Tag: loss

I bet…

On By jovisgoesIn Childhood, Family, Fun, Life, Love, old age, Passion, Personal, Poetry, Sport, The end-game, Thoughts, Time, Trains, wisdom, YouthLeave a comment

I bet that as a child I climbed up many trees
Sometimes in tears running home with cut knees
I’d have played with Dinky toys and Hornby trains
And jumped into puddles after pouring rains.

I bet that as a youth I was petulant and daft
And sailed down a river on a home-made raft
I’d have ridden on my bike for miles and miles
Watching all the steam trains at railway styles.

And on a rugby pitch I’d have felt right in place
Charging down the wing or lying on my face
To clubs I’d have gone for the rhythm and the blues
We’d dance through the night like we’d nothing to lose.

I bet I met a lady who would love me forever
Who’d nurture our children and make us seem clever
She’d always keep me warm on the coldest nights
And be by my side when I get these frights.

I bet these things I’ve written may have all taken place
But the end-game approaches at an ever-quicker pace
I see it is the sort of life someone like me would need
But the memories have faded like an old dried up seed.

 

©Joe Wilson – I bet…2015

We thought we were indestructible…

On By jovisgoesIn Illness, Life, Loss, Love, old age, Poetry, political, Poverty, Poverty, Survival, Thoughts, TimeLeave a comment

We thought we were indestructible
That the world was ours to grasp
It was clear it was the old ‘n’  incorrigible
Who’s breath came out in a rasp.
 

And so we lived our comfortable lives
Thinking mainly of ourselves and our own
Getting the best cars to fit in our drives
Making certain our lawns were all mown.
 

We only applied for the very top posts
Believing, as we did, we’re the best
Entertaining bosses as such perfect hosts
We really were promotion obsessed.
 

Then one of you is ill, you’re pulled up dead short
It makes you evaluate your life
You start to resent being one of your sort
The thought cuts your soul like a knife.
 

As time passes by you realise you do care
At the way of the world and the hurt
The way that the rich have far more than their share
While others look for food in the dirt.
 

Perhaps though, most of us go through this change
When the blinkers finally fall from the eyes
We recognise that apathy is wrong and so strange
It’s the time we start hearing sufferer’s cries.
 

Soon your own health gets you into the time-frame
Where your sneezes and wheezes start to count
And you worry that things will never be the same
And are you warm and eating the right amount!
 

You realise you’re far from indestructible
As your breath come out in a rasp
But for you life is ever so precious
And you’ll hang on with your dying gasp.

 
©Joe Wilson – We thought we were indestructible…2015

His last breath…

On By jovisgoesIn Decadence, Eternity, Ethereal, Fear, guilt, Homo-sapien, old age, RegretLeave a comment

 

A breath is being taken that’s so shallow
No sound the breathing now makes
The fear of death lurking in the shadows
Immerses the souls in fearful quakes.
For the breathing of man is a precious gift
Yet one taken as a right by this sinner
But the spectre in the shadows is yet waiting
As the rasping sound of death grows ever thinner.
 

A tear now slowly falls from the dying man’s eye
It lands with a mighty clap upon his pillow
For the man is in such pain while he is living
Yet he knows there’s more to come at where he’ll  go.
For not a word of simple kindness did he ever utter
A cruelty to fellow-men was all he’d show
And he never gave but a thought to how we got here
But down there, it’s safe to say, he’ll surely know.
 

©Joe Wilson – His last breath…2015

Moving on…

On By jovisgoesIn carelessness, Children, Family, Friendship, Life, Loss, Love, Poetry, Point of View, Regret, TimeLeave a comment

Thinking back now, knowing it wasn’t then the same
Sex lives free and easy and the rest just a game
But recalling the names of my friends from back then
I find they’re so few now and I miss those young men
And I bless that I knew them as I take up my pen.

It was a time they called ‘swinging’ in the press of the day
But those of us there at the time just made hay
As we carelessly staggered through our wild teenage years
Racing round in cars with bad brakes and crunched gears
Till we arrived at adulthood and took on new fears.

Some of us got married and our lives felt complete
A few drowned in alcohol and lived on the street
While others tripped out just that one time too many
On the drugs that were freely available to so many
You literally could get them at ten for a penny.

But most of us moved on and we raised families
With mortgages or rent life was no social whizz
And our children carried hopes for things we’d failed to do
Such an ordinary tale that reflects me or you
But it all helps to bind us together like glue.

Now we find ourselves older and wiser perhaps
Managing to sidestep some of lifetime’s worst traps
And we pause for a moment and think of those days
Many of them spent in a drug-induced haze
And we’d not change a thing, we just shifted our gaze.

©Joe Wilson – Moving on…2015

Taking the lead…

On By jovisgoesIn Armageddon, Belief, Faith, Fear, heroes, innocence, Life, Poetry, Point of View, political, WarLeave a comment

His pain from fire was seen round the world
And Governments’ collective lips all curled
Such profanity was displayed without a care
A King left the runway as his jet took to air.
Leading his people against this vicious attack
It began long ago and there’s no going back
They’re baying now for the terrorist blood
He’s sure to know it will come to no good.

So many wars and so much fighting
And so much bloody death
New children are brought into the world
Where wars just rob them of their first breath.
Everywhere now seems awash with the blood
With the blood of the Innocents
While the world is slowing destroying itself
In human inflicted increments.

©Joe Wilson – Taking the lead…2015

Ticks…

On By jovisgoesIn Clock, Dreams, Fear, Illness, Life, PoetryLeave a comment

The clock ticks on
Life moves forward a notch
And we as fools survive
In self-absorbing  hotchpotch.

 

The clock ticks on
And failings and success compete
For space within our cluttered lives
The world no longer, is at our feet.
 

The clock ticks on
And wrinkles start to show
Our footing slips on the ladder of life
And aging pains begin to grow.
 

The clock ticks on
Our hearts begin to race and flutter
Our memories lose a thread or two
And we start to mumble and mutter.
 

The clock ticks on
And she or he forgets our name
We know the truth of dementia well
Our parents went through this the same.
 

The clock ticks on
And one of us will disappear
The other left to fend for themselves
In a life now filled with fear.
 

The clock ticks on
And on
And on
And on………

 

©Joe Wilson – Ticks…2015

Heads, you lose…

On By jovisgoesIn Accidents, carelessness, Driving, Fate, Life, Loss, Motorways, Poetry, Time1 Comment

Speeding along not a care in the world
the young man and his beautiful girl
driving in an open-topped E-type Jag
they were happy
………………………….and life was a whirl.

They were racing along the motorway
fast approaching Gravelly Hill
when a tanker jack-knifed in front of them
……….I can hear their screaming still.

They had nowhere to go but under
the trailer, however, was too low
and I, in a car a short distance back
saw both of their heads suddenly
…………………………………………………go.

One head rolled onto the hard shoulder
and sat there staring right back at me
while the other bounced over the railing
and fell into Witton
……………………………….for all there to see.

It put me off my lunch I can tell you
for that’s where I was going at the time
and if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s totally true
it would be a case of the ridiculous
……………………………….from the sublime.

 

©Joe Wilson – Heads, you lose…2015

The trawlerman’s wife & the 1953 spring-tide disaster…

On By jovisgoesIn Fate, Loss, Poetry, Survival, TimeLeave a comment
Flood
Mablethorpe 2 Feb 1953

 

A little dot of light in the distance
Signalled that they were on their way home
She was waiting at her own insistence
As the trawler drew closer through the foam.

Her man had taken another man’s place
And he sailed with yesterday’s tide
But their baby was due in only three days
She wanted him back on dry land by her side.

It caused her to reflect on her father
He’d been lost in the’53 spring tide
That had raced down the east coast of England
Brushing trawlers and ferries to one side.

They called it ‘The Big Flood’, it was really that bad
It happened unexpectedly
Two and a half thousand, including her dad
Were drowned and swallowed by the sea.

January thirty-first into February one
The storm raged like no other before
Then it turned out to sea and was suddenly gone
Leaving death and devastation in it’s maw.

The trawler was pulled into the harbour
And her husband jumped the jetty and ran
He took her into his arms and she worried no more
He was home, he was safe, and her man.

 

©Joe Wilson – The trawlerman’s wife & the 1953 spring-tide disaster…2015

Desolation…

On By jovisgoesIn Fate, Fear, hitting the wall, Holding tight, Life, Loss, Poetry, Regret, TimeLeave a comment

I see the lights of distant towns
yet hear the noise of happy sounds
while sitting, seeing in my cave
in total silence
……….…..like the grave.

My cave’s a room
within a house
where I sit quietly
….………..as a mouse.

I cannot think
as thought is gone
from brain which stopped
……..…….it can’t go on.

And so to dust
my body goes
reduced by maggots
……………and fed to the crows.

©Joe Wilson – Desolation…2015

Some things cannot be bought…

On By jovisgoesIn Fate, Illness, Life, Loss, old age, PoetryLeave a comment

Within his head there are thoughts, so many
most are irrelevant and thus ten a penny
though rare amongst his brain’s detritus
a thought whirls round just like St. Vitus
yet as he struggles this thought’s recall
he knows not if it be grand, or small.

And then it’s gone and is no more
remembers not he, nor is he sure
thus he returns to comfort’s while
wanders round his country pile
his life of wealth is all for naught
soundness of mind cannot be bought.

 

©Joe Wilson – Some thing cannot be bought…2015