chain

chain

the laburnum tree shaded our garden

we sat on the stone steps

where the flowers fell; a golden rain

mum told us it was poisonous

if we ate it

the petals lay, weak

and dull, where they fell

their time was glancing, they shone

in vernal splendour

until the chain was broken

Tim Fellows 2020

Image by Anna Armbrust from Pixabay

Undertaker

Written during the coronavirus lockdown.

Undertaker

There was only the faintest sound
of sobbing. It was cold that day,
as when Towton saw so many dead.
Soon, he hoped, when this is done,
things will return to as they were.
When he could deal with tumours, hearts
that stopped in shock. The mangled flesh
and bone, the aged
and those who chose to die.

They sat in separate pews, the broken
widow and the stoic son. No comfort,
no loving touch. An impotent priest.

This plague had come to his house,
the cross was on his door.


Tim Fellows April 2020

Image by Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto from Pixabay

Fellows Park

This recalls my one and only visit to the old home of Walsall FC on 11th March 1978 to watch the 2-2 draw with Chesterfield. The stadium was demolished in May 1990.

My great great-grandmother Mary Elizabeth Fellows came from the Black Country to Stonebroom, Derbyshire, in 1878 when she was 8 years old. She married Joseph Smith when pregnant with her son, William Edward Fellows-Smith (who became Fellows). Joseph and William died within a month of each other in 1931. Mary died in 1933.

Fellows Park

I once went to a place and time

that drifts only in memories;

in dreams of Black Country

Saturday crowds

and floodlit nights.

Named like me, it was old

when I was young. Where our name

was familiar, when pubs filled

with smoke and hate ran

in silent currents.

I had come from there, before

the concrete was laid, before the

ragged stands were built.

But now my accent jarred,

all around was red and I was blue.

Connections were lost in

a century of exile and change.

The bulldozers moved in, smashed

the glass panes, brought down

everything they had built.

Tim Fellows May 2020

Blood

Blood

Does blood bother you?
asked the nurse, exposing
the needle.
No I said and felt the tightening
of the tourniquet.

Yes, blood bothers me.
Blood spilled in darkness
by boy-men with spiteful blades,
washed away by a mother's tears.

Yes, blood bothers me.
Running crimson in dusty streets
and dirty scream-filled hospitals
as bombs rain down.

Yes, blood bothers me.
When blood and purity are mixed
to sanitise, cleanse, bleach,
and whitewash hate.

I stayed silent and I lied.
And yes, we both know
that I looked away.

Tim Fellows 2019

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay