A Magical Moment…and then it’s gone!

The World Crisis 2012 3

Within that magical moment
The world is at one and at ease
Everyone is loving their neighbour
And we have control of disease.

But it doesn’t last, it cannot last
It will all go back as before
To the dying from hunger and violence
To man’s unending desire for war.

One man plants a crop for food
But another man reaps the gain
The one making life from the profit
While another’s reward is just pain.

If a man is black, or yellow, who cares!
His blood like yours is red
The bullets or knives that pierce your skins
Would make you both as dead.

A man gets beaten in the street
His crime was being gay
Who gave those others the right to judge
Will prejudice never go away?

The ones with strength to dominate
Should nonetheless take heed
When they themselves are wanting help
Who’ll stay to fill that need.

I hear the ever-growing rains
They flood the town and field
Where hardship’s felt so gravely
Where man is forced to yield.

Perhaps we brought it on ourselves
We feel the need for so much
But there are so many with nothing
Who’d benefit from a gentle touch.

Back to that magical moment
It’s the one just before I awake
Where the next moment comes and it’s over
And it can’t be put right with a shake.

 

©Joe Wilson – A Magical Moment…and then it’s gone! 2014

A Weighty Problem

Punch_Davy_Jones's_Locker

Writhing against the binding
From weights on my feet I sink
The pain in my chest is blinding
As I struggle for air and to think.

I could have been a much better person
But I wasn’t and I find myself here
I’ll be sitting by Davy Jones locker
Drowned, it’s been one of my fears.

I’m almost at bottom of the ocean
In front of my name they’ll write ‘late’
And because I was always a ‘bad ‘un’
With Old Nick I now have a d…

©Joe Wilson – A Weighty Problem 2014

The image appeared in Punch 10 December 1892

1914 – It’ll Be Over By Christmas

Malthus-1914-08-17

His mate sent a letter to his girl back at home
All the houses in their road put out flags
They were led to believe that the war wouldn’t last
By Christmas they’d be back at home smoking fags.

But it wasn’t so, he was still there on Christmas Day
With others just like him who were terrified
He’d heard they’d played footie somewhere miles away
But they carried on shooting and more men died.

He’d not really known how much a man could hate mud
But when it got in your food, then your eyes
And when you slept in it, and lived in it day after day
When men died in it their blood made dark dyes.

And the deafening noise of the guns just kept on
Till his eardrums had burst and made him deaf
The noise carried on like a dull thumping sound
He’d have run, but he’d got no run left.

All around him his friends were all dying
His mate with the letter had now gone
From the hundreds who’d been in the trench yesterday
Of the twenty-nine left, he was one.

What was this madness, again his heart cried
These men he must kill and for why
He couldn’t understand why the generals back home
Sent here all these young men just to die.

Then a round hit him just under his rib-cage
And the blood that oozed out was dark red
There was no medic nor anyone near him
So he bled out on his own till he was dead.

So another man lay in the mud dying
Still the reasons of why would remain
He just knew that those back at home waiting
Would get the sad telegram of pain.

©JRW2014

One in a group of poems recognising the centenary of WWI

Headaches

Slowly the battle starts to rage
The fight begins anew
The warring factors in my brain
That once were knocked askew.

It starts with just a low headache
That creeps up from the back
It reaches to my temples
And thus begins the attack.

‘Ere long it’s in full fury
The pressure starts to build
My head feels like it will explode
It seems with war completely filled.

Once more my hand reaches to the drawer
Seeking out the prescribed relief
Without the drugs the pain gets worse
Pain becomes a rationale thief.

Contorted now upon the floor
My pain-wracked body twisting hard
I can’t take more, I need the drugs
But against addiction I must guard.

My mind drifts off as drugs take hold
Again the pain is put away
From time to time it will come back
It’s just I’ll never know the day.

 

©JRW2014

Betrayed Trust

Sorrow poured out of his very soul
It seeped into all his many things
All he touched reminded him of his foolishness
It was the howling anguish of the loss he now felt
But his distrusting nature, unfounded, had cast her guilty
He had crossed the line and told her he no longer trusted her.

She felt so betrayed by his lack of trust
The pain so raw she could hardly breathe
It hadn’t occurred to her that he would misunderstand
They’d loved each other almost all their lives, how could he?
His distrust was so unfounded, she felt so hurt
Where could they ever go from here?

The question hangs in the air, neither willing to act
He unable to forgive himself for his distrust
She not able to forgive him for the same thing
Yet both loving the other to a similar distraction
Ardency makes men do foolish and disastrous things
And leaves women to pick up all the broken pieces.

©JRW2014

He Remembers

He remembers
back to a time
when the black dog
hung around his neck
like a heavy yoke, he
could never be rid of
the terror that the pain
would not someday return
to seek him out and strike
him down again, and the knowing
how close he had come to succumbing
to the excruciating pain of the blood
pouring out of his brain and down his
spine only to lodge in his vertebrae.

He remembers edging closer to the crowded
platform’s edge too filled with fear to realise
the probable selfishness of what he was about to
do, only vaguely aware of where he actually was but
just able to register that touch on his right arm
and the voice that quietly whispered to him “I don’t
really think you want to do that.” He remembers turning
round to see who had said it and seeing that there was just
a crowd of commuters all going about their business, of the
owner of the voice there was no sign, but it had been enough, it
had been enough to make him realise where he was for the moment
passed and he made his way back, back to the arms of the woman who
had always loved him, and who had carefully, lovingly nursed him back to
health over such a long time, and he wept, he put his head on her gentle
shoulder and he wept as he had never wept before, he wept for all pain
he still felt and he wept for all the selfish pain he would have caused this
woman had he let himself fall, for that surely had been his intention.

©Joe Wilson – He remembers…2014

Subarachnoidism

Pain in the head, again feeling gripped
Fears of another burst coming one day
Returning memories of leaks being clipped
Paralyses my mind in a terrifying way.

Shouldn’t have happened, why the hell was it me?
But then, why not? Could be anyone see!
And I recovered fully anyway
To live to fight another day.

©JRW2014