Monday 30 July 2018

A Day Like Any Other

This is my second poem dedicated to the men who died and were seriously injured in the disaster at Markham Colliery in Derbyshire on July 30th 1973. They included Joseph (Joe) Birkin, who lived in our village and whose twin daughters Lynn and Sadie were regulars at our chapel and were only 21 when their dad died.

 A Day Like Any Other

It was a day like any other -
dawn's sunlight split the blue-black sky.
It glinted on the pit-head wheel
and lit the dusty roads in layers of gold.
Dreams escaped from sleeping heads
and drifted round silent rooms,
disturbed by gently ticking clocks
that marked the time before

the fractured metal, screaming rope
and broken hearts. The silence explodes.

A shattering of memories.

Tim Fellows 2018



Here's a link to the first one - Markham 1973


Full details are really well described here.


Friday 27 July 2018

Poem of the North - 821 Challenge - "Legacy"

This was my unsuccessful entry to the "Poem of the North" competition. The format is 8-2-1, 8 lines, 2 lines and 1 line, 821 being the classification for English Poetry in the Dewey Decimal system. The theme is "The North" and it must have a turn ("volta") before the couplet.





You can find the winners (including at some point those by my friends Mick Jenkinson and Ian Parks) on the Poetry of the North website



Legacy

The further south I go the more I feel
the warmth around me feeds
the cold within.
The memory of bleak, wind hardened hills
tugs and spins like thread upon a wheel.
A legacy of factories, mines and mills,
harsh injustices galvanized by greed
and the angry cries of my ancestral kin.

Though history informs our common bond
the future can't be smothered by the past.

The time has come to hone our northern steel.

Tim Fellows 2018


Friday 20 July 2018

Badger



I do not, by the way, condone culling badgers.

Badger

Snuffling, grunting
Brock roams the moonlit land
in woodland, forest, field
and garden he sniffs for food.
Pale shadows fall in his padded trail
through leafy hedge
the scent of bulbs in fresh-dug soil
overpower him as he digs and feeds;
the hyacinth bulbs will never grow -
those proto-plants I so carefully placed
to become a spring delight
are just a tasty treat for the badger.
What a stripy bastard.

Tim Fellows 2017

Friday 13 July 2018

Iron

This is a poem about slavery - specifically the slave trade between Africa and the Americas for which we, the British, were responsible. We were part of the triangle that took slaves from Africa to America and the Caribbean then brought back the goods to the UK - cotton, tobacco etc. before restarting the cycle.



Iron

As I lie in this hold with my captive brothers
the iron cuts deep but the hurt is within.
We'll never see our sisters and mothers
or our beautiful homeland ever again.

The ship yaws and rolls, I feel so sick -
in the blackness the shouts, the cries and the moans
seem somehow worse; it's hard to pick
the sounds of my mother tongue over the groans.

There are five hundred souls aboard and yet
we're all so alone; the man next to me stares
into the void - he is covered in sweat,
his mumbling incessant yet nobody cares.

Others, perhaps lucky, have flown to unite
with ancestral spirits, yet I cannot forget
their pain as they died with no honour or fight;
to die without dignity will be my regret.

I was warrior, provider, respected and strong
but these chains make me nothing; they only mock
all that I am, to what I belong.
I'm just on the inventory, part of the stock

I stare at the iron in which I am bound.
Who created this horror? What were they paid?
Did they really not care that far from their land
their intention was only to shame and degrade.

I might die on this ship but yet I might see
those beautiful valleys, rivers and streams.
With no iron chains I am once again free
in that far distant land that lives in my dreams.

Tim Fellows 2017

Friday 6 July 2018

Kipper

ukip world map


Two years on, I'm still pissed off about having my, and my children and grandchildren's, rights taken away.













Kipper

You sell your poison, never count the cost
Your bluster rouses anger and despair
With your world view humanity is lost

When you pass by you leave a trail of frost
Toad like, you squat inside your lair
You sell your poison, never count the cost

Casually the racist slurs are tossed
You feed on people's ignorance and fear
With your world view humanity is lost

When you speak the truth is rudely squashed
When questioned you equivocate and sneer
You sell your poison, never count the cost

Real lives were trampled with the lines you've crossed
While you're posing with your cigarette and beer
With your world view humanity is lost

The thoughts that you have recklessly endorsed
Rise up and swell into a hate-filled cheer
You sell your poison, never count the cost
With your world view humanity is lost


The Colours of Her Skirt

Based on a memory, which may be unreliable, from some time in the 1960s.  With thanks to Sarah Wimbush and Ian Parks for editing and for the...