Our esteemed leaders

I thought I'd better publish version 1 of this before it became obsolete. I suppose some of the mentioned reprobates will be candidates for the pending vacancy. Fill in your own swearing - children may be reading this.

I expect I will rework future versions as more candidates come into the frame.

Our esteemed leaders

Theresa May
the papers say
that very soon
you'll go away

Davis, Dave
I really crave
the day you're in
your political grave

Spreadsheet Phil
pays the bills
by taking money
from the ill

Boris Johnson
plays the long con -
A rude buffoon
You should be gone son

Oh Liam Fox
Back in your box!
You're one of life's
annoying....

Jeremy Hunt
You really shunt
Have a name
That rhymes with....

Michael Gove
A funny sort of cove
An insidious web
of poison wove

Old Rees-Mogg
Dense as fog
All the charm of
a rotten log

Amber Rudd

You awful dud
You washed your hands
of Orgreave's blood

Sly old Rupert
in the wings
He's still trying
to pull the strings

Are these the ones
to hear your voice?
Or do we have
another choice?

(c) Tim Fellows 2017, 2018, 2019...

Woody Guthrie

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie.

Guthrie was a songwriter, singer, political activist and a massive influence on modern folk music in the USA and over here. When musicians aren't covering his songs, you can hear (possibly second or third hand in the case of younger ones) echoes of Guthrie musically and lyrically.

Growing up he and his family were the victim of a boom and bust in the local oil industry and later he became a "dust bowl refugee", escaping the failed crops of Kansas to head west to California. He served in the Second World War, seeing it as a "just war" against fascism.

After the war he began to grow in popularity and collaberated with some of the biggest names in folk music, moving to New York. He began to show symptoms of erratic behaviour and mood swings - the first signs of what was eventually diagnosed as Huntingdon's Disease. He spent nearly 15 years slowly deteriorating mentally and physically and eventually passed away on October 3rd, 1967.

For a full biography and loads more information and songs, go to http://woodyguthrie.org/

He was an absolutely prodigious writer - leaving hundreds of songs in his catalogue as a magnificent legacy. His most famous song is probably "This Land Is Our Land" but my favourite is probably "Los Gatos Plane Wreck" also known as "Deportee" which was written in 1948 after a plane crashed in California killing many migrant workers who were either illegal or whose work permits had been terminated. When the radio reported the accident, it didn't name the dead, except for the 3 crew - calling the rest "deportees".

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"

My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"

Click here for a lovely version by KT Tunstall

Catalonia Rising

This may be the most contentious thing I've written and if you are a supporter of the Spanish government you should look away now. You may also tell me I should bugger off and mind my own business, which is fair enough. But if you're happy with masked thugs beating up elderly men and women for exercising what is, in effect, peaceful protest then good luck.

Catalonia Rising

(1)Franco's ghost laughs
                          as it observes
unfolding acts on bitter streets;
the pulsing heart of Catalonia,
under (2)Gaudi's coloured curves,
mourns in rhythmic beats
with the batons of the (3)Guardia.

Where once he cracked skulls
and shattered countless lives
the old track is stuck on repeat;
where democracy is culled
and jackboot fascism thrives
and freedom is in retreat.

The Catalan blood will surely rise
as it did in thirty six
push back the force of the elite
in the spirit of (4)Companys
resist the government's dirty tricks 
win back their rights on (5)Barça's streets.

(c) Tim Fellows

Notes:

(1) Francisco Franco - Spanish general who ruled over Spain as a military dictator from 1939 until his death in 1975
(2) Antoni Gaudí i Cornet - Catalan architect whose works define the modern architecture of Catalonia 

(3) Guardia Civil - the National Guard of Spain, who have a somewhat chequered history dating back beyond the Civil War in 1936-1939
(4) Lluís Companys i Jover - former president of Catalonia, executed by Franco in October 1940
(5) Barça is the shorthand for FC Barcelona who are the de facto national football team of Catalonia - they were forced to play a game despite the unrest in the streets and, unusually, took a political stance as a result

Slavery

This poem was inspired by the following, brilliant poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes:

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

You can hear it read by Hughes, along with an explanation of how it came to be written here.

He wrote this when he was 16 - I am not in his league nor do I have his direct experience of being an African-American, but here's something I wrote for National Poetry Day and Black History month 2017.

Slavery

There's something visceral about
seeing a human in chains;
hunger in their belly,
desolation in their eyes;
watching as coins are passed
from hand to hand
and their ownership from one
to another;

That smashes through
the basic revulsion that the
concept of slavery
should engender within.
Where any shred of
human decency would
demand a call to arms
to banish it forever.

To raise the sharpest axe
and bring it crashing
onto and through the manacles
and scream "Enough!"
No-one should stand by and watch
as a human being
is sold down the River.

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

In Memory of the Real Football Fan

This is for all you football fans out there - especially those in blue and white who are not having the best of weeks. It was written by my dad in the 1970s and is accompanied by his drawings. It's an early start for tomorrow's National Poetry Day with its theme of freedom - which is what I felt after 25 years of being chained to Chesterfield FC and finally realising it wasn't worth it.

Where Have They Gone?

The original version of this poem was free verse - it was rewritten after studying Thomas Hardy at Read To Write Mexborough. Thanks to Ian Parks and Thomas Hardy for the inspiration to change it to a more structured form. It echoes the theme of Hardy's poems that he wrote after his wife died, where he visualises the past and present simultaneously from the same physical location.  

Where Have They Gone?

From the upper window the man looks out
Across the valley, horses graze
In the field that Time has quietly scorned
Untouched by all the passing days

In that same place those years before
in reflection stood a boy serene

He sees goalposts on the slanting field 

The village team in tangerine

Where once he played with leather ball
the man sees only trees full-grown
The laughter and the childhood games
could be but memories of his own

He turns his head to see the hill
the mine's old spoil heap cloaked in green
No natural feature could be so fair
where man had lately intervened

The boy sees the headstock; motionless then;
There only in spirit for the man
No coal below, ripped out and burnt
the miners and their work moved on

The stream flowed ochre in those times
stained liquid from the empty depths

To the brook that now runs clear
not tumbling from the man-made steps

Faded images play

of memories which

like a dream

make him feel

that Time just robs

with unseen stealth

all that he's done;

Those long gone days
the football pitch
the orange stream
the winding wheel
the colliers' jobs
and Time itself
have now all gone

and Time itself
will soon be gone

 (c) Tim Fellows 2017

 

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