Still here I lie in Death’s dark shroud
Just more than dust beneath the ground
And even as they left this place
I heard the raven’s awful sound.
For those above had known me dead
And brought me here in six-foot box
Where even as I could not scream
I felt the dread from Death who mocks.

And as the bugs then through me roamed
As earthly bodies, mine did rot
My soul did not depart this husk
Such was the punishment I got.
And all the pain I still could feel
As rats gnawed at my hands and toes
There’s more to death than we may think
When blood through veins no longer flows.

Way up above the raven calls
The last call they will hear
He makes it as the scythe now falls
For soon they’ll come to join me here.

For if in life they’ve conscience clear
Their soul will soar on Heavenly peal
Though if like me a sinner they be
They’ll die in pain, a living meal.
They severed my head from my body
In years it’s never been found
I could never beg forgiveness
For who would have heard the sound.

Two hundred years in this dark Hell
The bugs and rats long gone
Just dried up skeletal bones remain
And the soul of a less than holy one.
Once, time stood still for just a while
For one short moment I waited
But then I saw the Devil’s smile
For in truth, he is never sated.

And yet once more the raven calls
As someone meets their doom
In six-foot holes beneath the earth
They’ll lie forever in this gloom.

©Joe Wilson – The raven’s awful call…2016

And finding ourselves
here.
What next!
What wonder of technology
or genius thinking
could ever
eradicate
thousands of years
of prejudice
and contempt,
and not the least,
distrust?
Nothing!
Nothing that could replace
an acceptance of each other
and a coming together
of hearts
and minds
in realising
that all pervading truth.
We all live here,
we all die here.
Harmonious living
is surely less problematic.
(Here you can insert any WAR you choose),
for it has always been
Man’s greatest weakness
the thing which undermines him most
and yet seemingly,
his greatest undertaking.
Man is such a violent beast
we almost deserves no place here.
For in our selfishness
we destroy
the very beauty
of the planet itself.
Perhaps it’s time
we finally realised.
LIFE
is not a practice run.
It is the real thing.

©Joe Wilson – Who in the Hell do we think we are…2016

Carefully, he laid the book on the table
He’d been re-reading Oliver Twist
In those terrible poor Dickensian times
He often wondered how the poor could exist.

The rain poured down heavy on the windows
The sky matched his mood, it was grey
For after they had both done their eight hours of work
They had picked up a parcel today.

Journeys to the food bank were in silence
Both felt an extreme sense of loss
That they had to rely on charity and handouts
From a government who treated them as dross.

The food banks get more, the poor get more poor
It was ever thus and shall ever be
He wondered what Dickens would think of it all
About poverty he thought, no change he’d see.

He’d look to the Houses of Parliament
No changes would he expect to see there
Then he’d look to the poor who still roam the streets
And see a government that still didn’t care.

Then he’d put his quill to notepaper
And tell them exactly what he thought
And ask if they’d do something about it
Or whether their  votes had been bought.

All this the man mused as they emptied the box
As a solitary tear ran down his cheek
Then he held his wife and child in his arms
And he wept, for he just couldn’t speak.

©Joe Wilson – I wonder what Dickens would think…2016

I

His hand reached out but was so oft ignored
Distrust of his different views made them wary
But the hatred of others and their vile resolution
Was brutal to see, but for him wouldn’t vary.

Each night he prayed to his Father for guidance
But his future was foretold, he would die
In the savage times then he would die on a cross
But His love and the Message, they can’t crucify.

He sits at the Father’s side now as of right
So appalled at what men do to each other
They fail in that most simple and basic of tenets
That each single man is his brother.

And yet such capacity they have for the gentle
They will love with such beauteous joy
They’ll delight in the love of their children
Yet with bullets and bombs they simply destroy.

They have written great theories about peace and war
Yet still man seems so driven to destruction
The authors of their very own Armageddon
Which approaches from out of their own construction.

These are the thoughts of just one concerned man
Many others have thoughts such as he
If the Father and the Son are as faith dictates
Why do they allow frail humanity to be.

II

Man is the author of his very own doom
With thoughtless disdain he heads for his tomb
Yet such in itself one could just tolerate
If he didn’t make others all share his sad fate.
And as one may take up his pen for to write
So many more take up arms to join in the fight
And as the blood of innocents spills deepest red
Innocent victims count for most of the dead.
But yet the one with trigger in hand
Would also like to understand
Why he can’t love and be at home
With his wife and children, or reading some tome.


III

The die gets cast by the hidden ‘others’.
Who can’t accept that we all are brothers.
It will go on --- war is not yet done
Man may well yet reach his Armageddon…

©Joe Wilson – Faith – or Armageddon next…2016

That that is seat of such wisdom
The home of our so-called democracy
Shamefully now filled with self-servers
In seats oft retained by hypocrisy.

It remains as it was and ever shall be
Ye, even from birth in Ancient Greece
The privileged make wealth and all of the rules
We the mob, are just there to fleece.

And in that place of such pretence
They hack at each other like fools
While under the guise of good manners
Disdain and sarcasm their oft-wielded tools.

And now we the mob, get to view the exchange
They presume that it keeps us amused
But we voted for representation
And we’re not, trust and faith are abused.

For democracy to work for the masses
Those elected must place people first
But sadly, this is rarely ever the case
It will remains that for which we all thirst.

©Joe Wilson – The seat of democracy…2016

Today shed I a tear for every lost soul
Lost in the furtherance of ill-conceived war
Lost at the hands of  a political goal
Lost now to good health, consistently poor.

As refugees they travel to find peaceful land
Relying on handouts from a charity trough
Reviled by so many who don’t understand
Who deny there’s a problem or just shrug it off.

Would a family not desperate get in one of those boats
And set sail over seas that so frequently ****
And give all of their money to who promises the most
Who manipulates their misery with such deadly skill.

Yes, shed a tear for humanity’s sake
Have we lost all compassion and good grace
Let us recognise the pain and the risks that they take
And be grateful that it’s something that we will not face.

But politics the *****, whose behaviour is arch
And the arms manufacturers and their riches
Mean more refugees will set off on the march
While so many lie dead in quickly dug ditches.

Man is truly his own worst enemy.

©Joe Wilson – Today shed I a tear…2016

And so I arrive at the end of my day
Achieving so little in the time that I've had
But passage along my self-guided way
Meant I happened upon you, which made me so glad.
And on we carried in togetherness fond
A love so great and so true
We forged in life love's greatest bond
Yet now here alone I do so miss you.
For how can a one live a life all alone
The sharing, the joy, and the heartache
You lean on each other like you can't on your own
Helping each other in decisions you make.
Never did a man set his feet on God's earth
That didn't have a lover that increased his worth.


©Joe Wilson - Not to be alone...2016