and begs release
Outpourings flow from deep within
And words flood out and take their form
Of love and pain, and life and sin.
To sit and wait these countless times
Considering this or that to say
Thoughts writ in beguiling form
Thus written they then speed on their way.
Characters flit betwixt mine eyes
So fast sometimes I cannot catch
Letters caught in mêlée furious
I place them here or there to match.
When all these letters are thus laid down
In words to make some form or sense
Then read by one’s discerning eye
With open mind and no pretence.
Who reads these words I cannot know
But surely if when read they think
That thoughts they have become theirs now
Thus quill or pen make seamless link.
©Joe Wilson – to express oneself…2014
…nagging doubts (quelled)…
He arrived and saw her all alone
And wondered if she felt lonely too
Or if she had come here to their place with him
But then their eyes met and he just knew.
He still could feel the love of old
And hurt still from what she had done
But something told him she still cared
Say something now or be undone.
He slowly walked across the crowded room
His head still full of nagging sway
But seeing her so vulnerable, his heart reached hers
He took her hand and chased his doubts away.
Many years since that time have passed
Their love has grown and grown and grown
And of that time so long ago
They remember, but keep their thoughts their own.
©Joe Wilson – …oh the misplaced doubts of young men…2014
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.
(With a respectful nod to Messrs. Cleese, Barker & Corbett)
He looked out of his fine high-ceilinged office
He looked down at the city far below
With sleeves rolled up and his blood pressure mounting
Profits missing meant workers had to go.
He didn’t care where they would come from
Little people never registered on his screen
He was totally focussed on making dollars
In that he was absolutely obscene.
A little way down from his high pedestal
Was where those desperate celebrities abide
Where they sit wafer-thin in dark glasses
As they feed like piranhas on the crowds.
And though the Hollywood moguls will use them
Because they are the puppets that they are
All memories of where they all came from
Are now just a small thing in the past.
Lower still you will find politicians
All waiting for the moment that is theirs
When they have the glory of the ‘fifteen minute fame’
Before they fall back to their own obscurity.
We on the other hand gather down in the street
Like sheep we wait there in the hope that we’ll meet
A top businessman who might give us a position
Or perhaps for a glance at a celebrity snob.
And just up above the media vultures hover
As they hope for a juicy story to break
They’ll not care a fig for the lives they devour
Just the ratings for them are at stake.
As they say ‘T’was ever thus’ and it shall ever be
And it seems that frankly it can only get worse
You see my fine friend it’s not the humans involved
It’s simply the size of the ever-growing purse.
©Joe Wilson – Well we know where we belong don’t we? 2014
Wind blows its way right through my senses
All my thoughts have but slowly disappeared
One more large smoky glass of cheap whisky
One more sad lonely night that you’re not here.
Loneliness set in as the door quickly closed
Using the back door now and keeping that one shut
It will stay like that until ever you come back
But I’ve a notion now that it will stay put.
Old sore wounds that somehow resurfaced
Caused a bitter rift long forgotten to return
And the memories and the tears from the last time
Hit the heart, exploded and then burned.
So I sit trying to write and supping whisky
As I wait to hear your key in the front door
I hope with all my heart that you’ll forgive me
I can’t bear to be alone here any more.
The wind is getting stronger now and I thought I heard the latch
But it was just some fighting creatures out in the dark
So I’ll wait as I do each night with my whisky and my pen
Sitting here and waking up with the sound of the lark.
©Joe Wilson – Whisky and my pen 2014
Jovis on a Journey... 