He still felt deafened by the terrible noise
From the huge field guns that both sides had
Been firing hour after hour for four days. You
Could be scared to death just from the noise.

An eighth didn’t seem like much
Two sixteenths
Four thirty-seconds
Eight sixty-fourths
Sixteen one hundred and twenty-eighths.

Following his recent promotion to Colonel
He was sitting in his new office at his new desk
Hesitating to put his pen to paper
Resisting the inevitable sorrow to come.

He was writing down the numbers – thinking
Thirty two two hundred and fifty-sixths
Sixty four five hundred and twelfths.
Now the numbers looked much bigger.
When he reached
Five hundred and twelve as a
fraction of four thousand and ninety-six
He stopped.

The number now seemed insurmountable
Yet it was still that small fraction.
But he now had to write to that number
Of wives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters
And tell them that their boy would
Never again walk through their front door.

An eighth is so much more than just a fraction.

©JRW2014

Relentlessly the hard rain falls
Filling rivers, then people’s halls
From coast to coast across the land
Built-on flood plains, foolish plan.
Water’s nowhere left to run
Clearing mud off floors – no fun
Twenty years, no rivers dredged
Agencies failed to keep their pledge
To support environments welfare
I wonder if they really care.

They say that it will get much worse
More than one has left by hearse
Meanwhile winds have picked up too
Downing trees as roofs unglued
Causing damage at bills untold
Premium help-line costs unfold

The political football has now been tossed
As always, it’s the ‘us’ who've lost.
Ministers forced into too-late action
Doing it to just gain vote traction.
It should have happened years ago
Sadly it’s how we always go.
Nothing happens till lives are lost
And that becomes the priceless cost.
Somethings that can’t be replaced
Perhaps at last it might be faced.

©JRW2014

It was a solemn affair
The funeral
Everyone who’d ever known him
Was there
Some even liked him a little
But most
Had just come to make sure
He was dead.

Amongst these folk a little arm
Reached up
To hold a grown-ups hand
His lad
His eyes squeezed tight, so tight
Lest he cry
To him at least he’d been
Just Dad
To this young boy the man had been
His Hero
Criminal in life the man had left behind
The Innocent.
Only time would tell if that would
Remain the case.

©JRW2014

Black is the night
Black is the mood
Dark is the spirit
All evil imbued.

‘Tis now the zombies
Will walk the earth
Never finding peace
In their lifeless worth.

If they catch you
They’ll bring you down
Zombies live inside your mind
And not beneath the ground.

©JRW2014

Angelic voices called to her
She faltered at beauty’s sound
She’d thought that she was doing well
Surprised that now she had been found.

The monsoon rains had brought her down
A fever struck so deep
Her strength gave out eventually
Her will began to seep.

She’d worked out in the harshest place
She’d dug and picked and sown
On land that others made profit from
The land was not her own.

She’d even had a child once there
And then just carried on
The baby wrapped up on her back
Her plaintiff cry so wan.

But now the time had come for her
Worn out at forty two
Amidst the constant poverty
Her death was nothing new.

They buried her and carried on
No tears upon their face
The crops still needed planting
Her daughter filled her place.

©JRW2014

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.

©JRW2014

a man needs a study
and a study I have
where I hide from the world
with my thoughts.
I write them all down
and think them all through
they go down through my fingers
that’s how my work grew.
some are quite big thoughts
yet more still are small
some of them don’t bear
much thinking at all.
but they all get assembled
in some sort of fashion
and get moved into poems
in my kind of a passion.

©JRW2014

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

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 carved rose ends
I'm not much of a joiner, 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

Up we go, up the stairs
To sleep or dream or play with bears
Under cover with ‘secret’ lamps
Beds turn into night time camps
Where special messages are passed about
“Only in whispers, you mustn’t shout.”
’cause we’re asleep our parents think
Our tired red eyes are on the brink…

Then “wake up children, time to go,
one more day at school you know.”
Off we race to get to class
To take some tests we hope to pass
Then running home at end of day
Homework, tea, and then we play
amazing games in the weekends
having fun with all our friends.

©JRW2014

The old hands don’t dust any more for Nell Pruitt
Since arthritis set in they just cannot do it
She shuffles through the flat with the aid of a stick
She was a proud working woman and it makes her feel sick.
To ask for the help that they don’t want to give
She’s certain that they’d prefer her not to live.

Nell had worked hard through the Second World War
One of the girls making bullets and more
Lots of her friends had gone of to the fight
Of some of them that was Nell’s last ever sight.
But she survived thankful and got married to Dan
Outliving their children was not part of the plan.

Dan passed away when he was just sixty two
Nell cried for a long time not able to move
Eventually though she worked her way through it
She was made of stern stuff old Mrs Nell Pruitt
And she did love the garden where she spent most of her time
Growing herbs for her friends, mainly rosemary and thyme.

Now the years have moved on and Nell’s hands are much worse
She looks on them just as another life’s curse
She’s seen the young doctor who’s treated her well
Not holding out hope from his face she could tell
So she shuffles about trying hard not to think
As the pain’s getting worse and Nell’s starting to sink.

©JRW2014

He often wanders down the street
And depending on his mood
He’ll lie right down and take the sun
He sleeps or plays, he’ll walk or run.

Nothing seems beyond his reach
There’s very little you could teach
He gets in places others can’t
He’s often stroked by my old aunt.

He likes to curl up by my aunt’s side
Purring shows he’s satisfied
He is indeed a handsome cat
If he could talk he’d tell you that.

Sometimes he’ll bring a mouse indoors
Playing with it with his paws
Aunt’ll chase him out again
My aunt, she is the mouse’s friend.

Who would own such a naughty cat
Not those next door, we all know that
For they’ve a dog with a long, long tail
And cat just bites it without fail.

Dog chases cat, aunt chases dog
Around the garden they all jog
That’s when the cat jumps on the fence
He always wins – he’s too much sense.

For now we’ll leave him and my aunt
He’s fed and there’s nothing he will want
They’re both asleep right by the fire
It’s late and time old cats retire.

©JRW2014

I’ve got an urgent appointment
I’m absolutely all of a rush
I have to get there quickly
And I'm starting to feel a hot flush.

Hunting around with my shirt hanging out
It’s missing! It’s missing! I let out a shout.

Whenever I have to dress for a date
If ever I get there I'm dreadfully late
It’s not punctuality that comes as a shock
It’s that I always manage to lose a sock.

©JRW2014

If you are with someone
If you stay with that someone always
If almost every thought includes that person
If you care for them like no one else
If you try really hard never to hurt them
If you try desperately never to disappoint them
If you stay awake until they sleep to be sure they’re safe
And if you rise early to watch them wake so that you can see in the new day together
You are enjoying being in love with that someone
In the way I enjoy being in love with you.

©JRW2014

I see a fine looking lady sitting on a hill
Pretty flowers all around her and she’s sitting so still
She is watching a little girl play with a ball
She smiles at the sight and is totally enthralled.

The little girl laughed as she chased the ball down
If she got too far away the fine lady frowned
One time the ball ran over my way
So I rolled it right back, she continued to play.

The lady then opened a hamper to eat
There were biscuits and cakes and many a treat
The little girl tried a small sandwich at first
Biting it gingerly with her tiny lips pursed.

She was smiling again as she ate a cream cake
That was much more enjoyable, there was no mistake
After fruit juice and tea it was all put away
They gathered their things and called it a day.

I often see them both up on the hill
I sit here and watch them and smile
The girl calls me Daddy, the fine lady, dear
And we all leave together for our home close to here.

©JRW2014

As boys we sat atop a bridge
And saw the trains rush by
Steam flying out of funnel stacks
We watched them pass with a sigh.

The Royal Scot was a favourite
The Flying Scotsman too
But the biggest thrill we ever got
Was when The Mallard raced right through.

Such a beauty she was in livery
All blue and shining and bright
And to children like us in the fifties
She was such an amazing sight.

She was the four four six eight
And she ran on four six two
You couldn’t see her funnel stacks
For speed they were hidden from view.

They’d built her up in Doncaster
Through a wind tunnel she had passed
And when she flew along the tracks
You caught a glimpse and gasped.

Steam trains of course don’t run now
Except on heritage lines
But smelly and ***** as they may have been
They were a glorious sight in their times.

©JRW2014

The old and now empty railway track
Where iron horses will never come back
Carried trains along it on two four four
Driving along to the Welsh sea shore.

Children would travel with bucket and *****
Later to wonder at castles they’d made
While Mum and Dad with bags by three
Wondered if they’d brought enough for tea.

From Stafford station it pulled away
Stopping at Newport along the way
Then Shrewsbury town and Machynlleth too
Pulling in at Barmouth just after two.

Passengers piled out in their droves
Most of them looking for shallow coves
Mums carrying babies who’d often screech
Heading for quiet spots left on the beach.

To Mum and Dad it was a well earned rest
From their working days and household stress
And the joy of seeing children have such fun
It meant the holidays had begun.

Some days later, maybe three or four
Passengers waited by carriage doors
And back to their homes they all would go
With tales to tell to folks they know.

And as they journeyed East again
Saying goodbyes to holiday friends
They felt refreshed and enjoyed the ride
As the train sped away from the wild Welsh tide.

©JRW2014

Some people just don’t ****** care
They see injustice with ghoulish stare
But being beaten about the head
Lying bloodied and left for dead
Can leave you a cynic of humankind
Of passers-by whose gaze is blind.

Am I not human like you lot
As I lie here midst blood and snot
Do you not care a **** for me
This isn't how it used to be.

But no help comes, I'm left instead
I've drawn last breath – and now I'm dead.

©JRW2014