Prospect Villa

Prospect Villa

The house has rarely been as cold as this
since we were here together long ago
the coal fire standing quiet and unlit
as dormant as the rose of Jericho

Mist from dad's paintings leaks into the air
the signs of you recorded everywhere
the scratches on the table, four plain chairs
became the altar of your daily prayers

A love shared out through all the happy years
hides in these walls, I feel it through my skin;
it seeps into my bones and swells the tears
so loaded with the grief I hold within.

But like the rose this place will flower anew
and love will flow and build another home
and other children will remember too
this house where I, in silence, stand alone.

Tim Fellows 2019

Upon Hull

I spent time in Hull when I was a student in 1983, working for what had been the White Fish Authority and had recently become "Seafish". I have been back a few times, but never for very long, often as a rugby referee or with the children for tennis events. I recently went back and had a bit of a drive round, then ran alongside the Humber to where I briefly worked.




Upon Hull

War, raging on the sea,
far from the city,
had shaken its foundations.

I walked the avenues
and breathed the cold air
where gulls cried.

Made phone calls in piss-soaked
white boxes
on the edge of nowhere.

Docks still alive with men,
fish processed on the quays
reeked with an ungodly
and malevolent odour.
Their dead eyes wept.

The diesel-stained train
pulled away from the city
that the poet so waspishly
put down.
The train departed but he stayed.

Across broken bridges the city splits,
each side lapping
from the slick waters.

I drive the twin lanes they built
to speed the traffic through.
No need to stay and look.

But I stay - I spend time, observe
the decaying, graffiti-stained
buildings I once worked.
Shattered glass sparkles.
Scudding clouds
head over bleak flatlands
to the killing grounds.

It parades its pawn shops,
vaping emporia and boarded-up
forgotten nightclubs.
Relentlessly and unapologetically
working class.

Here, where the fish once stank,
a retail heaven of glass and gaud.
The poet may have asked
"Which stinks more?"

Pockets of industrial resistance
break through dereliction
and try to stem the tide.

Grey-blue ebbing river,
choppy under knifing gusts -
the life-blood. Towers
stand in splendid defiance
as sparse traffic crosses its span.

A quick, blood soaked blade
once gutted this city -
flesh decaying,
rancid, spoiled.

I leave it behind once more,
receding in my mirror,
as the day warms
the fractured memories.

Tim Fellows 2019

Image by Andrew Sidebottom from Pixabay

Flame

Peace in Nothern Ireland, as in many places, is fragile. It reminds us too that the rise in far right parties and ideas equally challenges the hard-earned freedoms that have taken years to achieve. It could all be lost so quickly and easily.

Flame

In memory of Lyra McKee

The van reverses in the street
where children play
and forgotten teens gather;
its front flooded with fire

as angry, covered faces
emerge from the shadows.
A shot rings out,
a trigger from a past
where bloody hands
were commonplace.

When we hoped the fires of hate
were quenched by peace
we are reminded that, in the old way,
the flame still flickers.

Tim Fellows 19-April-2019


Image by Rob Schwartz from Pixabay

Tree, seen from the hospital window

Tree, seen from the hospital window

From the window of your room I see
on horizon's edge, a single tree
It will remain when you are free
of earthly roots.

Others have stood in this place before,
have seen that tree, want nothing more
than to shatter nature's primal law
that life must end.

Is that far tree as lonely as I feel?
If not forever then could I steal
a few more days, a vain appeal
for precious time.

The time has come, now I must go
you briefly wake, and I surely know
that though the tree does thrive and grow
it too will die.


Tim Fellows Easter 2019


Image by M. Roth from Pixabay

Selene

Moon over South Yorkshire, June 2018

Selene

Selene drifts across
the darkening sky,
calling on them.
Pulling.
She pulls at the shining sea -
dragging.
Tides, they call them, dear Selene.
Her face shines, shape-shifting,
waxing,
waning.
For eons she called
but no-one came.
Sweet, barren Selene.
Then one day, a tiny speck,
flickering in the light of Helios,
shining.
She sighs as it arrives,
circling.
She prepares for contact,
her bombarded face
expecting.
This is not the time.
But it went as soon as it came
and so did others, closer, finally
touching.
Silvery, they crawl on her,
silent as their covered faces.
My sister, they do not hear you. 
They come and go,
they leave their detritus,
littering.
They are not your children.
Will they ever stay?
She so yearns to be
breathing.
There can be no tears.
She will wait, patiently, endlessly
pulling,
calling,
pulling
calling.....

Tim Fellows 2019

It Comes To Us All

Getting old - it sucks.


It Comes To Us All

Today I got a present
Something I could wear
It felt quite soft and comfy
I opened it with care

But when my eyes fell on it
It just revealed my age
It was a v-neck jumper
the colour - it was beige

So perhaps I need some slippers
and a hat for when it's cold
Or those other things you acquire
When you're getting very old

But you don't know where you put them

can't find your reading specs

and other things you've forgotten 

like the last time you had sex

And your pate has long since baldened

and the remaining hair is grey

and you stare at your fat belly

with sadness and dismay

You have boobs just like your mrs

and you groan when you stand up

and for no good reason you prefer

to use the same old coffee cup

There was some consolation
for the turning of the years
One small crumb of comfort
to keep me in good cheer

That although age is something
that comes to every man
At least I saw it wasn't
a chuffing cardigan

Tim Fellows 2019

Spirit

 I wrote this one a while ago now as an exercise at Read To Write when we were looking at the poetry of Thomas Hardy. It's based on a real incident that happened a few days after my dad died in 2005.

Spirit

1

I knew at once that he was there
"Hello Dad", I said, even though
 in the mirror I could see behind
nothing at all but light and air

2

I felt a soothing in my soul

Tortured by such knotting pain

in lonely hours, the darkest days

when there was no-one could console

3

A shaft of light broke through the grey

As his presence drifted off

"It'll be OK Dad", I said at last

 Though I wished so much for it to stay

Tim Fellows 2019