A different take on 'Night Mail'

I wanted to write something to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2018 and as it developed I realised it was a bit like W.H. Auden's famous Night Mail so I thought why not go the whole hog and just use it as the whole basis of the poem. It's taken a while to refine it.

You can read the original here but it's worth finding the video on YouTube of it being read on the original film as the different sections scan very differently and are worthy of being listened to in the correct rhythm. 

Night Train 1943

With thanks, and apologies, to WH Auden. 

I
 

This is the Night Train crossing the border

no hindrance thanks to the Fuhrer's order

Carrying the rich, carrying the poor,

the owner of the shop and the girl next door.

Out of the Alps a steady climb

Under this regime she'll arrive on time

In open trucks the people get colder

Rammed like cattle shoulder to shoulder

Scarce sympathy shown as she passes

the silent stations of the huddled masses

People turn their heads as she approaches

Don't look at the faces in the coaches

No-one wants to change her course

despite occasional silent remorse

At night she passes, where no-one wakes

In the carriage a frightened woman shakes

II

A New Dawn rises, the job near done

Down to the ghetto she descends

Towards the town brimming with the sick and dying

Towards the state apparatus, the furnaces

hidden in forests like ancient monsters

The Reaper waits for her.

In far away countries, exalted lands of the free

Families long for news.

III

Letters of hope, pleas for help

words without joy from girl and boy

Filled-out forms, formal invitations,

To live with more fortunate relations

Applications for situations

arising in remote but safer nations.

Letters arrive then suddenly stop

Why would they not write? Why would they drop

the letters from uncles, cousins and aunts

trying to get to Belgium or France

then on to Chicago, Miami, New York

News from Europe increasingly dark

Letters of love, of hope, then fear

from Vienna stained by desperate tear

Written on paper of every hue

by the victimised, robbed and hounded Jew

who cannot bypass the black pen's scoring

as the cold official censors their heart's outpouring

The arm of the fascist state is long

the deafening silence feels so wrong

IV

On the train there's fitful sleep

And dreams of real life monsters

suddenly alive; no friendly waves from neighbours

who sleep safe, for now, in much quieter streets

In ethnically cleansed Munich, Cologne and Berlin

a few remain, continue to dream

and shall wake soon, ten to a room

and none shall hear the fateful knock

without a quickening of the heart

For who can bear to feel themselves forgotten?

Tim Fellows 2018

Heritage Walk

I wrote this as a response poem to my own attack on England's cultural failings in "Back To Blighty" - the walk was from Pleasley Pit to Hardwick Hall last August.


Heritage Walk

England, when your sky clears
and the warm August sun melts our sorrow
there is nowhere so beautiful.
To take a walk and be reminded
of your careless elegance;
where the constant duality of your heritage
is laid bare.

Opening where miners once plied their trade
Energy expended and conveyed
upwards and outwards;
now no signs remain underfoot
of that feverish endeavour.
Just the crunch of shoe on gravel
and clip and clop of iron hoof.

To the path once laid with rail and sleeper
engine hauling, dark cargo, clanging,
steam blowing through cutting and 
trailing along high embankment;
now replete with cyclists and walkers, riders,
hounds and owners of different sizes.
A flurry of hellos and good mornings,
or is it afternoon? Smiles abounding
in the rarest of clement days
where the black dog sniffs,
is called, and runs with lolling tongue
flailing in its wake.

The country lane, winding, quiet with
occasional unwelcome interruption
of four wheel drive or disorientated hatchback;
Blackberries, teasing but not ready
for plucking - two weeks or maybe less
for the plump flesh to be ours.

In the cooling arms of the woodland path
where the sunlight probes the thick canopy
and casts dappled light onto dusty forest floor.
Flickering dart of Cabbage White,
lazy drunken weave of bumble bee;
hornet hovering as if observing
the orange fungus, splattered like paint
on the thick fallen branch;
leaves, roots, twigs, and stones
distract us from the impending neatness
of Bess's Vanity.

Stepping through the pastel blue gate;
manicured lawns are legally trespassed
by those who once
would only be permitted there
as workers.
Families play - small bat, small stumps;
small boy, long run-up; releases the ball
but without the required accuracy;
Picnics, ice-creams under the eye of the mighty hall,
its glassed walls rising as rose the engine house
less than three miles distant.

Yet these two places that are so different
are so intrinsically woven into
each others and England's fabric;
We, the commoners, have them in common;
we hold them in our English heart and embrace,
along with them, our contrary heritage.

Oh England, if only on every day
could your warmth so melt our sorrow.

Tim Fellows August 2017

Across The Platform

Stephen Fry suggested a poetry exercise where you take a classic poem structure and use it to structure a poem of your own (I'm sure other people have suggested this too). So I found one and wrote this, which is based on actual events on Doncaster Station when I was waiting on a train bound for Leeds in October 2017. I knew I should have written down the original, but now I can't find it. I think it was either Keats or Wordsworth, and I've gone for a Romantics feel to the poem.

Across The Platform

She stands so tranquil yet it seems
a low conceit disturbs her dreams;
A vision locked in time's swift stream
and so she waits.
Around her stillness masses teem
in surging spate.

Her elegance, her careful pose
In her fair cheeks a hint of rose
So many pass but no-one knows
for whom she waits;
Yet in her eyes the sadness shows
her inner trait.

Across the platform her sad eyes
invite the questions - what or why?
What secret does her peace deny?
Why does she wait?
What form of wicked destiny
would God create?

We drew apart; just one last glance
but I remained without the chance
to find out if some sad romance
had sealed her fate
and could not break her mournful trance.
So still she waits.

Tim Fellows 2018

Forge

I wrote this sonnet for my daughter Lydia's wedding.

Forge

The love of youth is like a burning flame
which, if unleashed into a blacksmith's forge,
could make cold iron with white hot purpose gleam;
no cold wind nor harsh words its heat assuage.

The love which wraps itself in common bonds
of friendship, care - unwavering in time -
grows stronger still when vernal longing ends
and glows with inner strength and joy sublime

But if each heart wants only what it wants
and cares but for its own needs and desires
then love will slowly cool as lust departs
extinguishing those faint remembered fires

When love is new its flames blaze readily
But tender care will forge sweet unity

Tim Fellows 2018

Love and Innocence (For Edward)

This poem is another sestina (see Butterfly House), an obsessive form where the last word of the lines in each 6 line stanza repeat at the end of lines in the next 5 stanzas, except they are in a different place. Then there is a 3 line envoi, which contains the 6 words again.

This is for my grandson Edward, born in January 2018.

Love and Innocence

We begin our journey in life
with boundless wonder in our eyes -
The world is huge when we are young
as we are very rudely born
in flurries of natural love
our lives begin with innocence.

But hidden by our innocence
the darkest fact of earthly life
we only know of care and love
we see compassion in their eyes
the fear of death is not yet born
when we are small, when we are young.

What would we give to stay so young
before we lost our innocence
before our doubts and dread were born?
To live the infant's carefree life
when we saw with cloudless eyes
unconditional, boundless love.

But what of adolescent love?
Its arrows pierce our hearts when young.
To be enraptured by their eyes
and yearn for loss of innocence
to lose your track of daily life
as all-consuming love is born.

In Cupid's arms we then are born,
transported on a tide of love
bright light illuminates our life.
It makes us feel so very young
without our former innocence
when love shines from their starlit eyes.

As the light fades from our eyes
they say another soul is born
in a child-like state of innocence,
an everlasting world of love
where once again we can be young
in the realm of infinite life.

When in our eyes lives only love,
born fresh in hope when we were young,
we pass in innocence through life.

Tim Fellows 2018

Love and Hate

There is little room in our world for hate 
Life is short, so we have no time to lose 
Malice within our heart hangs like a weight

We can be the masters of our own fate
When between love and hate we have to choose
There is little room in this world for hate 

Our own self is burnt when we feel irate

at the expression of another's views

Malice within our heart hangs like a weight

When we refuse to contact and relate
we resort to exclusion and abuse

There is little room in this world for hate

The world in turmoil, see its sorry state 

our anger rises as we watch the news

Malice within our heart hangs like a weight

Dark execration will our fears gestate

as from our soul the light will slowly ooze
There is little room in this world for hate 
Malice within our heart hangs like a weight

(c) Tim Fellows 2018

This is my attempt at a villanelle - a villanelle has a very rigid structure with iambic pentameter throughout and only two rhymes. the first and third lines repeat regularly throughout the poem. Probably the most famous villanelle is "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas which I have included to show how it should be done.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Symbiosis

Inspired by "Giants Refreshed: Pacifics in the Doncaster Locomotive Works" by Terence Tenison Cuneo (1907–1996) in Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery

You can see the painting here

Symbiosis

"Interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups."





The beast is sleeping;
Awesome even in its silence.
Gleaming in the light
while tiny creatures prink and clean
its accumulated detritus.
Venturing where none may dare
when the beast is awake
to prepare it for its circadian prowl.
They are symbiotic, co-dependent;
Cleaners and oilers,greasers and painters;
obligated and phoretic.

Refreshed, it eases into the open,
fire blazing, pressure building,
slowly rising from its slumber.
Hissing as it glides so smoothly,
lazy pistons like muscles stretching
unaware of their impending fury.
The beast makes its payment,
hosts carried in its wake
as it gorges greedily on the dark fodder
shoveled in its gaping maw;
Speed building, air rushing,
vapour trailing, rails screaming.
Small creatures stand aside as the beast,
pacific blue shining,
roars past; in awe and wonder as it
disappears
into
the
distance

Glossary:

Rother Valley - late summer

2nd September 2017 at Rother Valley before the parkrun. I was volunteering and perhaps had more chance to appreciate what a beautiful place it is.

Rother Valley - late summer

Mist hanging low like cotton wool
burnt off by slowly rising sun;
Birds succumb to south's winter pull -
like us they'll soon be come and gone.

Thin shadows point towards the west
of trees lined up in military file.
White two, on blue, the pigeon's rest;
the playful dog, a small child's smile

Arrow-point geese glide in to land -
doubled as mirrored in the lake -
synchronised their wings are fanned
then fold as they apply their brake.

Awakened insects dart and dance
around the grasses and the reeds.
Their ritualistic final chance
as nights grow long and days recede.

Life-paired swans can gently bob,
white quilled towards the wooded isle;
elegant pen and graceful cob
know none compare in regal style.

Warmth grows in stealth as climbs the sun;
a picture perfect Summer's end.
But Autumn knows its day will come
and waits in patience round the bend.

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

At The Cottage

This poem was written as a prequel to Robert Browning's Porphyria's Lover as part of a workshop at Mexborough Read To Write in August 2017. 

The original is here: Porphyria's Lover - Poetry Foundation

At The Cottage

I spiral with indecision;
The rain falls in the distance
as the Banshee howl of the wind
rattles the trees and whips the reeds;
I must hasten my step
though it will reach me soon enough.

This thing I carry within  -
I wonder if he knows?
He has been so distant; now he is so close.
Can he tell, for I do not dare,
that something we share
relentlessly, incessantly grows?

I saw him out riding, urging onward his grey;
they vanished before I saw who he chased.
If I can't be his, and his alone,
Why must I desire him so?

At the cottage:
Lilies on the dark, rank pond;
bees swarm on the woodland sage.
God has not answered my fevered prayers
so this, this, is a destiny of my choosing
for I could turn at any time.
I observe a bird on the path, wing broken.
I try to help it but grab only dirt
as it flaps to the dark undergrowth
to accept its fate, as now must I.

The time is nearly come
when we might be as one

Tim Fellows 2017

Winter's Journey

This poem started as an exercise from a poetry workshop in Rossington on 12th July 2017. It is based on words taken from the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost

I woke up from my darkest sleep
My skin by downy quilt caressed
A frozen landscape from my window sweeps
to the snow-covered woods so dark and deep

The stony lane banks round the bend
The house retreats as I move on
Fear and uncertainty I must forfend
As on my thoughtful, passive way I wend

Far distant bells toll on the wind
The grey, damp church cold comfort now
Where once my hopes and dreams were pinned
A melodious hint for those who've sinned

What is the course that I intend?
No stopping now, no going back
After the village lonely miles extend
The journey starts, or does it end?


First undrafted version

I woke up from my darkest sleep
My face caressed by downy pillow
A lovely frozen landscape from my window sweeps
to the snow-covered woods so dark and deep
The journey starts, or does it end?

Sonnets in remembrance of mining

As part of the Poetry Business workshop on May 27th 2017 we were set the task of writing a sonnet - the subject was that of burying an old life and starting afresh.

The link to one of my themes - the end of mining - was obvious but I decided to start with something else and work towards it. I ended up with 3 sonnets, the final one being the one that addressed the challenge. Only 151 more to go to catch up with old Shakey.

At the bottom of the page is a description of what constitutes a sonnet - at least an English, or Shakesperean one.

Miner's Sonnet #1

The cage door slams and down the shaft we fall
The rope that holds our lives the first set trap
Of many heartless ways that death may call
To transport us in its eternal wrap 

The roof that hangs low o'er my lamp-lit head
May just decide to slip and down-ward drop
The work's too hard for me to dwell on dread
That comes from cracking sounds of failing prop

We hew and hack the black and shining seam
As with no warning firedamp slyly creeps
One fatal spark will light the gassy stream
A man is gone, his lonely widow weeps

Though peril tracks the collier's daily grind
We are within its thrall of pay entwined


Miner's Sonnet #2

With comrades brave to work each day I'd go
Joking as back and forth the wit and craic
We'd scarce be fear'd or cowed or weakness show
We knew our brothers always had our back

Communities were built on mines and coal
One whole and nourished, fed by that dark pit
The bond we had held tight within our soul
Strong as atoms no government could split

With pride we marched together as one kin
In war the ranks of blue against us stood
Knowing that should we either lose or win
We'd pay for our revolt in flesh and blood

Yet danger lurked and lives were harsh and tough
The death of coal did come not soon enough

Miner's Sonnet #3

The strike is lost; so back to work we go
The fire has gone; the will to fight is slain
The comradeship continues down below
But things will never be the same again 

There's coal down there and they all know the price
But no-one counts the cost of human pain
No jobs, no hope, a village slowly dies 
Our leaders arrogant in their disdain

A collier's spirit I will surely find
At school I failed; or was it failing me
I'll not allow despair to rule my mind
Can I learn a new trade at fifty-three?

Leave behind the only life I've ever known
My future I must plan and I must own

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

Sonnets

The Shakespearean, or English , sonnet has three quatrains (4 liners) and a couplet (2 liner) which follow the rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a key role, ideally forming a conclusion, confirmation, or even the opposite of the previous three verses. In Shakespeare's sonnet #130, the quatrains compare the mistress unfavourably with natural beauty. However the couplet refutes all that went before as the writer declares his love.

     My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
     Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
     If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
     If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
     I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
     But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
     And in some perfumes is there more delight
     Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
     I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
     That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
     I grant I never saw a goddess go;
     My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

Sonnets also use iambic pentameter - here's a quick explanation from Wikipedia

An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The rhythm can be written as:

da DUM

The da-DUM of a human heartbeat is the most common example of this rhythm.

A standard line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

Straightforward examples of this rhythm can be heard in the opening line of Shakespeare's Sonnet #12:

When I do count the clock that tells the time

and in John Keats' To Autumn

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells