A new start…

On 10 Oct 2014 By jovisgoesIn Family, Life, Loss, Love, Poetry1 Comment

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

A stolen heartbeat…

On 9 Oct 2014 By jovisgoesIn Belief, End of Days, Faith, Family, Loss, Poetry, Point of View, political, Regret, WarLeave a comment

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 cruel hand of fate…

On 29 Sep 201429 Sep 2014 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.

A dark kind of retribution…(edited)

On 16 Sep 2014 By jovisgoesIn Anger, Betrayal, Loss, Poetry2 Comments

An innocent man though charged was he
For crimes so vile too despicable to bear
But sentenced to servitude indefinite
Behind dark bars his now wasted life.

The Winter days dragged long and weary
Penetrating cold congealed his once pure heart
The hurt he felt, humiliation now complete
His need for revenge, or pride at least, restored.

He sat and waited and counted off the days
Till then his moment kept at length
But time would come when he would strike
And hurt, and life would be undone.

No more he’d take from them the crumbs of fear
The lies of those who for so many so little cared
Would be swept aside as the truth so brightly revealed
No wrong he’d done, as die he now would, his conscience clear.

©Joe Wilson -A dark kind of retribution…2014

Family down

On 18 Jun 2014 By jovisgoesIn Family, Loss, Love, Personal, Poetry, RegretLeave a comment

Going down the stairs on that March Saturday afternoon
I looked out of the landing window at the torrential rain
It was then that I heard a loud hollow thump as he fell
And I was never to see my father alive again.

I was just a little shy of my thirteenth birthday
It was the unhappiest and saddest of my days
My mother now a widow had lost her best friend
And the pain that followed hurt in many ways.

Five brothers and our sister had lost a rudder
To the ship that is a family going through life
And the empty place not filled beside the table
Strikes at the heart as with a rusty knife.

Time passes and my brothers number just one
And my sister makes us three and not now six
For over four decades and five my kin have fallen
And that’s one statistic nothing can ever fix.

Never fail to love the ones you care for
Never fail to tell them how much you care
For sometimes if you turn around for too long
You turn your head and they’re no longer there.

Not Gone

On 6 May 20146 May 2014 By jovisgoesIn Illness, Loss, Love, PoetryLeave a comment

A whisper of your perfume fills my senses
And once again I’m dropped to my knees
The thought runs right through me like a shiver
And I stop as I feel my heart freeze.

I can’t go on like this much longer
You’ve gone and I’m now on my own
My heart’s full of pain I can barely endure
The loss of you aches through my bones.

I find myself in all of our old haunts
Thinking of you and your loving smile
Imagining that you’re here by my side once again
Gives me strength, but just for a short while.

I’m now standing here in front of this dark stone
With your name engraved on it in gold
With our sad little boy who now holds onto my hand
And I’m forced to remain so controlled.

His poor little face looks so sad and so pale
Such tears that have burnt onto his face
His pain from the knowing that you’ll never return
That you’ve gone to a far different place.

Your presence though is yet still within me
I can sense that you’re all around now
To me you’re not here beneath this cold dark stone
You will never be here in the ground.