Lost ships…

Photographed off the coast of Bournemouth 2013 (Joe Wilson)

 

 

She sits alone with her ancient thoughts
she’s sat till she’s covered in grime
she never moves from her rocking chair
she just wiles away the time.

What does go on inside her head?
what does she really think?
the pain has made her look so sad
with eyes that rarely blink.

Her hands are hard and calloused
the cracks are etched so deep
you sense she feels some fearful hurt
but never does she weep.

Some say she’s sat for thirty years
They say she loved a sailor
It’s also said all hands were lost
The prey to a ghostly whaler.

That ship set sail from Mulgrave Port
With fifteen men on board
The seas were rough and wind was hard
but fin whales beckoned Nor’ard.

A listing ship in thick fog banks
the crew fell to watery graves
they now haunt the eastern seaboard
or rest beneath those stormy waves.

So the old crone will sit there forever
she knows that her man won’t return
she’ll sit there and rock while she’s waiting
to join him when Death calls her turn.

©Joe Wilson – Lost ships…2014 (originally 1992)

The Family Silver Sale Or The Stafford Hospital Lament…

I didn’t realise. I was a fool
Just another government tool
Beavering away, working hard
Until I got the pensioner’s card.

And now my ancient bones all ache
I’ll need NHS for my health’s sake
But a third of contracts in sickness’ fray
Like my local hospital, they were given away.

People’s views all treated with disdain
The Health Service reeling from such internal pain
While the wealthy go private, it’s simple for them
The ire of voters won’t be so easy to stem.

©Joe Wilson – The Family Silver Sale or The Stafford Hospital Lament… 2014

It shouldn’t be this way…

Our journey is one that’s fraught with danger
In decisions oft our choices make us doubt
But right to our final breath and from the manger
Guidance from our parents should help us out.

Oft-times we think ourselves alone.

The pain we feel can break us into pieces
With wreckage of us strewn across the floor
A gathering sense of wrong creates the creases
Of a life that doesn’t want to breathe any more.

Oft-times we think ourselves alone.

Late at night when shadows begin their taunting
And the world will close itself behind locked doors
Is the time when sorrow begs the most affection
It’s always someone’s fault, even mine or yours.

Oft-times we really are alone.

©Joe Wilson – It shouldn’t be this way…2014

 

I see no compassion…

She was so young
she was poorly educated
she took drugs and drank far too much
she was so vulnerable
so very pregnant
so terribly scared
so desperately poor…and alone.
 

She took a step!

 

She took more drugs
and drunk more booze
and figured to die
she had nothing to lose.
 

But the baby!

 
It didn’t die.
She didn’t die.
 

Did she get help?
Was she given counselling?
Is she now able to breathe a sigh of relief
that someone stepped in for her!
 

No!
 

She is in prison.
She is charged with
the attempted murder
of her baby.

 
Of course she was wrong.
But the law is too strong.
She needed help.
She needs help.
 

She is a victim too!

 

©Joe Wilson – I see no compassion… 2014

The slaughtered…

I could not

 

Whoever would fire a bullet?
I ask as I’m surely confused
Who on Earth would want to shatter
All that beauty that Nature has fused!

Who sits in a hide away from the light
Waiting for the deer to call
They don’t need the meat, that’s not the treat
It’s the head and the points on the wall!

Tribesmen in ‘less civilised’ countries
Might hunt down just such a deer
Then they pray for the soul of the slaughtered
For life-saving food from a beast they revere!

Not for them the revulsion of trophies
They only kill what they need
But in our ‘so civilised’ society
We can kill just for pleasure or greed.

There is something not right in society
Where solutions come from a gun
Weapons should be just for protection
They should never be used for such ‘fun’.

“Please do not be offended by my reference to a ‘less civilised’ society. I refer only to a lack of modernity and in actuality we are the far more crudely behaved frequently” Joe Wilson 2014

 

©Joe Wilson – The slaughtered… 2014

The emptiness…

He had searched for ten long years
always hopeful of finding the reason.

The reason she’d been taken from him
and why he always felt so alone.

Till one day he came to realise
that the memory of the feelings he’d had
were far far better and happier
than anything he could possibly hope to find.

He stopped looking
he got on with his life
no longer searching for a memory
and went about life with a new and fresh look.

He’d survived, and now he’d be alright.

The hole was still there
but for now at least
it was shored up
and he was functioning.

We can hope for more
even beg for more.

We’re lucky when that ‘more’ happens.

©Joe Wilson – The emptiness… 2013

Arterial squeeze…

Along a rugged pathway
I not so silently struggle on
The rising fear is ever there within.

The returning pain like some old friend
Has called on me yet again
I’m powerless as always to resist.

Weakened now from this new call
I struggle to catch my breath
One day, one day, I may yet falter.

The hand of love forever there
Reached in the night to comfort
That alone has helped me through.

The darkness passes yet once more
And peace returns to quell
More fragile now once more, but on I go.

©Joe Wilson – Arterial squeeze…2014

 

The red rains…

blood

 

It rains
All of my sins
Are washed
–away!

No one will come
There is no witness
This life will cease
The rain continues.

I’ve been so careful
I’ve been discreet
The rains now run red
Out into the street.

The blade in the gutter
The wrists opened wide
The red rains flow freely
I’m empty inside.

It is over now.

©Joe Wilson – The red rains…2014

 

On reflection…

I rise from my nice warm bed
and having made a morning drink
for my beloved wife, and one for me,
I run a bath.
As I luxuriate
in that warm bubbled water
I reflect on how lucky I am.

Later, washed and dressed for the day
I sit at the table and enjoy
a fine meal from God’s harvest
and again I reflect, and I feel…
guilt!

Guilt for the small children
who have no homes in which to feel safe
guilt that so many of them
will not eat again today.

I feel guilt
for all of the poor women around the globe
who will this very day give birth
to babies who they will surely love
but in whose having they had no choice…
no one ever hears their terrified voice.
Poor women beaten by poverty
who still struggle to feed those children
and yet too those who violate them so.

I feel guilt for all the men who cannot be made
to realise that the world is not theirs to design,
and at the way that some men feel
their own importance trumps all other considerations,
and guilt at all of the war ravaged lands.

And when I look down at the bounteous fare before me
I feel only one thing – shame.

 

©Joe Wilson – On reflection… 2014

I remember…

I remember
back to a time
when the black dog
hung around my neck
like a heavy yoke, I
could never be rid of
the terror that it
would not someday return
to seek me out and strike
me down again, and the knowing
how close I had come to succumbing.

I remember edging closer to the crowded
platform’s edge, too filled with fear to realise
the probable selfishness of what I was about to
do, only vaguely aware of where I actually was, but
just able to register that touch on my right arm
and the voice that quietly whispered, “I don’t really think
you want to do that.” I remember turning to see who’d said it
and seeing that there was just a crowd of people. Of the owner
of the voice there was no sign, but it had been enough.
It had been enough to make me realise where I was,
for the moment passed and I made my way back.

Back to the arms of the woman who had always loved me,
and who had carefully, lovingly, nursed me back to health
over such a long time. I wept. I put my head on her gentle
shoulder and I wept as I had never wept before. I wept for all
I still felt, and I wept for all the selfish anguish I would have
caused this woman had I let myself fall,

for that surely had been my intention.

©Joe Wilson – I remember…2014

This experience is my own. It followed a period of severe depression after a
subarachnoid haemorrhage in 1986. Thankfully the depression eventually lifted and
has long gone.