Slayley Lane

This is a haibun - a Japanese form of combined prose and haiku.

Slayley Lane

I always dreaded this part of the route. The bottom of the valley had been flooded after heavy rain, and the cold squelching in my muddy shoes had not yet subsided. The track, sloping steeply and one tractor wide, was uneven with rocks and stones of varying size and shape. Enough to trip anyone, let alone someone trying to run and breathing in heavy, heart-pounding gulps. To get to the top without walking was the Holy Grail. This day I failed. But as my heartbeat slowed I heard only beauty – the wind fluttering in the trees that lined this bucolic avenue, some birds, and a horse whinnying. 

                                                                           The prizes we seek

                                                                           Manacle our weary minds

                                                                           Blanket our senses

Tim Fellows 2020

Elche

I wrote this after flying to Alicante in 2019. 

Elche

The plane banks, tilting in the dusk,
creasing the early evening air.
I still see the sun, painting the horizon
with oranges, reds and fading yellows.

Below, a Spanish city comes to life.
We are low, and the cars
leave trails of tiny lights as they come
and go. Streets and houses are lit, and I
imagine the thousands of lives being lived,
tiny actors playing unscripted parts.
Births, marriages, deaths. Sorrow, joy
and pain.

The wing lifts and the city disappears.

              Mis hermanos, hermanas
              are you really there?
              Have you vanished too,
              in the failing light,
              and have I dreamed
              the sultry evenings
              of Spanish summers?

Tim Fellows 2020

Trampoline

This poem started as a "Golden Shovel" - a format where you take a line of a poem, song or book that you like and use the words to be the last line of the poem.

I did that, but it didn't seem right, so I tweaked it. The original phrase is in there, but can you spot it?

Trampoline

After Paul Simon

A trampoline.

She knew that there's a place
for a trampoline in a garden
for kids. Boy or girl -
either would love to revel
in the joy that every new
tumbling sensation bought to a child.

In York she had grown up outside
the old city walls but never with a garden.

Her phone rang.

Who was ringing her? Nobody calls
her in the morning. She felt herself
go cold as the voice said the treatment
had failed. More tests. This wasn't human.
Not again. She couldn't do it again.

She never did buy that trampoline.

Tim Fellows 2020

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

parkrun Sonnet

This was written in memory of our lovely parkrun friend Lesley, who passed away in March 2020.

parkrun Sonnet

for Lesley

There's something spiritual about this ground -
where lapping water, trees, the songs of birds
all seep into your heart, whose steady pound
beats time in rhythms strong and unimpaired.

No foul weather, no wind or rain prevents
the faithful souls from being there, to pace
around your well-trod paths, this shared event
is more than just a run that's not a race.

The friendship that we've made, our running gang,
lasts longer than the time to run 5K;
it's what brings you back, carries you along
at nine o'clock on every Saturday.

And when at last we've rounded both your lakes
we've earned our just reward - what else but cake?

Tim Fellows 2020

November Wind

For Mum and Dad.

November Wind

I could sense them more than hear them,
lying alone in bed imagining souls
swirling in pain,
seeking gaps, any sliver of a crack
inside the old house.

The wind has woken them, or perhaps
the orange-sparks of fireworks
recently spent had revived their memories
of Novembers past.

They moan, their aching voices
rising and falling, clattering the
windows, lifting the slates.
Had they risen from the scrubland
where the Blocks once stood?
Where they lived, ten to a house,
and slave to the Pit?

Or did they come from below, from
the tunnels darker than the deepest night
where they sweated and swore,
the place that tried to break them and
steal their soul?

Earlier, Dad had ventured out,
against Mum's better judgement.
He dashed from front door
to garage, wearing a hard hat to
protect from any flying debris.
I watched as they ripped it from
his head and carried it down
the littered street, and I reckoned
I heard their laughter. They would
have this November night as their own,
for in the morning they would be silenced.

Tim Fellows April 22nd 2020

Numbers

Written during the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020. When we see the numbers rising, we can forget that each one is loved. 

Just a few of the NHS workers who died as a result of the virus

Numbers

Every number is a face
that will not feel the morning sun

Every number is a breath
that will not catch a favourite scent

Every number is a heart
that beat out time and loved and cared

Every number is one more
that grows the graph we see each day

Every number is a man,
a woman, child who once was loved

with face, with heart, with skin and brain
that will not share their love again.


Tim Fellows 2020

Nurse

Nurse

The nurse closes her eyes and, in her dream,

imagines a world where she isn't exhausted

where she has what she needs

to do the job she loves to do.

The nurse, on his daily commute,

is stalked by the spirits

of all those he feels were betrayed,

their cries ignored by the politics of greed.

He pays for the parking space and sighs.

Tim Fellows August 2018