Discarded Weapon

This was inspired by a visit to Calke Abbey south of Derby, where we went on a guided walk with a park ranger.

Discarded Weapon

On the ground, behind the fallen branch,
on thirsty, dying grass,
hiding in plain sight,
it catches my eye.
I pick it up, examine it -
it lies heavy in my hands.
A bone handled weapon,
a weapon of battle,
a weapon of death.

In the clearing you were confronted  -
there was no escape.
In that rising, pumping adrenaline rush
you were calm, countering each blow
until - exposed - that sweet spot, between the ribs.
Thrusting the exquisite point with urgent precision,
sinking through skin and muscle, slicing into tissue
deep, deep inside, deep to its hilt.
Withdrawing, dripping with inferior blood,
crimson fresh.
Wary, you backed away.
Unsure until the collapsing legs, heavy, frothing breath,
recorded those last inevitable, slow-motion frames of time.
Watching until the end.

My fingerprints are on it now but any blood
is long gone, rubbed away, sun-bleached, rain-washed
in those months since you discarded it.

I watch in stillness as you move slowly to the ridge
where you bellow your dominance.

Tim Fellows 2018

Christmas

 

Christmas

The winter feast
of gluttony
beats its heavy-footed path
to our wreathed
and tinseled door
once more.

Roaring its carols,
red Coke Can Santa
pushes brittle toys
in our children's faces
and we let him
and they let him

Because it's Christmas
and it must be fun.
Because in some golden past
a story
told us it was so.
And they believed it
and we believed it.

And ignored,
cowering in a corner,
is Compassion.
Forgotten, like the book
of poems purchased
by a well meaning aunt.
Shoved to the back of the tree
and packed away
after Twelfth Night.
Never to be read.

Tim Fellows 2018

Blue

Blue

Clouds part and through the crystal gaps
azure refracted light streams
onto hidden feral depths
reflecting ribbons of a deeper hue -
a mirror rippled in flecks
of white that bubble and fade.

She fancies that she sees the popping
of some surface fish,
glinting silver knife-like,
dipping and darting to the indigo deep.

Up on the headland's grassy coat
among wild flowers she sits
where they once sat in love's first bloom.

His cornflower eyes, dancing,
laughter tinkling in the salty breeze
transported into history.

Twisting the ring, that circle of trust
raised to a sapphire head -

each facet a memory.

Tim Fellows 2018

When We Were Kings

I wrote this poem for the commemoration event for "Lives Lived, Lives Lost" at the National Coal Mining Museum on December 1st 2018.

BFI film - "Miner" - https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-miner-1950-online

When We Were Kings

In those days when steam and smoke
belched from chimneys in our towns
We were the kings of industry
from coal we forged our crown.

In the heartlands of the north
below field and towering mill
we ripped the coal and churned it out -
we had strength and we had skill

In unison we rode the cage -
worked in thunder, breathed the dust
to feed the ever hungry beast
and earn a grateful nation's trust

But now those days have been and gone
we're never going back
where the coal flowed like a river
rumbling dark and black

to every corner of our land
by canal or rail or road
the people needed coal and
we colliers bore the load.

The banter on the coal face
the scream of the machines
the conveyer flying past us
lives only in our dreams.

So now we stand where the pit was
at the top of the slag heap hill
the noise has gone, just birdsong,
but we can hear it still.

Tim Fellows 2018

Ten all-time favourite poets

Recently I was interviewed by Paul Brookes and I made the statement than no living poet would get into my top 10. When I read this back I thought - is that really true? Who are my top 10?

In the end I went for non-living (a.k.a. dead) poets. 

I was going to do this "in no particular order" but I decided in the end to get off the fence.These poets are not just poets who would appear in many such lists as they are genuinely great but speak directly to me and influence my own work - some that inspired me when I started and some whose work I have become more aware of and are increasingly growing in influence.

But hang on, you say - where are Hardy, Keats, Milton, Byron, TS Eliot? What about Shakespeare? I quickly discovered that getting down to just 10 was going to hard and I had to think about whether their work influenced me directly or influenced poetry as a whole and whether I actually liked the poems rather than just admiring them for their technicality. I also had to decide whether it mattered if the poet themselves were likeable. I decided that I had to like the poetry but didn't worry about whether I would invite the poet to dinner.

Five of the poets pretty much wrote themselves in but then it started getting tricky. In the end I've gone with my gut instinct and used a ranking technique that I use at work. Ask yourself - whose poetry would I miss if it didn't exist? Keep comparing contenders until you have you cut-off.

Oh, and by the way Tim, where are the women? Yes, I know. I apologise in particular to Sylvia Plath and Maya Angelou, who were both contenders up until the last few knock-out rounds.

I would also like to mention Pablo Neruda and C.P. Cavafy. With these poets, you are looking at translations of their work so you have a combination of the original work and the translator. I have no doubt that in both cases the work itself contributes greatly, but in the case of Cavafy I don't think the older translations do him justice and it's Ian Parks' recent translations and insights that mean I am starting to feel Cavafy's influence in my work already.

Anyway, here goes, counting down from 10 to 1.

10. Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

A difficult and perhaps controversial choice to start with. Larkin was not, at least in his public persona, a likeable figure and his private life had some quirks too. Sometimes his poems are acerbic and you aren't quite sure if his targets deserve it. However, I can't help but like his work. The poems are deeply layered and beautifully constructed yet you can get an immediate hit from them even before you start to analyse and unpick them.

"What are days for?

Days are where we live.   

They come, they wake us   

Time and time over.

They are to be happy in:   

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor   

In their long coats

Running over the fields." - ("Days")


Personal favourite -  Aubade

9. Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

A deeply flawed genius who met a self-inflicted early death but who left behind work of such verbal beauty that he shines like a beacon in 20th Century poetry. Without the intellectual pretencion of Eliot or the variation in form and tone of Auden he nonetheless becomes a favourite of many because of the sheer joy at the sounds his words make when read out loud.

"Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea."   (from "Fern Hill") 

Personal favourite - Fern Hill

8 - William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

We now enter a run of "Romantic" poets with the pre-eminent figure in the movement. You cannot escape his influence and he epitomises what the general public still consider poetry to be if you ask them. Ask them for a poem and they'll probably name "I wandered lonely as a cloud" even if that's all they know of it. And if you've been brought up with that view then it has to rub off somewhere in your work. He was technically gifted to the point of showing off - writing his autobiography in blank verse, for example. You can read his work and it's like taking a warm bath - very comforting, even if it doesn't particularly challenge you.

"Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth

Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,

Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls

That they might answer him.—And they would shout

Across the watery vale, and shout again,

Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals,

And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud

Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild

Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause

Of silence such as baffled his best skill:" - (from "There was a boy", part of The Prelude)


Personal favourite - Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

7 - Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Shelley was the most radical of the Romantics and his work remains quoted to this day - "Ye are many, they are few" from The Masque of Anarchy will no doubt ring a bell. It could be argued that he was a champagne socialist, railing against authority from his villa in Italy and suggesting that people should allow themselves to be slaughtered in protests rather than use violence, while not suggesting he himself do it. However his words were seditious (see the example below) and none of this detracts from the power of his poetry, linguistically and thematically.

 "An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow

Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;

Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,

But leechlike to their fainting country cling

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.

A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;

An army, whom liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;

Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;

A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—

Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may

Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day." - ("England in 1819")

Personal favourite - The Masque of Anarchy

6 - John Clare (1793-1864)

John Clare is a lesser known poet of the Romantic era but penned a number of lovely pastoral poems inspired by the area he grew up and lived in. He was born into a working class family and was an agricultural worker himself in Northamptonshire, not far from where my ancestors on my grandma Rita's side did the same thing in that same era. After early success he couldn't sustain he began to exhibit symptoms of mental illness and by his 40's was in a mental hospital. He was the opposite in many ways of Shelley, accepting the lot in life given to him and his ancestors despite the authorities ripping up centuries of tradition in land enclosures and ploughing of pastures. As workers drifted to the towns Clare wrote passionately about a lost way of life, many while he was institutionalised.

"I ne’er was struck before that hour

   With love so sudden and so sweet,

Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower

   And stole my heart away complete.

My face turned pale as deadly pale,

   My legs refused to walk away,

And when she looked, what could I ail?

   My life and all seemed turned to clay." - ("First Love")

Personal favourite - I am 

5 - Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

Heaney's work, for me, is characterised by his ability to write with complexity and depth yet engage you in thinking about what he is saying without it being inaccessible or preachy. The literary critic Helen Vendler described him as “a poet of the in-between.” He was sympathetic to the Republican cause yet never definitively espoused it - he lifted stones and let us see what was underneath. He wrote in the language of his people's oppressors - to a great depth, and the point where he was able to produce probably the best translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. He wrote about the past yet he was not stuck in it - stylistically or thematically.

"Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it." (from "Digging")

Personal favourite - Death of a Naturalist


4 - William Blake (1757-1827)

We studied Blake at school and I was immediately drawn to his imagery - drawn in by "The Tyger" and then further by my favourite Blake poem "The Chimney Sweeper". Blake was a complex man with unconventional views. He was a committed Christian who railed against the established church - The Chimney Sweeper being an excellent example. His poem "The Little Black Boy" shows the idea of equality of people of all races. He is of the Romantic period but is perhaps slightly before, and possibly pre-empting them. He constantly questions his religion, the Church, society and the interaction between the three.

And so we come to "Jerusalem", or as Blake titled it "And did those feet in ancient times". Beloved of the WI, sung by political parties across the spectrum, sung as a hymn in some churches and possibly England's best choice for a National Anthem. What did it mean if it appeals to such a range of people? For me you just need to look at the breadth of Blake's work to understand it - I'll probably write my own analysis of this separately as it's such a fascinating piece of work.

I think this poem, short and to the point, sums up Blake's view of the society in which he lived. And, astonishingly, could still be valid 200 years later.

Holy Thursday (from Songs of Experience)

Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine.
And their fields are bleak & bare.
And their ways are fill’d with thorns.
It is eternal winter there.

Personal favourite - A Poison Tree


3 - W.H.Auden (1907-1973)

For me, Auden's power was in his variety - subject matter and poetic form are a landscape that he roamed without fear and with equal success. Intellectually the poems are sometimes elitist, splattered with references that most people would not understand and yet somehow he makes them readable and allows at least one layer to be understood. They are also occasionally political, although his politics changed as he grew older and he also lost much of his support during his career after he left the UK for America just before the outbreak of World War II. One thing's for sure, when you read an Auden poem you know you'll want to read it again, and again and probably more times after that. You will have to work hard to get all the nuances, but it will be worth it.

"Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew;
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that." (from "Refugee Blues")


Personal favourite - Epitaph on a Tyrant

2 - Charles Causley (1917-2003)

I was introduced to Charles Causley 's work by his distant relative, folk singer Jim, who set some of his poems to music in 2013, although I had heard his most famous poem "Timothy Winters" before. I was instantly attracted by the accessibility of the work, by its gentle ballad rhythms and by the sensitivity of the feeling written into the work. This "accessibility" led to him being discounted as a Poet Laureate despite a campaign in the 1980s including support from Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes. Hughes called him "a man of the people, in the old, best sense" and was a friend of Causley's despite their poetry being so different. Much of his work and certainly his life was influenced by his time in the Navy during World War 2 and he also wrote a lot about his native Cornwall, although he was widely travelled and wrote about that too. His writing harks back to a time before modernism, with echoes of Houseman, Hardy and even Blake. 

It's so hard for me to a pick a favourite from his many great poems but I, and I think many others, believe his best work to be Eden Rock.

"They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:
My father, twenty five, in the same suit
Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet."

The ending of this poem is, in my opinion, as fine a piece of poetry as has been committed to paper.

Then there's Innocent's Song, a dark Christmas ballad:

Why does he ferry my fireside
As a spider on a thread,
His fingers made of fuses
And his tongue of gingerbread?

Of course you have to mention Timothy Winters, again a very simple and easily understood poem that contains beautiful and concise descriptive stanzas of one unfortunate pupil at the school in which Causley taught after the war.
 
However in the end I've gone for a more obscure poem, which you won't find online other than as an audio download of a reading by Charles himself - it costs 89p or you buy a whole album for £9.99. It's called A Wedding Portrait (of his mother and father) and contains this beautiful segment:

As I walk by them on the stair
A small surprise of sun, a ruse
Of light, gives each a speaking air,
A sudden thrust, though both refuse
- Silent as fish or water-plants -
To break the narrow stream of glass 
Dividing us. I was nowhere
That wedding day, and the pure glance
They shaft me with acknowledges
Nothing of me. I am not here. 

When you see the actual photograph it's exactly as you envisage it in his description - and the poem adds a deeper layer about existence and loss. It's brilliant and I really wish I could have met him to tell him so.

Get the audios here:

https://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/charles-causley

1 - Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) with honourable mention to Siegfried Sassoon

Wilfred Owen, before the First World War, was a competent but unremarkable poet in the Romantic style but his introduction to the cauldron of World War One changed his poetry, and the trajectory of his life and legacy, forever. When I first heard "Dulce et Decorum Est" at school it altered my view of poetry, and ultimately, of war itself. I had been brought up with a very conventional view of Britain as a great military power and of war being something we did and that you had to support. Since our prior war had been World War Two against the Nazis, this may have coloured the public mindset. However this poem triggered me to find out more about World War I and then put war into a historical context - prior conflicts that you learn via history as dates, battles and winners or losers mask the horror of death, disease and destruction that people experience in the midst of battle.

I had also been exposed to poetry largely as the kind of soft, romantic style - especially as much of it was learnt at chapel. T.S. Elliot had bypassed me, or I him, so when I saw familiar structures like sonnets being used to convey a far darker message than Shakespeare had it changed everything.

Owen's experiences, including spending a couple of days in a hole with fellow soldiers who were literally in pieces after a shell hit them, resulted in him suffering PTSD (then known as shell shock) and he was sent to Craiglockhart War hospital in Edinburgh where he met the poet Siegfried Sassoon. The men formed an instant friendship, with Sassoon becoming Owen's mentor. Owen would never admit that he had become better than Sassoon, but in my opinion he had.

Owen returned to the front in 1918 and was killed in action a week before the war ended. Before his death only 5 of his poems were formally published.

Owen sums up the ethos of his war poetry in this introduction:

“This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

Technically, Owen draws on his love of classical style - particularly strong in half-rhymes and yet unafraid to write what he saw as the truth about War.

Go to this page to read some classic Owen poems and snippets - Wilfred Owen quotes

I can't really pick a favourite so as my Owen poem I simply have to pick what may not be the best but the one that changed my life - Dulce Et Decorum Est.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”

The Fallen

I wrote this after walking along the side of the Thames in November 2018, 100 years after the end of World War I.

The Fallen

On a crisp November day
under a listless pale blue sky
I saw, beneath my feet,
Autumn's fallen.
A multitude of shades and hues,
all shapes and sizes,
scattered on the earth.

The dirty earth
where some, among the first to fall,
were merged with the mud.
Trodden down by those
whose only goal along the path
was the next half mile.

Some still looked alive,
blown away in their prime.
Too young
to lie like this
among the dead.

Some remain above this realm of death
Hopeful as they face the sun
As Time's swift river passes by
Until at last their race is run.

Tim Fellows 2018

Protest Poem

I wrote this a few weeks ago in support of the 3 protesters jailed for stopping lorries entering the fracking site in Lancashire. Thankfully they were freed on appeal.

Protest Poem

Democracy is fragile,
it's like a game that's played
with secret deals and handshakes
hidden in the shade.
Democracy is flexible
when there's money to be made.

Taking back control
is just a front page splash
when you've one hand on the levers
and the other grabbing cash.
If anyone dares to protest
it's they who feel the lash.

You point your grubby finger
at the Brussels bureaucrats
You lie about their power,
claim that you're the democrat.
But your abuse of authority
shows that you're the cat who's fat.

From Peterloo to Kinder
the trespass in the peaks
to Orgreave and the Poll Tax
it's justice that we seek.
But you clamp mouths with heavy hands
when the people try to speak.

Now you misuse the system
to crush any dissenting voice
when the frackers come to town
the locals get no choice.
As the protests end in prison
you silently rejoice,
rejoice,
rejoice....

Tim Fellows 2018

Memorial

In memory of the millions killed in World War I

Memorial

We remember them in black and red
Millions slain in muddied ground
The dead were piled upon the dead
In blood and tears their hopes were drowned

We see them now in black and white
In uniforms so crisp and clean
Young faces scrubbed and shining bright
Before the nightmare stole their dreams

So when we stand in solemn row
Honouring names all carved in stone
Do any of us really know
why souls like poppy seeds were sown?

Tim Fellows November 11th 2018

White Feather

This one was written at the first of Ian Parks' Peace Workshops in Doncaster earlier this year. It was read out at The Cast in Doncaster as part of Doncaster Choral Society's "Lest We Forget" concert.

White feathers were handed out by women during World War One to any young man who was walking the streets not in uniform, to shame and humiliate them into joining up. They were also posted to known conscientious objectors.

White Feather

Why did you feel the need to share
those perfect pure white feathers?
Plucked bitter from the wings of birds
whose peace was cruelly shattered.

Your face is torn and twisted
as you caw your words of hatred
for those who see no reason
to kill a fellow human.

I take your gift, soft smiling,
I am proud of my heart's calling.
However you despise me
I'll stand my ground with honour.

No blood will stain that feather
This bird will sing forever

Tim Fellows 2018

4.30 am, France, Summer 1918

"Stand to, me bonny lads,

Stand to and make you ready.

Stand to, me bonny lads,

Hold the line right steady.

Let bright bands rule the flame;

This day shall bear your name.

Stand to, me bonny lads,

Hold the line right steady." - John Tams

4.30 am, France, Summer 1918

I wait for the explosions
that come when dawn is breaking,
when darkness fades like phantoms
of my mutilated comrades.

Death is my companion
and fear is our lieutenant
who stalks the stinking trenches
barking his commandments.

The rats are getting ready
for they will feast by sunset.
The guns will be their waiters
who serve a varied menu
from many different nations.

I think about my mother
as the shells are dropping.
My love of King and Country
crumbles like the breadcrumbs
that she used to put in puddings.

I recall she always told me
that nothing should be wasted
I recall
she told me
nothing.....

Tim Fellows November 2018

Dedicated to Wilfred Owen

On 4th November 1918 the poet Wilfred Owen was killed during the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal, exactly one week (almost to the hour) before the signing of the Armistice which ended the First World War, and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant the day after his death.We studied his poetry and that of other war poets at school and his work, and tragic story, had a profound impact on my poetry and my view of war. This is my tribute to him, reflecting his time recuperating from PTSD.

Wilfred

One day, whilst musing on the cost of war
my mind fell back a full one hundred years
and saw, behind a dark, oak panelled door
a man with shattered mind still burning clear.

Can he not see, in some strange haunted dream
this future ghost with sad, lamenting eyes
that pleads for him to stay, a silent scream,
but knows that he will never earn his prize?

Yet he refused to yield, he ventured back
where hell fire rained and broken bodies sprawled.
This man, with fortitude that I would lack
stood up when King and blessèd Country called.

And though his poems plead, his words implore
Like blinkered sheep we still march on to war 


Tim Fellows November 2018

The Witch

I started writing this a few weeks before Halloween and, in the middle of drafting it I found that, following the incident that inspired it, it was reported that a real life witch had cast a spell on the man concerned. If only dark magic were real....

@CatlandBooks (facebook)

The Witch

She unlocks the door, the room is candle cold.
Dust lifted by the urgent draught
dances in the fading light.
Key clink echo, the silence frees
her mind. She has one black thought, one goal;
in a choral chant, a language old
and ancient as the misty seas,
she summons up an icy breeze.

Her buckled hand swipes at the screen
that flickers into life, casts shadows
on the walls where moulds both black and green
hide in the crannies; dark pushes back the light
as autumn day gives up the fight
and yields to ever elongating night.

Mouths move upon the screen but yet
there is no sound, her coal black eyes
are focused now; her breath forms shapes,
tiny animal clouds that form and fade -
dancing deer and stalking wolves
and from her nostrils slithering snakes.

From a heavy great-coat, black (like her hair),
she takes out one, then two small bags.
Slowly and with deliberate care
she looses fraying string that secures
the first; extracts a lump of bread, some fetid
cheese that with maggots seethes and crawls;
yellowing teeth smile at her prize
and she greedily begins to feed.

The second bag begins to twitch and shift
until her head flicks to the side
and with a black and pinpoint glare
she forces it to stop; the thing inside
has felt her power; she begins to rise
and with swift purpose scrapes her chair
and hobbles across the dusty floor

To where a battered cupboard stands;
its doors creak wide as she arrives
and reaches in to its blackened deep
to retrieve a flask, that within her hands,
glows with red and ochre swirls, alive
with colours that seem to hold and yield
an infinity of hues and shades.

She sets it on the table top, between the bags,
the liquid seems expectant now, it glows
and a few bubbles form and rise
then die in a whirlpool that pulls and drags
at everything within its grasp; it knows
that something soon will come its way,
something black and cruel and cold as clay.

She sits again as now, upon the glowing screen,
the man, in tailored suit and perfect hair,
lifts his hand and, with the help of God,
swears to tell the truth. Enraged, but calm,
she hisses God will not help you, this I swear
and colder still becomes her lair
as fingers tap a rhythmic beat upon the wood
and she chants again her black and hell-bound prayer.

As he speaks, with choking tears, his anger swells;
there is no sound in the ice-chill room
but she can hear each and every word; each denial
as he repudiates the accuser's claim
that he would not blacken or defile
until she snaps and stands and yells out


"LIAR!"

and from her coat she pulls with crooked hand
a ball of white that with unholy force she crushes
down to powder that she casts into the air
where it hangs, suspended, transitioning from white
to black and back and now it seems
that each and every word that freely gushes
from his mouth is formed, in translucent light,
and she nods and whispers "Truth be here"

Now, with every phrase he utters, form new words
that no longer pair with those he mouths
but instead the truth that goes unheard
in that distant room is now spelt out
in moon-glow luminescence in this lowly house,
each No becomes a Yes - the air-words summoned
as the truth by this foul and black-cloaked hag
who reaches for the second bag

and grasps the creature that wriggles and squeals
as her dirt-blackened fingernails dig into
its soft flesh; she lifts and drops it in the flask
with one last awful cry it disappears
into the endless depths and now she feels
the power flow from flask to screen
and, as the inquisitor begins to ask
him where he was that night so long ago
he shudders slightly and the woman knows
that he felt it too, a shiver of his deepest fears,
and that the worst, the exquisite worst, is still to come...

The flask is empty now, its liquid gone,
and she slumps back in the ancient chair,
with lidded eyes her mind flowed back
to an earlier time, when her jet-black hair
was smooth and full, not crackling wild,
when she was no more than a child
with startling looks, innocent, not filled
with secrets old as Time itself
and years, so many years, on her dusty shelf.

That day, so many times the earth has turned
since then; their laughter, her fear, as they followed
her home and caught her in a hollow
dragging, pushing her to the floor
the hand on her mouth, the alcohol breath,
she stared into his eyes, was sure
that this would be the moment of her death.
Beyond, the black night sky, shimmering
with a billion stars as time flowed on.
All she could feel was cold
until they were disturbed and ran
and she heard a woman's voice, so old
and cracked yet with unearthly wisdom say,
Come with me, my dear, you have things to learn

Four seasons passed and that man, 
whose eyes she locked with on that day,
stood in the village market square
screaming, ranting, yanking on his hair
until it tore, crying out
Please stop, God help me, what must I do! 
and on his hands began to chew
until fresh wounds had opened up and red blood
flowed to join the blackened stains upon
his shirt; the madness in his eyes
as the gore stained hands began to rise
and reached and plucked with nightmare cries
and that man would see no more
or break another person's soul
and, as he lay thrashing on his back,
she stopped her choral chant,
she was again, complete and whole,
and slipped into the shadows deep and black.

Tim Fellows Halloween 2018

Faded Flowers

The Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa was, by the standards of the Great War that followed a decade later, relatively light in military casualties at around 28,000. However 46,000 civilians perished including over 20,000 women and children. Many of these died in what started as refugee camps but later became something akin to concentration camps. Certainly the British had not intended this to happen but the brutality of war led inexorably to thousands of deaths due to illness and malnutrition.

When reports of the state of the camps reached London, the radical Liberal opposition, including David Lloyd George, were persuaded into harrying the Conservative government into ending the war by the campaigner Emily Hobhouse. Hobhouse visited South Africa in 1901 and met a young Boer girl, Lizzie van Zyl. Read the sad story here - it played a part in the eventual acceptance of the fact of the conditions in the camps that were initially denied by the government.

It was Hobhouse who described children lying in the camps as "faded flowers thrown away".


Faded Flowers

A nation is corralled and trapped
on scorched earth and salted fields
under the never-setting sun
bitter as its barren tears

Under canvas, torn and bruised
wasted down to skin and bone
Half-starved fledglings, open mawed
fall from nests to die alone

Black or white are all the same
they stare into the stoic face
the barrel of the self-same gun
caring not for creed nor race

Bodies lie on sterile land
water dries in poisoned wells
towards the shining Southern Cross
ten thousand souls fly and swell

The brutal fist of history
sends echoes down to us today
yet we ignore the images
of faded flowers thrown away

(c) Tim Fellows 2018

What Do I Think Of?

This is the second poem I wrote in memory of mum. I read it at her committal  and my son Luke read it at her memorial service.

What Do I Think Of?

What do I think of,
when I think of you?
A tidy house,
sparkling clean.

Washing blowing on the line.

Carefully tended plants,
neat gardens,
nature's friend.
Working hard
at home and in the shop -
bringing back treats in your bag
after five o'clock.

Then making tea,
ready for us to eat -
deep fried home made chips,
boiling stews, steaming puddings,
comforting.
In good times and bad,
the person we all relied on
for sound advice -
reassuring,
consoling,
encouraging.

The faithful friend,
constant in your Faith,
practicing what they preached.

But most of all,
today and every day,
when I think of you,
I think of Love.

Tim Fellows October 2018

Empty Reservoir

This was created after driving over the Woodhead Pass in early September after a very hot and dry summer and seeing this:

This is usually full, many meters deep. I empathised with that reservoir.

Empty Reservoir

Day by day I am drained -
relentlessly, remorselessly exposed.
Layer by layer I am revealed
and you observe the hidden depths,
the cracks, the debris;
the secrets I have concealed.
In time nothing will remain
but a hollow, dry, lifeless valley.
In the days to come I see no hope,
nothing that will fill the void,
nothing to replenish.
What makes people slow down,
stop to watch as I am diminished,
to observe the traces,
the last gasping rivulets
that once were floods?

Tim Fellows 2018

Where The Pit Was

This is a follow-on from the 3 Miners' Sonnets that I published as a sequence earlier this year. I've had it in draft for a while.

I don't agree with the sentiments in this poem, but I understand them.

Shirebook Colliery - healeyhero.co.uk

Where the Pit Was

The village has changed in so many ways
where we hung around and played all our games
I cast my mind back to my childhood days
saw in my mind's eye two Meccano frames.

Where the Pit was a new monument stands
but not to the men who worked down the mine -
a symbol of all that's gone from our land,
an emblem of greed for slick modern times.

Minimum wage for overseas labour,
turn up at work more in hope than in cheer.
Can't understand your new foreign neighbour?
Don't worry they say - you've nothing to fear.

That work was hard but I want the Pit back!
This vote's my chance to give you lot the sack

Tim Fellows 2017

The Pentrich Rising

Pentrich is a small village on the edge of the Peak District in Derbyshire. These events took place in 1817 when England was in a state of turmoil following the French Wars. Civil disobedience and potential revolution were in the air...

This poem was inspired by the lecture (with music) by John Young detailing the story behind the Rising and its tragic (at least for some) ending.

You can read a full account here

The Pentrich Rising

In eighteen hundred and seventeen
three hundred men and true
marched on the city of Nottingham
to fight to get their due

The Corn Laws raised their prices
They could buy no bread
Cheap labour taking all their jobs
They were hanging by a thread

The government in London
cared nothing for the poor
The bastard Henry Addington
was master of the law

He suspended habeus corpus
he crushed rebellious thoughts
He used his secret agents
and his lackeys in the courts

The men had surely had enough
when they gathered at the inn
They were part of a national movement
that would free their kith and kin

But as they marched together
their problems became clear
No food, no guns or muskets
Not even any beer

They never reached their target
At Eastwood they fell short
The army quickly crumbled
and the ringleaders were caught

There were no other armies
There were no other troops
They fell for Addington's dirty tricks
They were sacrificial dupes

They took them off to Derby
and held them in the jail
They silenced all the protests
no one could tell the tale

They were drawn upon a carriage
to their hanging place
Six thousand saw them struggle
into death's cold embrace

Others were transported
Their sentences reduced
But Brandreth, Turner and Ludlam
faced the hangman's noose

The elite had won the battle
but there was more to do
Fifteen more were slaughtered
in the shame of Peterloo

So remember not to trust the rich -
raise a glass of English Beer
in memory of two hundred years
since the Pentrich mutineers

Tim Fellows 2018

Frying Ham

In memory of my grandma Rita Fellows (1913-1978) 

I have clear memories of one particular morning, but I'm sure it happened many times. She would look after us when my Mum and Dad were at work. 

Frying Ham

The thick pan, blackened by its constant use,
spits with fat; hot from the blistering flame
I stand, expectant, watching while it
hisses, crackling as the sallow winter
sun peers in to see the gravid slice of
frying ham dropped; carefully, quickly
leaving my grandma's work-worn tender hands.

She asks me to stand guard but not to touch
as, attending to other household tasks,
she bustles to another room and I,
with salivating mouth, observe pink flesh
turn slowly darker as the shrinking meat
releases scents that on my brain imprint
the loving memory of my days with her.

The ham is turned and soon it will be mine,
resting in sliced brown bread that magically
appears, absorbing salty, pungent juice.
From the plate expectant hands lift slowly
to the open mouth, closed eyes, the easy bite
through sodden bread, teeth tear the supple ham.

I lift my eyelids and I sadly know
that fifty years have passed me by since then
and I will never eat such tender meat
or feel my grandma's special love again. 

Tim Fellows 2018

This work started as a piece of prose written at Ian Duhig's workshop at Stones Barn in April 2018. I then changed it to a blank verse format as part of a Read to Write exercise based on Wordsworth's "spots of time". 
 

Comments

The internet is both a wonderful and horrific invention that has lifted a stone and revealed the dark heart of many people in our so-called civilised society. This poem is dedicated to the people who contribute to the comments section under Mail Online articles about immigrants.

Comments

The world wide web is aptly named
for spider-like it traps our thoughts;
ideas roam free along its threads
then catch upon its sticky knots

Enraged, inspired, considered, rash
all kinds of words come flooding out
unedited - no second chance
whether carelessly or skillfully wrought
democratising ignorance
straight from your brain to vast disk farm
where they lie exposed like a helpless child
in an uncaged zoo of savage harm

Your arguments, so neatly drawn
typed into words, precisely laid
are presented for the world to see
as you bask in lazy righteousness
sure of your ideology.

But then the web it snares your words
and the spider sniffs and finds them out
its poisoned fangs exposed to bite
and paralyse your pumping heart.

For below your carefully drafted piece
you smugly wait 'til come along
the comments that are like a drip
of decaying corpse fluid on your tongue.

Smart or dumb, it matters not
the world is free to judge your text
in anonymity they click and tut
and smear and hate
pressing keys they make
a thumbs-up like, a love heart,
sad or angry face
as they upvote, downvote,
tap their slashing were-wolf words
hurting, hating, pointing, shaming
until your only way to tackle
the tide of spitting, baiting, blaming
is blocking, blocking, stop the blight;
de-friend, delete, end the cackle
of abuse and threats and hurtful slights.

But it's far too late
we all now know
that out there in the real world
are people who may look like us
may act like us
but underneath
they have their running commentary
their stifled fears, their own true selves
the arachnid fangs of bitter bile
waiting to bite
behind a grim-faced smile.

Tim Fellows 2018

Forbidden

The history of rugby league is littered with dirty tricks to stunt its growth and keep it penned in its heartlands. However in some cases, the establishment attempted to destroy it and the worst example was in France during the Second World War. Find and read the excellent book "The Forbidden Game" by Mike Rylance to get the full story.

This year the Catalans Dragons won Rugby League's oldest and perhaps most prestigious trophy, the Challenge Cup. Bien joué, mes amis, bien joué.


Forbidden

In the backrooms
and the corridors of Vichy
whispering in traitorous ears,
the sly smiles,
the sleazy handshakes
seal your fate.

As tanks rolled
towards the Channel
crushing resistance
cowards collaborated
in the game's heartlands.

In the ruins of war
the corrupt hold sway
they steal
your land, your homes
and your name.
They threaten
and they ban.
They imprison
and they kill.
You are forbidden.

When the occupiers
are repelled
and the liberation complete
there is no compensation.
Your land, name and homes
remain stolen.

They can take all these things
but they can never take your pride.
They will never steal your heart
or your soul.

Seventy eight years have passed
and history is made.
Fiers d'être Catalan
Fiers d'être treiziste.

Tim Fellows 2018

Brother (part four)

The final part of the strike story, from the viewpoint of Dave's wife, Sarah.

Pencil sketch of the picket line 1985 (J.E. Fellows)

The full sequence is here

The Funeral

There wasn't any more that we could say
to heal the wounds; to bond and unify
There's never a return to yesterday

I see the slaglands where we used to play
now full of life as time rolls gently by
There wasn't any more that we could say

There's rules you break you must not disobey
and no-one ever thinks to answer why
there's never a return to yesterday

As cold, grey skies help carry her away
he looks at me but I can't meet his eye
There wasn't any more that we could say

I know she would have wanted us to stay
to make amends, at least to pacify
There's never a return to yesterday

It's best that we just quietly slip away
He won't want us to ever see him cry
There wasn't any more that we could say
There's never a return to yesterday

(c) Tim Fellows 2018

Brother (full sequence)

I never particularly wanted to write about the 1984-85 strike. I wasn't there. However when an idea comes, it has to be written down and the first poem triggered a sequence of four pieces in different styles.

Pencil sketch of the picket line 1985 (J.E. Fellows)

Brother

Brother do you remember
the childhood we shared?
In our two-up two-down terrace;
our dad, tapping out his pipe and
            mam, making chips for tea.

I loved you, brother;
your cheeky smile and hair
never in control
until mam, with a spit and a polish,
            would sort you out.

Cricket in the street -
box for stumps, broken bat
recovered from the bin
at the village club but
dad fixed it for us.
          Although you were younger

You were better than me;
it evened us out so I didn't
have to let you win
although I would have;
          I was your protector.

We were hopeless at school
regularly caned though
it never made no odds.
So at 16, down the pit,
         you followed me and dad.

Ten years passed, hard work done,
but the laughs we had, the jokes
and drunken nights at the club.
Brothers in life and
brothers in coal,
         red in blood and red in soul.

No longer sharing a bedroom;
we had our own kids and homes.
I barely remember a bad
word between us,
        we were best mates and Best Men.

In my mind, clear as day,
that moment when the Union man
told us it was on.
He was so confident that we'd win and
        We would take 'em down again

And that was us too,
both of us, for weeks and months.
Squashed in cars, making sure
         we kept the scabs at bay.

Then, one day, when I came
to pick up you up you said,
"I'm not coming today"
I knew straightaway that
         Something was wrong

You wouldn't look me
in the eye. Sarah, standing
in the hall, arms round the kids.
I said "OK" and went alone.
        Day by day my suspicion grew.

I've been punched a few times
but never has it hurt as much
as when they told me
you'd gone back.
       They told me, not you.

I'd have killed you
if mam hadn't been there.
God knows what it would've done
to dad if he'd been alive.
      You were a blackleg, a scab.

On the picket line, shouting
"You fucking traitors" at the Judas Bus
through a sea of helmets.
That brief moment I saw you;
trying to hide your face.
       I never cry, but I cried that night.

Brother, you've been dead to me
for thirty years,
the childhood bond
was smashed apart.
Those memories must be false
        because I have no brother.


Brother - Part 2

Time for a coffee, thought Dave as he set the backup script running. He was pretty pleased with that modification - it was efficient and elegant. At least it should be; the proof of that particular pudding would be waiting for him when he got back from the kitchen with his latte. He contemplated his Star Wars slippers as he padded through the hall - a gift from his grandchildren, who he would be taking to the new film in a few days. That took him right back to his schooldays - his crush on Carrie Fisher and the disappointment when it was revealed that the Princess was Luke's sister. That's not a spoiler is it, after 40 years? Some people at work had never seen it. Unbelievable. He always wanted to be Luke, not Han Solo, hence the disappointment. His teenage fantasies involved a rewriting of the script in his favour but even so his teenage self would have been devastated with the outcome of the recent reboot. His brother was more like Han Solo than him - damn it, there he was again. Always in his head somewhere.

Good and evil - the Force, the Dark Side. No shades of grey there - you were either Darth Vader or Obi Wan.

Back to his desk with its padded chair - he peered at the screen through his reading glasses that reminded him about his ageing body. He was older than his dad had been when he died - a massive heart attack before he was 50. That was a terrible time - the first time that real life had really come crashing into his world. Even the fact that his backup script had worked was little consolation for that memory and he had to blink a little and refocus on the screen, and the three new emails that had arrived, to prevent his mind replaying the image of his mother lying on her bed screaming soundlessly into her pillow.

He thought he'd successfully dispatched the memories to his archive like old data from one of his databases but something was, unbidden, performing a query that was retrieving them. He'd been hacked by his own subconscious. Everything about his family and his previous life had been packaged and put away after he'd left with Sarah and the kids to start their new life. He had absolutely no idea what to do - he'd only ever known the pit and had left school with no useful qualifications. Not because he was thick, but because it wasn't the thing to do. You left school on Friday, you went down the pit on Monday - you didn't need O Levels or even CSEs down there. He'd worked hard - it made it easier that he was fit and strong - and he'd enjoyed the camaraderie and banter at work and in the pub. It was different where he worked now - everyone was nice most of the time but they were colleagues, not mates. He hardly ever saw any of them outside the walls of the building they worked in. His friends were mainly Sarah's friends or the lads at the photography club - he'd even drifted away from the cricket club where he'd once been a regular first teamer. He hadn't really fitted in there but they tolerated him because he was good. His nickname was "Boycott" - not very original but he was the only Yorkshireman in the team and the name was ironic because he batted nothing like Sir Geoffrey.

After he'd dealt with a couple of the emails he smiled at the third - it was confirmation of the results of his recent Performance Review which he'd passed with flying colours, again. "David works very hard" his boss had written. Hilarious - that guy didn't have a clue what hard work was. "I'd love to see him do a week or two on the face and then get reviewed by a Deputy", he thought, "Big, soft, sack of.." - the doorbell rang and Dave went to answer it. An Amazon delivery for his wife - he didn't bother opening it. Being in for deliveries was one of the advantages of his one day a week working at home - not only did he avoid the commute each way but he did get more of the tricky stuff done and he could work in his pyjamas until 11am. "Work at home? That's what women do!!" - his father's imagined voice and the lads' laughter that followed was clear in his head. Different times indeed.

This recent tendency to drift back to the old days was disconcerting Dave. It has reached a bit of a crisis point just last week when he had had a very vivid dream from which he had woken up sweating and gasping for breath. It had made him a bit distracted for the rest of the day but he hadn't told Sarah what it was about because she'd had just have told him not to be daft.

He'd been riding in the bus - on an aisle seat as usual - and was staring straight ahead as they made their way up the lane. He felt sick in his stomach - he knew it wasn't just fear because he'd had a bit of that when he'd faced that Yorkshire first team bowler on a dodgy pitch when he was 18. Still got 23 before he'd fended one off to gully. He could hear the singing and shouting now over the sound of the bus's engine, getting louder and louder. As they reached the gates he could hear the chants - "Scabs!, scabs!" and individual shouts of abuse from behind the protective ranks of police. He couldn't resist turning his head to look through the caged windows that were being pelted by missiles - and there was Tony, his brother, looking directly at him with hatred in his eyes. Suddenly the bus jolted to a stop and started rocking. Rocking faster and faster until, from a great roar from outside, it was over on its side and pickets were streaming in through the door, which was now the top of the bus, and were tearing the metal covers from the windows, smashing the glass and... then he woke up in a right state. Some of that happened for sure, but not that last bit. What was wrong with him? It was years ago now.

Sarah always went out for the day with her friends when Dave worked from home - they went shopping, did some craft classes and went to one of their houses on rotation for long chats, a few glasses of wine and maybe a film on Netflix. It was pretty good now she'd been able to retire - Dave was getting a very nice salary after his promotion. Those days when they had no food seemed like a dream now. A nightmare. Something that, for some reason, seemed to be affecting her husband at the moment. Sarah had always been the strong decision maker - she'd never wanted the strike to happen and hated every minute of the time he was out. She'd had a part-time job that was keeping them from the worst of the deprivation caused by Dave not being paid but in the end she'd told him she was leaving and going to stay with her auntie in Lincoln if he didn't go back. He'd pleaded with her to hang on - it would be all over soon, he'd told her. The final straw came in November, after eight months, when they'd got no money with Christmas coming up and there was no backing from the other Unions. He told her early one morning when he'd got ready to go back - she had to admit at that point she had a moment of regret that she'd pressured him. He looked sick but she knew he was brave and would do it for her and the kids. He'd warned her what would happen and she was ready - ready to get out of this place and go somewhere else. Life would never be the same again.

It was Saturday morning and they were due to pick up his mother from the station for one her visits - she would stay for a few days and the kids would come round with the grandkids and they would go out for the day to the zoo or something. Mum would never relax and sit down for a while - she would always make a fuss about Sarah having to do all the work and would insist on washing the pots even though they had a dishwasher. Dave had just done his weekly 5K parkrun and was feeling a lot better - his mother's arrival always gave him mild anxiety which had started increasing over the last year. He always dreaded her bringing up the whole reason why she came down to them and they never went to see her but she never did. She never mentioned Tony or his kids - Sarah had tried to open some dialogue with his mum and Tony's wife but had now given up. They were all resigned to the situation and nobody said anything. His mum was doing very well for her age and was still living independently - he imagined her house, the same house he grew up in, was spotless like it was when he left, grabbing all his stuff, throwing it in the car and driving away with Tony's advice to er... go away and never come back ringing in his ears. But one day, maybe soon, he would have to go back. To bury his mum.

It was Sarah who had saved them - a hundred miles from home and living in a small rented flat on the last of his "scab money" she had got a job and had found the advert to sign up for retraining in computer science. He had laughed when she showed him but as usual she didn't give up and he realised he had to do something other than mope about in a strange town. Within a couple of weeks he realised he actually understood this stuff and he never really looked back - ended up getting qualifications and a job as a technician, working his way up in the company, more training courses, better jobs and more money.

There was only one thing that disconcerted him through those years. People knew he was an ex-miner but nobody knew the truth of why he gave up the job. He always voted Labour before the strike and he always did afterwards - deep in his heart he couldn't forget his roots. Once when he was out with the cricket club lads one of the friends of a player had started banging on about how Thatcher was right and that the miners deserved a good kicking by the Met. Dave had waited for him outside the gents and pinned him up against the wall, leaving him in no doubt about what would happen if he ever referred to him and his family as "enemies of the state" ever again. This obviously got back to the team because not one of them mentioned it again and Dave believed they all thought he was a 100% Scargill man. He never disabused them of this and he was glad it never came up, but something inside him hated that he lived that lie.

After his mum's visit Dave had had the dream again. Not quite the same - this time the bus smashed through the pickets and police, through the gates, going quicker and quicker then falling into the shaft that was left open because the whole pit head had gone. Then he was falling, falling... My God, he thought when he had recovered, I can't keep doing this. He considered again whether to tell Sarah but decided against it - he knew she'd persuade him to let it lie but he knew he couldn't. All these years he'd used every excuse under the sun to justify what he did - Sarah's threats, the fact that the strike was never fully sanctioned, the fact that the pits would have closed anyway, all of it was just deflecting from the fact that he had broken the strike. He was responsible for his own actions - he wasn't Luke Skywalker, he was on the Dark Side. On his next Wednesday of working from home, he waved Sarah off for the day but instead of settling down to work he called in sick, got dressed, picked up his car keys, left the house and locked the door. He was putting an end to this one way or another - he was going home.

The Return (Mam's Story)

Walking home with shopping done,
Treads the old familiar route
The cold wind bites, clouds hide the sun
as she hurries past The Institute
she barely notices the trash
blowing up and down the street
the local council, starved of cash,
just like her, can't make ends meet

She scarely thought about her boys;
the sons to whom she once gave birth
the pain obscuring all the joys
of eighty years upon this earth
The loneliness of all those years
she shuts her eyes and thinks of Bill
then unbidden come the tears
the flood that breaks her iron will

As she crossed the quiet road
towards her tidy terraced house
She thought it was a little odd
that car - familiar, yet - the force
that hit her when she recognised
its number plate and the man
who from the seat began to rise
to greet her with "Hello mam"

And as he took her by the hand
she suddenly felt very old
what was it that he had planned?
"Let's get inside, out of the cold"
She makes some tea as he reviews
the photos on the mantelpiece
two boys in their shiny school shoes
their dad, who looked so ill at ease

At the kitchen table, sipping tea,
she sat as his words came pouring out,
the regrets, mistakes, his apologies
- it was sincere, there was no doubt
All she could say, when he was done -
it hurt though it was surely true -
was "Go home David, go home son,
There's nowt here any more for you"

The Funeral

There wasn't any more that we could say
to heal the wounds; to bond and unify
There's never a return to yesterday

I see the slaglands where we used to play
now full of life as time rolls gently by
There wasn't any more that we could say

There's rules you break you must not disobey
and no-one ever thinks to answer why
there's never a return to yesterday

As cold, grey skies help carry her away
he looks at me but I can't meet his eye
There wasn't any more that we could say

I know she would have wanted us to stay
to make amends, at least to pacify
There's never a return to yesterday

It's best that we just quietly slip away
He won't want us to ever see him cry
There wasn't any more that we could say
There's never a return to yesterday

(c) Tim Fellows 2017-2018

Brother (part three)

Part three of the strike story, from another viewpoint.

The other two parts are here and here  

The Return (Mam's Story)

Walking home with shopping done,
treads the old familiar route.
The cold wind bites, clouds hide the sun
as she hurries past The Institute.
She barely notices the trash
blowing up and down the street -
the local council, starved of cash,
just like her can't make ends meet.

She scarcely thought about her boys;
the sons to whom she once gave birth
the pain obscuring all the joys
of eighty years upon this earth.
The loneliness of all those years
she shuts her eyes and thinks of Bill
then unbidden come the tears
the flood that breaks her iron will.

As she crossed the quiet road
towards her tidy terraced house
She thought it was a little odd
that car - familiar, yet - the force
that hit her when she recognised
its number plate and the man
who from the seat began to rise
to welcome her with "Hello mam".

And as he took her by the hand
she suddenly felt very old;
what was it that he had planned?
"Let's get inside, out of the cold"
She makes some tea as he reviews
the photos on the mantelpiece
two boys in shiny school shoes
with dad, who looked so ill at ease.

At the kitchen table, sipping tea,
she sat as words came pouring out,
the regrets, mistakes, his apologies
- it was sincere, there was no doubt
All she could say, when he was done -
it hurt though it was surely true -
was "Go home David, go home son,
There's nowt here any more for you"

Tim Fellows 2018