The powerful wind...

The wind howled like a banshee that terrible day
It had argued with everything it left in its wake
It whipped up the sea to a thick grey mist
Through the windows the view was dark and opaque.

And over the crash of the huge black waves
Screaming yet so faint, their voices pathetic
As they slowly succumbed to the cold Irish Sea
In a storm that had raged with power kinetic.

And the gathering orca had much to enjoy
As they filled up their bellies from the dead
While the sharks in the shipping line boardroom
Sought to rip off the families instead.

One hundred and forty three souls were lost
Neither ship nor a person survived
But it’s said in a storm in the cold Irish Sea
You can hear the last calls that were cried.

©Joe Wilson – The powerful wind…2018

The National Health Service

When I was born the National Health Service was just a month shy of its first birthday. I was duly registered and given an NHS number which has stayed with me all my life, until more recent changes in record keeping were brought about by a much more modern digital technology.

What a wonderful service it has been too. Obviously, one can only speak from one’s own experiences, and mine have been typical in most ways, and yet untypical in others. My father died when I was in my early teens, my mother when I was in my thirties. Whilst both were cared for by the National Health Service, sadly neither of them saw the benefits of a modern service such as we have today. The same must be said for at least two of my late brothers. I however, have been helped tremendously by a much more up to date service that has quite frankly saved my life twice, the first time unquestionably, the second time quite probably. My wife has been helped greatly too by our health service, as have my beloved children, where even now the benefit is being felt.

My family is just one of many in this country that has reaped major benefits from the wonderful carer that is the National Health Service, our glorious NHS. It is the envy of the world. Indeed people come from all over the world to absorb some of its beneficence and get well.

So I ask this. Why is this current government doing so much to undermine what is a part of the very fabric of our society? Why did the last Not-Real-Labour government do so much in that direction too…PFI (need one say more?)?

The National Health Service belongs to the people of the United Kingdom, it does not belong to the here today, gone tomorrow government, which incidentally, also belongs to the people of the United Kingdom.  HANDS OFF! GIVE IT BACK! 

Words of love and faith…

So tired I drift in long deep sleep
In thoughts of you that keep me warm
Inside a place of peaceful dreams
I find you in ethereal form.

And holding hands in sweet repose
Retelling words of love and faith
While wrapped in dream-like timeless mist
My arms enfold to keep you safe.

As wakefulness returns at dawn
No longer are you there to see
But opened eyes can now reveal
Your earthly form lies next to me.

Retelling words of love and faith
And wrapped in ageless passion we
With open eyes and open hearts
Who else but you could be with me.

©Joe Wilson – Words of love and faith…2015

For all eternity...

This reckless place that is my mind
That shows me much, though oft I’m blind
Has nonetheless led me to you
A glorious, amazing thing to do.
And that alone brings other pain
That I might not see you again
For as we age our body’s tire
I say ‘who cares’, I call me liar.
But side by side we love and chat
Laughing, remembering this and that
And in your tender arms in bliss
O Lord please let us go like this.

For all eternity we will stay
As lovers, as we are today.

©Joe Wilson – For all eternity…2015

The Weeping Book...

He opened the binding of The Weeping Book
curiousity piqued, he needed to look
but how he wished he had never seen
the horrors therein that were so obscene.

The guilt of man along the passage of time
senseless slaughter without reason or rhyme
each page he turned ill had been done
by book possessed he ventured on.

The rape and pillage of those years before
children the victims of violent war
races were mixed, the one good thing
vicious hecklers of bigotry sing.

On and on through the pages now
the hurt caused pain behind his brow
saints and sinners all listed here
their sins for all to see quite clear.

He saw the vilest sins of history's pain
enslavement of those for other's gain
let loose man's done some terrible things
hope's voice is quelled by vicious stings.

The Weeping Book so perfect in name
from front to end it's full of shame
and he a priest of noble birth
would find before day's end, his worth.

No water passed his lips, nor food
his mind so troubled by soured mood
and then the page on which he gazed
revealed the future of a man gone crazed.

No change could he make to the book
transfixed at his poor fate he'd look
and as he pushed the dagger deep
as fate revealed he went to sleep.

The Weeping Book then slammed tight shut
till guilty man next came and put
his hand upon the tome's dark cover
then his sad fate he'd soon discover.





©Joe Wilson – The Weeping Book…2014

The wine bottle corks...

The night started slowly as we just sat and talked
We were waiting for our friends to arrive
We figured they’d be here by about half-past eight
As neither had finished work till gone five.

But the bottles of wine were lined up in rows
There were reds and roses, and there were whites
And as neither of our friends had arrived yet
Those bottles were full and clearly in our sights.

So we opened a red and a white one too
Mine a Shiraz, for I like a good red
My wife, well she started the white one
As a Pinot she much favours instead.

And the time it just got that much later
But our friends well they still hadn’t come
And as each of us was drinking the vino
Well it’s nice to raise a glass with a chum.

In the end our friends never did show up
It was next week not this, we were dorks
But we drank all the wine and enjoyed it
And now we’re just left with the corks.



©Joe Wilson – The wine bottle corks…2014

Author Notes

My granddaughter asked me if I could write a poem about a subject just chosen at random. She picked up a couple of corks from the previous night and this is the result. It is purely for fun…

See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11438825-The-Wine-Bottle-Corks-by-Joe-Wilson#sthash.XZNI097X.dpuf

The Fall...

I fell from the top of a tall block of apartments.
How I remember my children growing
and the never-ending beauty of my wife
my boy and my girl, so full of knowing
my darling, the centre of my humble life.

But the ground rushes up at me as I fly down so fast.

I’ve loved the same woman for all of my time
contented and happy and passionate are we
I remember the night full of vodka and lime
when I asked my love if she would marry me.

And still the ground races up at me…

What joy we have had on our long journey here
with some pains that we’ve shared and endured
sadness has crept in and occasional fear
but we beat it all back and we still feel assured.

I hit the ground --- there is nowhere else to go…

Did I make it…did I not?
Was it a dream…was it not?

©Joe Wilson – The Fall…2015