Tag: time

The bitter struggle…

On By jovisgoesIn Belief, Education, Enfranchisement, Life, Poetry, Point of View, political, Time, wisdom, Women's RightsLeave a comment
Annie Kenney 13 Sept 1879 - 9 July 1953
Annie Kenney
13 Sept 1879 – 9 July 1953

Born in Springhead in September, Seventy-nine
Started at the mill when she was ten
She lost a finger in a bobbin soon after
Couldn’t complain, jobs scarce even then.

After twelve-hour shifts as a tenter
In a harsh cotton mill amidst murl
She still had to help with the washing
Not much time to be just a girl.

Enfranchisement of women was what drove her
Fought the Cat and Mouse Act for the vote
To prison oft times for not paying the fines
Not an ordinary woman, one of great note.

She was once compared to Joan of Arc
The way she took such a principled stance
When women over thirty finally gained the vote
A more normal life for her stood a chance.

Hunger strikes and prison took a toll though
Wore her down and left her so weak
Diabetes in the end was what killed her
Her courage, with others, does still speak.

That the Suffrage Movement existed
Was a terrible indictment of those times
Though I speak of the courage of a woman – Annie Kenney
One couldn’t do her justice in mere rhymes.

 

©Joe Wilson – The bitter struggle…2014

A tenter was an assistant to the weaver, the one who had the highly dangerous job
of keeping the bobbin loaded and in line with the shuttle. The tenter also had to
feed the loose cottons back in. All highly dangerous, especially for a small child.

There were many brave women who struggled for enfranchisement.
Annie Kenney was just one. There were those who gave their lives
to the rightness of the struggle.

Autumn’s arrival…

On By jovisgoesIn Autumn, Nature, Time, WildlifeLeave a comment

Autumn leaf

 

Walking down the narrow footpath

That skirts along the tiny rill

I see the leaves all going red

But clinging on to branches still.

The redwings picking berries

Till their crops are all packed full

It’s all hubbub and chatter

Never a moment is dull.

 

And by the time we next walk round

The village green adjacent

The chill begins to penetrate

We are in Autumn nascent.

Trees growth begins to falter

The sap gets drawn back down

And leaves begin their annual fall

And land in heaps without a sound.

 

Slowly all the leaves fall down

The sycamore and ash and lime

The ground is strewn with many kinds

We’re in the Autumn prime.

But wait…there are a few leaves left

They rattle as strong winds blow

They’re oak and beech still hanging on

They’re often the last to go.

 

©Joe Wilson – Autumn’s arrival…2014

 

In mortal pain…

On By jovisgoesIn Anger, Armageddon, Belief, Betrayal, carelessness, Fate, Life, Poetry, Point of View, political, Regret, The World, WarLeave a comment

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

Well we know where we belong don’t we?

On By jovisgoesIn Dreams, Life, Poetry, Point of View, political, The WorldLeave a comment

I know my Place

(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

The re-assuring clock…

On By jovisgoesIn Clock, Existing, Re-assuring, The World, TimeLeave a comment

There’s something re-assuring about the tick of a clock
It counts off the moments and marks out the days
We know where we are and where we should be
It keeps the world moving without hesitancy.

But do we confine ourselves by wrapping in time
Are we constricted in this sectional way
What if we threw off the comfort of the norm
And took back the freedom of an old timeless form.

The world that we know would be drastically changed
Financial institutes would behave so deranged
Criminals would take over as ‘opportunities’ presented
Charlatans and fraudsters… – “The World Goes Demented”.

So the thing that we find is ‘there’s no other way.’
We depend on the start and the end of each day
But if time stopped existing not one of us would care
We’d soon cease to function and then we wouldn’t be there.

There’s something re-assuring about the tick of a clock…

©Joe Wilson – The re-assuring clock…2014

Just a boy…

On By jovisgoesIn Betrayal, Life, Poetry, Poverty, TerrorLeave a comment

orphanage_edited

It rained
It rained down on me
– and it wouldn’t stop!

The torrent of vicious blows just wouldn’t stop
They beat me
They beat me
They beat me

They wouldn’t stop

I was a boy…I was a child

Why wouldn’t they stop?

Mother!
Father!

Why have you abandoned me?

This is not what it says

This is not a home

This is my nightmare.

 

©Joe Wilson – Just a boy…2014

Life could be harsh in orphanages in the nineteen-fifties.
I’m ever grateful that I only heard of this and didn’t experience it myself.

A dark kind of retribution…(edited)

On 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

The rest of the day (a pun)

On By jovisgoesIn Poetry, Point of View, TimeLeave a comment

the_resting_traveler_by_petura

Wandering the hills and the forests
lost and in search of the way
to find a quieter and more gentle pace
in the maelström that has become today.

A sense of immediacy surrounds us
our needs they have all so changed
but stopping, sitting and thinking
may yet save us from going insane.

Sit on a stump and pause for thought
and watch as the world goes by
but this is the world of nature
which just ambles along like a sigh.

You could sit right here for the rest of the day
the peace of the moment sublime
but the irony of taking the moment
is for the moment we don’t have the time.

 

©Joe Wilson – The rest of the day (a pun) 2014

One Summer

On By jovisgoesIn Love, PoetryLeave a comment

Warmed by the sun, kissed by a breeze, the beach a perfect place
But on one beautiful Summer day, we argued and you drove away.
I watched you in your red sports car as you drove back up the hill
I remember it all like yesterday,and yes, I miss you still.
Anger had caused a rift so deep, our love not strong enough
I’d read you wrong, I’d hurt you, and your going was no bluff.

Time has passed, I’ve missed you so, I’ve loved you every day
I’ve tried to make a life worthwhile, but you don’t go away.
I live in hope that things may change, I miss your gentle touch
But fear and my self-loathing prevent me saying as much.
One day perhaps something will change, a small thing, but enough
And we’ll forgive the hurtful past, and find once more our love.

Each year I go on this same day, I walk along the shore
I won’t give up, I have to try, our love was so much more.
I hope to see you waiting there, my life is just a game
Once I thought I saw you and I ran and called your name.
You turned around and looked at me and all I felt was sorrow
For I had just misled myself, I’d try again tomorrow.

©JRW2014

The Table, and my Friend

On By jovisgoesIn Friendship, Personal, PoetryLeave a comment

I made a friend in May, it was  a long long time ago
In nineteen ninety four, that’s twenty years or so
By the door to a hospital we chatted and generally chewed the fat
Him there after a heart attack, me a by-pass, and that was that.

A table is what we spoke of and the fact that I needed one
He said, ” I’ll make one for you, but a condition, there’s just one
I’ll make you your new table and you must help me where you can.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d walked into, but I agreed to my new friend’s plan.

So together we laboured at it, him working at his trade
Before long we’d made a table, even rails with carvings made
I’m not much of a carpenter, to think I am is daft
But it was a genuine pleasure, seeing my friend alive at his craft.

Time has passed on so very much, a long time since that May
My wife and I sit by that table every single day
It’s withstood things you’d not believe and yet it is still game
And the friendship that was born that day, well that has done the same.

©JRW2014