walk the streets of homelessness
step into my shoes
lose the swagger
homeless folk are drunk and stagger
a worthless band of beggar men and
when you think like that,
like the world is flat and
all lines are straight
you'll make a politician yet.

My battle,though not in Normandy is the landing beach inside of me,but
the war zone.
becomes a DMZ, as I and I cease hostility and come to an understanding.

You see,
I finally reached the beach when the tide had swallowed all those within reach and the Moon was on the wane, and understood that the battles like life were just a game,and as the good go on, the bad will wither away.

'The night of the long knives'

The cutting of life from the bough,we are leaves that will fall,hallmarked gold,assigned to be loved and to hold onto this,
we kiss like it's our first and our last,our future and the past slowly devours the remnants of...can anything last,would each day that has passed since we met fade away,who can say?

We are Olympia.


We are the races we run,the discus that's flung into the air,the javelin thrown and we become all we've been told and have known.The medals we wear, bright on our vest are a chest full of treasure,the pleasure we take,the records we make will belong to the future that goes on and on and we will rest on the laps of the gods.

Epiphany.

It was never to late to be replanted on the shady side,to be reinstated,able to grow well beside those who had grown well before and to sit out of the sun seems to give me more of a perspective on the times I have run through.In the gardens of grace where each face meets a face of the faces he wore,
if there ever was a war
I see that the shore is now silent.

Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you- lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind- with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that’s quite your own.
Yet this is you.

walked across the dunes
to the light house to
clear my thoughts.

the windsailors were
riding the sky,
my son calls them  the teabag people.
but to me they are like those  seed pods that coast upon the
wind in search of something
beyond.

the grass soughs and if you sit
quietly enough,
you can hear the hungry cry of
the little tern chicks.
hidden in the dunes nearby.

the sand trickles through twining, grasping, tenuous grass roots,
single grains multi-hued,
flow like minature snowboarders down the dunes,
steep slippery slide.
little metallic black ants have the herculean task,
of working this ***** for
seeds and other oddments of food.
i watch one stumble,stomp past, sherpa-like, precariously balancing a potato crisp's crumb.
while scaling the acute angle of sliding sand.

the pittering of the sandy ground indicates the presence
of giant skinks, sleek glassine skinned lizards that are at home in the area.
their track patterns, remind me of those old teach yourself
to dance charts seen in black and white films,
you would now find them mostly in antique stores.

the tide is in recess
and the terns are hunting,
mottled little sand *****
in some killer, crazy
game of tig or redrover.
where to lose is to looose!

the windsailor above is surpassed by
the big old seahawk
as he stretches his wings.
it is a comparison of true mastership,
over a poor and gaudy parody.
the hawk with practised disdain, dives,
through the breakers emerging,
with his fish dinner.

as i turn toward home.
i wonder,
was it the fandango the lizards, were trying to master?

Reflecting on directions taken
shadows floating in the glass
scribbling notes on Rizla paper
this like everything will pass.

Sketching a tornado
watch the wind blow.

I crayon in a part of me
with waterproof non-toxic
eco-trendy colouring sticks.

not much fun to be had when the weather's quite bad and the green party's not a party for kids

Global warming

'Oh island in the sun'
looks like the day has finally come
and
'It ain't half hot mum'

I blame the microwaves
we became slaves to the 3 minute wonder of curry and the magic of fish in a tray
and the prayer factory
known as the TV

We all get to be Jeremy Kyle with the look at me smile and what a gobshite he became

Famous?
I'd sooner stick hot pins in my eyeballs.

I'm passing milestones, painful like piles or missing two ninepins at the alley

someone's keeping tally but I have no idea of the day never mind the year
it all stopped for me in '72 but it could have been '63
I don't have a clue
no worries though

The tornado will blow
and the spirals are red
couldn't find that colour crayon
so
used mums lipstick instead

she won't mind unless she finds out and then the ****'ll hit the fan

and I'm not a fan of things like that.

I do not wish to suffer but suffer I
   must
Cursing my ill luck and the mad
   excesses
Of a selfish insensitive owner
Obsessed with destruction, both mine
   and his;
Occupying a spot here in the High
   Street
Opposite the Courthouse and its
   official Clock
An eyesore, a common talking point
Squeezed between more fashionable
   premises
Which seem always to frown and
   grimace
Expressing major reservations,
   unambiguous opposition.

Housing curios, oddments and
   selected modern junk
We sell little, our few customers
   dribbling in
Only to supplement their journeys
   while waiting on the bus
Or to eye with a morbid curiosity
That sickly creature seated behind the
   counter
My luckless tyrant of an owner
Against whom all conspire
Who seriously in debt, is helpless,
   cannot pay up
Hounded interminably by mysterious
   moneylenders
Who after giving a little now expect a
   whole lot in return.

With fuel running low for my boiler
My heating system, it is unreliable
Volatile, treacherous in Winter
My ventilator rusted through
Erratic at best, chronic in Summer
The damp in the walls and ceiling
The dry rot, the wallpaper peeling
Encouraged by years of neglect
Of being used, unscrupulously
   tampered with,
In need now of meticulous care and
   attention.

My owner truly a derelict, a dissipated
   soul
Spending more time in the cellar with
   a bottle
Than on any other shop floor level
(Among his friends, the mice, the
   cockroaches and spiders)
Who trying to stay awake, eventually
   must capitulate
Caught by that Ghost Ship that drifts
   slowly North
To where the icebergs loom large and
   ominous out of a damning fog
It's compass frozen, it's wheel
   unmanned
Nothing but shadows and wind in the
   rigging
As he floats off into oblivion, off the
   edge of the earth
Where exist such shapes that can
   never be said.

                               II

Is peculiar though, my owner
At times displays a certain poise and
   grace
Hinting at a time in the not too distant
   past
Which was not altogether bad or
   harmful
But unusual as it might seem
Was quite on the contrary, fruitful !!
Him featuring as being both proud
   and distinguished
Far removed from today's pitiful
   wretch
Whose solitary doubts and fears have
   all but taken over.

And maybe I do find it hard to
   sympathize
I after all being the one offered up
   now in sacrifice
Him there with little joy, love or hope
With only complaints and grievances
   mounting up
Filed away in offices at City Hall.

                                 III

Whereupon the hour, every  hour, the
   Courthouse Clock it chines
Ever vigilant, ready to track it's quarry
   down
Where in the corridors of power this
   very moment
City fathers, town planners and
   architects have gathered
To discuss whether our future lies in
   this town
To argue out the case, the for and the
   against;
While below the vile demolition man
   he stalks my borders
With his heart of ice and ghastly  
   drunken laugh,
No! I do not wish to suffer
Indeed, I wish I could be like any other.

Portrait d'une Femme**

Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
      London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
      Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
      Great minds have sought you — lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
      No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
      One average mind —   with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
      Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one.   Yes, you richly pay.
      You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
      Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
      Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
      That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
      The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
      These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
      Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
      No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own.
                  Yet this is you.

Chew me, will you?
Chew me, won't you?
Wedge me 'tween two
wine-stained yahoos.
Soak my core through
scaly beast, You!

Look at me.

I've become so theatrical, lying here, drowning in oddments and drool. How long now have I rotted in the eves I've missed, ****** away paths and pavements creeping like mold over my timber skin.

To think, I could have been a Great American Novel, a Wonder, a Classic. My torso might have melted the hearts of millions, the fingers of my web might have crawled carefully down their backs, spinning - oh so suddenly - a twist into their spines, while they themselves press loving, thrilling craters into mine.

I might have swept up her posthumous time machine and his mad spiral from the clouds in the booming wood and brass of one tender-fingered soldier's Trojan triumph over death and his countrymen.

But here I am, a Janitor, an Afterthought. Sweating in my splintered coat, stabbing at wet hunks of lamb that shamelessly remind me of how Wasteful I am.

I looked over yonder
And what did I see
An elephant, yellow
By a big pink tree.

Elephant, yellow
This cannot be
Are my rheumy eyes
Playing tricks on me!

When I looked round again
I saw grass of red
Surely that grass
Should be green instead.

And then a blue horse
Trotted into the scene
’twas the funniest place
That I’d ever been.

I took a step further
As I was feeling bold
Whence a group of green angels
Carried me into the fold.

The rivers there were purple
And the oranges were grey
And everywhere I looked about
People were at play.

The happiness was warming
I felt it in my heart
I loved just being in here
I felt I was a part.

And then a very loud voice
Did sonorously boom
“Who do we have here now
In this lovely coloured room?”

My name is simply Joe
I very meekly did call out.
For I was far too bothered
To raise my voice above a shout.

A huge door then just opened
And I simply passed right through
A large bearded man then said
“How do you do.”

I said, “What was that place
Where the loud voice boomed.”
He said, “That Mr Nosey
Is the oddments ante-room.

“Anyway Mr Nosey
what is it that you want.
I’m waiting for a party
from a crash in North Vermont.”

“I’m a very busy man you know
Why are you even here?
Go off and get yourself back home
And drink a lot less beer.”

©Joe Wilson – St Peter, humour, and the cost of drinking too much…2014

Reflecting on directions taken
shadows floating in the glass
scribbling notes on Rizla paper
this
like everything will pass.

Chew me, will you?
Chew me, won't you?
Wedge me 'tween two
wine-stained yahoos.
Soak my core through
scaly beast, You!

Look at me,
more theatre than figure—lying here,
sinking deeper still in oddments and drool.

How long now,
have I withered in the moments I've missed?
Paths n’ pavements, once denounced, now creeping
like mold each night over my timber skin.

Oh to think,  
A wonder. A classic. A household name.
Might I earn such praise from heeding masses?
Could my story sneak like an ice cube down
their backs, spin stranger twists into their spines?
Relish, I would, their tales of joy n’ thrill
etched lovingly into mine. Into mine.

‘Stead I lie,
A janitor. A waste. An afterthought.
sweating in my splintered coat, stabbing at
wet hunks of lamb that shamelessly remind
me how truly ordinary I am.

Such is life,
for a toothpick.

As one follows the coast line round
Dipping in and out of the coves
Floating flat out for a mile or two
Swimming back under the night sky
What is it of importance, something obtained
That may have changed the course of another
Be held onto as daylight fades.

Ones children are our lessons learnt at a cost
Remembered and cherished, found and lost
They show us who we are, the good and the bad
And take with gratitude the best that we have.
Four gold sovereigns placed in a line from
Each I carry sixpences that helped make life shine
In the coves find some oddments to go on a shelf.

Mary ***

Trailing dreams of the night
stretched to no turning back
remembering snippets
-oddments disjointed and
yet coherently dreamy.
Searching for prophesy or
perhaps a glimmer of truth
somewhere deep in the mind
it has to be there, somewhere
we hope and dream on and
dream on dreaming on.

In my inconstant Inner Haiti
I scoop a broom from the pillage-
of my dust, to sweep
all apathy Eastwise-
out of an Abundance of Caution.
I plunder my Enigma
to confuse less -
the ramparts of my clarity.
To festoon dark quadrants-
with oddments of discontinued
parades.
Always In my loop, my Spine-
a darling knot
cloistered in the open
Question.

Quivering in Dismay
like a hapless
Bruise.

Binding a Cause
to Its Rumor
with -

Absurd.