Big Man

Recently President Donald J Trump decided to rescind a ban on importing animal parts into the USA from Africa - opening the way for "big game hunters" like his sons to bring back the heads of elephants, lions and cheetahs. He has since suspended the decision after an outcry.

This is what I think about it.

Big Man

I'm a big man, see me preen
on a photo that was taken
with a lion that I shot
when I was on vacation
All the way to Africa
in my Safari suit
There's lots of sexy animals there
that I so yearned to shoot

And now our fine new President
says that it's OK
to take my guns to the Savannah
so I can blast away

But only from a distance
in the comfort of my Jeep
Ideally I'd blast that cheetah
when it was fast asleep
then wrap my arms around its neck
holding it so tight
it's blood soaked spots so carefully
hidden out of sight

If I really were a big man
I'd take that creature down
with just my own bare hands
and take his furry crown

I'd wrestle with that rhino,
punch it til it's dead
I'd need no guide to help me
sever its glistening head

To put over my mantelpiece
and boast to all my friends
that I was the one, the big man
who put it to its end

But I hide behind my massive gun
like the coward that I am
For the future of the species
I don't give a damn

Well, big man, are you happy now?
that no elephants might remain
in their natural habitat
oblivious to their pain -
what is it, in your perverted head
when you meet their glassy eyes
over your roaring, crackling fire
admiring your bloody prize?

Your pride is a sick cancer
on the human race
that you feel the need to kill and maim
is a horrible disgrace
the creatures that you slaughter
have beauty, they have grace
I'd love to see them wipe that smile
from your smug, fat, decadent face

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

Hotel Chelsea Project - The Four Seasons Room

The short story below is the back story for a tiny piece of art I contributed as part of a community art project in Mexborough. Each person would contribute one window. Here is mine:

This is the full hotel

The Four Seasons Room

The old man had been in the hotel room longer than most of the staff could remember. He always told them it helped him make new friends among the staff and guests. People wondered how he paid for it all but no bill was ever missed; some said he had been famous at one time but few seemed to know what for.

Recently he had been increasingly confined and had a series of nurses and carers permanently installed in an adjoining room. Rather than wandering the corridors and lounges he mainly stayed in the room, in bed or in his wheelchair reading or observing the world through his window.

One day in early spring he requested soft pastels of all colours and a pad of artists paper. He would spend time at the window, mainly thinking, but occasionally working. As the year went on his health deteriorated but he continued with his drawing. As New Year followed Christmas he called his nurse over and said “I've finished – get my lawyer”.

The meeting was set up and completed. A week later the old man was gone. A few weeks later the lawyer came to the hotel and asked to speak to the owner – the owner was called and, after the conclusion of the meeting, emerged looking pale and shocked, unable to speak. Eventually the Maitre D, who had known the owner longest, got the story.

The artist was indeed famous and had produced no new work since an abrupt retirement in 1985. The four expensive, much sought after, pastels he had produced had been bequeathed to the hotel on condition that the window in his room was altered to be a stained glass representation of his works – one for each season of the final year of his life. Thus was born The Four Seasons Room, named for the now celebrated Four Seasons pastels that spent most of their life on loan to collections around the world - but whose sisters could always be seen by everyone who walked past the hotel - second to top floor, second window from the right.

Sunday School Anniversary

2017 sees the 150th anniversary of the Methodist chapel in Stonebroom. This poem is the most auto-biographical one I've written. There is a sound recording of me performing in the 1975 Sunday School Anniversary that may appear on YouTube at some point!


Sunday School Anniversary

The old chapel is overflowing,
Ladies in hats and gents a suit
Low murmurs of conversation
Quickly become mute

As the preacher starts proceedings
Introducing the first song
The people of the chapel
Entertain the throng

Up on the tiered platform
The kids are ready too
Four times they have the service
A sense of deja vu

There, on that platform, sits a boy
Who's learned his moral verse
He found learning it so easy
But reciting so much worse

In front of such a massive crowd
It seemed like thousands there
In reality much fewer but
a very real nightmare

On one shoulder the good angel
Says "You know this inside out"
On the other lurks a darker voice
sowing seeds of doubt

"You'll forget it" said the serpent
as it slithered in his ear
"You'll make yourself look stupid"
His stomach knots with fear

His throat goes dry, he doesn't know
Just when the call will come
They change it every single time
His lips have just gone numb

Then suddenly the time arrives
He stumbles to his feet
Two hundred faces watching
Are they hearing his heart beat?

Then the words come flooding out
The confidence is there
The doubting voice just fades away
With a whimper of despair

And then it ends, relief at last
Shaking as he sits
He doesn't have to worry
He's won the war of wits

Between his brain which knows the words
And his soul which just prefers
that he didn't have to do this
and could just crawl down the stairs

But afterwards everybody says
just how well he spoke
"What a lovely poem"
said the genteel chapel folk

He knows that means a longer verse
is on its way next year
He curses his fine memory
but later it is clear

When exams come round that recall
Is a blessing for the boy
Maths, History, Science, English
Are all a learning joy

Even if occasionally
the man who has to stand
before a crowd of strangers
his subject to command

Has the serpent in his ear
Trying to sneak in
He knows that he can do it
He knows that he will win

For his fading memory
Of that Anniversary day
Tells him he can do it
"Be thankful, let us pray"

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

In memory of Jim and Wilfred

These poems are dedicated to Wilfred Owen, the poet who most influenced me in my teenage years, and my great-uncle Jim Whittaker, who served in the First World War after enlisting in 1915.

Owen was killed on 4th November 1918, one week before the end of the war. Jim survived and lived out his life in Derbyshire.

The Old Man In The Bed

(for Jim Whittaker 1889-1973)

There's an old man in a bed
in the front room
at my grandparents' house
He is my grandfather's uncle 

who complains a lot
when he does speak
which isn't so often

I hear him as
he bangs on the wall
with his walking stick
that he can no longer use
for he is confined.
"Rita!" he shouts and
she feeds and cleans him
It seems like he is waiting to die.
It is odd and uncomfortable
for an eleven year old

What I didn't see
is an ex-miner
who volunteered in 1915
to fight in the war
to end all wars

What I didn't see
is what he saw
in the Balkans and in France
Unimaginable sights

What I didn't hear
is what he heard
the explosions, the screams
the orders to advance into
possible death

What I see now
are the medals
he so bravely won

What I see now
is the hero
who never spoke about
what he saw
or what he heard

The Sherwood Forester
didn't die in Ypres
or in Turkey
he died in the village of his birth
a half century later and
his memories died with him

When you see an old man
or an old woman
struggling to rise or to
remember where they put their glasses
when you say
"they didn't take their pill today!"
remember that they had lives, had stories;
If they wish to speak
we should listen.


Escape from Hell

In World War I enlisting was seen as an escape from the danger and grinding hard labour of the collieries. At one stage 25% of Welsh miners had enlisted, forcing the Government to stop it happening to make sure coal production was maintained. Talk about out of the frying pan, into the fire.

We'd step into that cage, boys
down to the bowels of Hell
No matter what your age, boys
you couldn't do so well

in any other job, boys
until the Army called;
You'll earn a good few bob, boys
In uniform you'll stand tall

We marched off to the War, boys
no grinding daily graft
We'll give the Hun what for, boys
you really must be daft

To stay down in that pit, boys
Come with me to France
No gas, no dust, no heat, boys
Just do the Victory dance

We dug down in the earth, boys
I was a military mole
Dig for all you're worth, boys
For the King, and not King Coal

But do it really still, boys
For the Germans are so sly;
Ready for the kill, boys
We heard them scraping nearby

One day when it was late, boys
Soon time to rest my bones
A shell sealed five men's fate, boys
And I was left alone

I signed up for the front, boys
I'd almost lost my wits
To go back down; I couldn't, boys
to where pals were blown to bits

As we sat in the trench, boys
I wished that I weren't there
Oh God, the mud and stench, boys
There's nothing to compare

I'm in the bowels of Hell, boys
There's no escape from here
Bullet, gas or shell, boys
That's what I now so fear

When your shift is done, boys
You walk out of the night
We'll walk towards the guns, boys
In morning's shining light

I'll walk towards the guns, boys
In morning's shining light


Our Time Has Come

I wrote this on the day of the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, July 1st 2016

The guns are silent
We wait...
I am shaking
A sound in the sky
Cloudless and blue
It is birdsong
We listen....
"One minute boys!"
Bert is praying
We wait
The whistle blows
We go...
                Our time has come

The End of Summer 

This was written at a workshop - the title was "The End of Summer". I suppose they were expecting some summery imagery, and so was I to be fair. What no-one expected was this - nearly unchanged from what I first wrote in the 4 minute exercise.

It was the end of summer
Nineteen seventeen
We'd been through hell
I was still there
No flowers, just mud, no green

Where were my old companions,
Billy, George and Ted?
Gone away in a single day
What more have I to dread

It was the end of summer
But not the end of war
Live or die, with all my parts
I care not any more

Jack and Bill (after Siegfried Sassoon)

Jack and Bill took on the hill
in the face of fearsome slaughter
Bill went first as a great shell burst
and Jack went not long after

Up Jack got but he'd been shot
and no longer would he caper
In a flood of red he soon was dead;
his name was listed in the paper.

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

Visions of Horses

It's a commonly held belief that animals perceive the supernatural more readily than humans.

Maybe pit ponies are no different.

Visions of Horses

Trudging up with heavy load
I walk my daily route - blinkered
in the dark I work and graft
with little love or reward.

It seems like this is eternity;
I remember so little else -
the memories seem like
imagined dreams - of my mother
nuzzling me gently as I drink
and of sunlight and rain;
of children laughing and patting.

My driver is neither kind
nor fierce - his melancholy drips
from him like water from the roof.
I sense his feelings
and those of the others who
cut the dark rock and fill my tubs.
Some say we sense more than
living emotions.

As I think this I catch, coming
towards me, a pale pony.
As we converge he stops
and stares straight in my eye.
His driver grunts - "hup lad"
but he will not move. I move
towards him, slowly - my
silent driver gives no orders.

I connect with the pony
whose baleful gaze is
now mere yards away.
I hear his thoughts -
he shimmers a little,
not quite solid.

"Hello friend"
I feel his words but cannot
respond. His master is
berating him, urging him on.
My grief is so deep my legs
buckle and my head bows.

"We will meet again"
he says and begins to move.
As he passes though me
we become one.

In that instant I know
which of us no longer lives.