Get One of Each On

This was written after a Read to Write session on the poetry of Michael Rosen.

I have issues with the idea that all opinions are somehow equal.  

Get One of Each On

Welcome, said the presenter, to The Big Debate. Today, she said,

we will debate Climate Change.

On my right, Professor Jane Doublefirst of Oxford University,

who has 25 years' experience in Climate Science in the

public and private sectors, arguing the case for green energy.

On my left, Dave Straightspeaker from Basildon, who thinks Global

Warming is nonsense peddled by do-gooding lefties.

Got to be impartial, they said. Get one of each on.

Welcome, said the presenter, to The Big Debate. Today, she said,

we will debate Vaccination.

On my right, Dr. Jim Needles, who has 30 years' experience

in Vaccinology in the public and private sectors, and has written

several books on the elimination of diseases worldwide.

On my left, Karen Redditontwitter, from Derby, who thinks vaccines

give you autism and have poison and microchips in.

Got to be impartial, they said. Get one of each on.

Welcome, said the presenter, to The Big Debate. Today, she said,

we will debate Immigration.

On my right, Lady Pamela Bright, who came to the UK as a child

in the 1950s and has spent 40 years working in immigration law and

has written international articles on the benefits of immigration.

On my left, Sir Jeffrey Littlebrain, MP for Home County South, who thinks

Britain is full and we let in criminals and they're on benefits and taking British

jobs.

Got to be impartial, they said. Get one of each on.

Welcome, said the presenter, to The Big Debate. Today, she said,

we will debate The Holocaust....

Tim Fellows 2020

An Old Actor's Lament (Erasure Challenge)

This poem was created from the words in a section of James Joyce's Ulysses (see below) as a challenge set by Paul Brookes.  

An Old Actor's Lament

Bloom, grey spouting beard! Thrill her!

Here, the same women still kiss young Romeo,
pleasure tantalising, gnawing, desire growing.

Over there, every man - well preserved -
would of course live forever.

Those pretty little ladies, hot, strong, and sweet
laugh; joke about your life.

How many have you asked? Two, ten, eleven?
The papers ceased to care.

Tim Fellows February 2021

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Bloom admired the caretaker’s prosperous bulk. All want to be on good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O’Connell, real good sort. Keys: like Keyes’s ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout checks. Habeas corpus. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha? Hope it’s not chucked in the dead letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That’s the first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death. Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O’Connell must be a descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o’ the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they’d kiss all right if properly keyed up. Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones. Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving. Gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it at the window. Eight children he has anyway.

He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. Sitting or kneeling you couldn’t. Standing? His head might come up some day above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed the ground must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too: trim grass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, so it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic Gardens are just over there. It’s the blood sinking in the earth gives new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy. Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds thirteen and six. With thanks.

I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh, nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rot quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozing out of them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to feed on feed on themselves.

But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at life. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one about the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning. 11 p.m. (closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what’s in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies’ punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. Gravediggers in Hamlet. Shows the profound knowledge of the human heart. Daren’t joke about the dead for two years at least. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral. Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.

—How many have you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked.

—Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven.

The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, stepping with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its nose on the brink, looping the bands round it.

The Churchyard

Published on the allpoetry website in January 2021 and promoted as a featured poem. Originally inspired by the Black Bough Poetry Winter 2021/22 submission for short poems but it didn't really fit the remit.

 

The Churchyard

 

The gate creaks slightly, and I tread gently
by the sad stones, the tiny beds of lost children
who in twists of destiny would lie further on.

To where my icy footprints now take me. 

Past the low wall, memorials large and small.

The flowers I place will die too, dessicate
as the cold sun picks out gilded letters,

illuminates stark dates. I leave, passing tilting stones,
weathered names fading as I observe
the marks my feet made before are melting away. 

Tim Fellows 2021

 

Photo (c) Bill Henderson 2004 shared under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license

Finding Them

Written for Holocaust Memorial Day. 

Finding Them

Iron gates, unlocked,
open and creaking.
Buildings, wood
and concrete
containing
only things

they chose
to leave 

behind.

Shoes, spectacles, teeth,
skin and bone.

Everything is hollowed out. 

Tim Fellows January 2021

Photo by Frederick Wallace on Unsplash

In the Bleak Midwicket

This is a nonsense poem that starts with the well know verses written by Christina Rossetti in 1872. 

You then take all the nouns, pick your favourite dictionary and the then substitute the nouns with a nearby one. In this case I took the first one and found the best substitute, which was 2 nouns before "midwinter". I then did the same substitution with the other nouns. Except one, which would have rendered the poem horribly racist, so I used a different one.  

Thanks to Claire Crossdale for the idea. 

This is Rossetti, looking unamused by the butchery of her work.

In the Bleak Midwicket

after Christina Rossetti

 

In the bleak midwicket, frosty wincey made mnemonic,

Earplugs stood hard as Irish stew, watch-tower like a stomach;

Snot had fallen, snot on snot, snot on snot,

In the bleak midwicket, long ago.

Our Goby, heat shields cannot hold him, nor earplug sustain;

Heat shield and earplug shall flee away when He comes to reign.

In the bleak midwicket a stabilizer sufficed

The Loot Goby Almighty, Jester Chow.

Enough for Him, whom cheroots, worship niggle and dawn,

Breakwaterful of military police, and a manglewurzelful of hawser;

Enough for Him, whom anemones fall before,

The own goals and aspirators and camcorders which adore.

 

Anemones and archaeopteryx may have gathered there,

Cheroots and sequoia thronged the aileron;

But His motel only, in her maiden blinker,

Worshipped the belly-laugh with a kirsch.

 

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shemozzle, I would bring a lama;

If I were a Wise Mammogram, I would do my parsonage;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my hearing-aid.

 

Tim Fellows 2021

12 Poems of Christmas

 

In December 2019 I set myself a challenge to write a poem a day, starting on Christmas Day, for 12 days where each day was a poem based on the gift for that day of the 12 Days of Christmas song.

I did it, and was largely pleased with the results. I had managed a villanelle, rhymed and unrhymed poems, comedy, misery (obviously), love, and incorporated some personal memories. I made small edits on some of them but something was bugging me. The Milkmaids poem from day 8. Not good enough, no matter what I did with it. So, I never properly published them, although I put out the drafts on my facebook page and have read some of them at Open Mic events.  

Finally, a year later, the replacement poem came to me. I appreciate that it breaks the challenge to an extent, but I think the other 11 poems deserve an outing and the original Milkmaids poem has gone to the dusty "Unpublished" folder.

12 Poems of Christmas Challenge

25th December - Partridge in a Pear Tree

The Pear Tree

He remembers (or maybe it's a dream)
climbing the weathered rungs
up the pear tree.
His mother, in a panic, getting him
down, removing the ladder,
feeling a splinter in her finger. Squeezing
out a tiny drop of blood.

Standing, looking into the tree
at bulbous fruit loaded with summer rain.
Golden, hiding among the whispering leaves.
He reaches, one hand, then two. The pears
are beyond him. He sits, hoping for windfall.

There are birds in the tree, free to come
and go, to take the fruit. He squints
at their shimmering shapes,
frowns at their mocking calls.
Touches the scratchy bark, his skin on wood
much older than he. It consoled him,
told him that things are as they are
for a reason.  

Tim Fellows December 25th 2019
 
26th December - Two Turtle Doves

Turtle Doves

The first arrived on a Wednesday,
finding its home in the old oak
at the bottom of my garden.

It made the "turr", "turr" sound
that gave it its name, flitting
from tree to ground, feeding.

It was not long before the second
came, the mate, paired for life.
I knew better than to get too close,

to scare them away. I watched
as they performed their rituals
while summer warmed and faded.

Then one day, they were gone,
to run the gauntlet of guns
on their long path to the sun.

I wondered if they would ever
come back or whether, like you,
they had simply flown.

Tim Fellows December 26th 2019

27th December -Three French Hens

Three French Hens

Florence, Mathilde and Juliette
in a Weatherspoons in Leeds
where they weren't exactly certain
as to what they had agreed

They're wearing deely boppers
and plastic fairy wings
and Juliette's nervously twirling
her engagement ring

She's the one wearing the "Bride" sash
she's going to marry Dave
they're going to live in Harrogate
he's told her to behave

on this classic British pub crawl
the hen party from hell
Mathilde's had one too many
she's not feeling very well.

It's December up in Yorkshire
it's freezing cold outside
yet English girls who have joined them
just take it in their stride

From pub to pub, from bar to bar
with voices ever louder
it's a truly foreign land and the
jokes are getting lewder

They finally lose the English girls
somewhere on Otley Road
and fall into a taxi
a relieved Gallic carload

Her friends are saying au revoir
at the airport the next day
They didn't fancy driving
on the crossing from Calais

They've seen some British culture
they never thought they'd see
but they're happy to be going back
to their life in gay Paris

Tim Fellows December 27th 2019

28th December - Four Colly Birds

The Colly Bird

The colly bird opens its throat and sings
It spreads out its feathers on coaly wings
The bird that will sing for queens and for kings
Sings loud for you today

The colly bird flies from tree to tree
It flys so high, how it loves to be free
I watch it soar, but I can never be
By your sweet side today 

The colly bird taps with its yellow beak
A tune where love deserts the soft and meek
I know that I have lost my chance to speak
My love for you today

Tim Fellows December 28th 2019

29th December - Five Gold Rings

Five Weddings, Two Funerals and an Electrician

The first one's name was Maureen
in nineteen seventy four
we got hitched in Cleethorpes
we were happy, though we were poor.

One day I got a phone call
They said "We're sad to tell
you that there's been an accident"
the next weeks and months were hell.

The second time was two years on
It happened very fast
We were married in Barbados
we really had a blast

for four months - or was it five? -
until I caught her in our bed
with Jim the electrician
so marriage two was dead.

So I said goodbye to Sharon
I've not seen her since that day
but it was only a year or so later
when I re-joined the fray.

Jane was a practical woman,
divorcee with kids in tow
We had fifteen good years -
was it love? Well I suppose so

because I cried the day she told
me that the cancer had come back
and I cried when we stood around
the grave, all dressed in black.

If you think it's been bumpy
up to then, well number four
was the worst of all these women-
if I'd known what was in store

I never would have wed her,
I so regret it still
For Helen saw my money
then my bank account was nil.

You'd think that I'd be finished
no more wedding bells for me
but I still had happy memories
of spouses one and three

So now I'm happily married
for the fifth time, I'm well set.
Her name's Matika, we're in Thailand
all thanks to the Internet.

Tim Fellows December 29th 2019

30th December -Six Geese A Laying

Geese

The geese that lay across the path
looked bored, but others, strutting
as if they knew they owned this gaff

left runners with their certain footing
in no doubt about their likely fate
if they dared to step too near

so they, berthed wide, went off-straight
and left the geese to honk and cheer.
Meanwhile, in soft grey winter skies

a perfect vee of northbound birds
called instructions from on high
"Join us, join us" - such deceptive words.

Tim Fellows December 30th 2019

31st December - Seven Swans a Swimming

Swan Lake Memories

There were seven swans
on the lake that day.
One, head down, tail up,
feeding in the mud
while we, your hand slipped
into mine, laughed
at the thought that it was mooning
us. Cygnets,
grey-brown balls of fluff,
resting on their mother's back.
A first-time kiss and other thoughts
of future broods.

Sitting in this comfy chair
I see, in not quite real-life,
the white birds, now what are they?
A thing inside is nagging me
and, clear as day, I see a girl
giggling at an upturned bird,
and hear the sounds
and smell the Spring.
She looks a little like
the woman who looks after me,
makes drinks
and gives me pills to take.

She comes in with a mug of tea
and I gesture wordlessly
towards the screen and she
says Swans. I sigh, of course,
I should have known.
They're important! I reply
and a small smile flits across her face.
Yes, they are and she looks sad
but another word is better;
melon?, melony?
It shows the birds are flying now,
I don't know where, oh
those white birds, what are they?

Tim Fellows December 31st 2019

1st January - Eight Maids a Milking

The Milk Maid 

She squats on the short stool, hands
moving rhythmically, automatically,
while her thoughts rise beyond this shed

to a dreamland where she can never live.
Where she and the beasts she loves
are free. She leans into the heavy flank

and feels the rough hide on her cheek,
closes her eyes and imagines the coursing
blood inside. The cow shifts slightly

and its low call vibrates their bodies.
She listens to the milk splashing into the pail,
knowing it should have been for a calf

and thinks of the child that she never had.

Tim Fellows January 1st 2021

2nd January - Nine Ladies Dancing

The Tea Dance

The "Ladies Only" Tea Dance
was already underway
when Joan and Betty entered
and watched the women sway.

Joan and Betty held their pose
for foxtrot, waltz and jive
Around the floor they heeled and toed
it made them feel alive.

Some of them had learned to lead
and others to be led.
They were all dressed up to the nines
but danced in secret dread

that one day there'd be whistles,
and shouts of "It's a raid!"
They'd be led away in handcuffs
the price that would be paid

for the unjust laws that stopped them
and punished them back then
for just being women with women
and men being with men.

It was only when they got home
to their cottage by the sea
that they could hold each other
the way their love said they should be.

Tim Fellows January 2nd 2020

3rd January -Ten Lords a Leaping

Hunt

Here they come,
hard hats and hearts;
hurrahing and harumphing,
hurdling high hedges.
Hark! their horns,
hot and hungry hounds
hysterically howling.

The hunted hobbles
to its hole, a home,
a helpless haven,
hardly hiding.

Hating, haunting,
heavy guffawing,
historic houses a
human Heaven
hosting bloody Hell.

Tim Fellows January 3rd 2020

4th January - Eleven Pipers Piping

He Who Pays

It's like some kind of nightmarish cartoon
where Orwell seems to be right on the mark
and he who pays the piper calls the tune.

He has this image of a dumb buffoon
who lets slip the occasional remark.
It's like some kind of nightmarish cartoon.

He takes a hatchet and he starts to prune,
the flood will come but he'll be on the ark;
the one who pays the piper calls the tune.

It may be that I'm howling at the moon;
the world's gone mad, may I just disembark?
It's like some kind of nightmarish cartoon.

And, all around, his enemies are strewn;
ambition leaves them fumbling in the dark.
The one who pays the piper calls the tune. 

Is there a chance this horror will end soon?
We're sinking in a pool that's full of sharks.
It's like some kind of nightmarish cartoon
where they who pay the piper call the tune. 

Tim Fellows January 4th 2020

5th January - Twelve Drummers Drumming

Twelve Drummers Drumming

Fitzgibbon, Moon, Starr and Bonham,
Stewart, Taylor, Baker, Rich,
Weinberg, Copeland, Peart and Watts
beating rhythm with their sticks.

Getting on their neighbours' wicks.

Tim Fellows January 5th 2020

Image by Xavier Romero-Frias, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Daily Haiku 2020

Here are all the haiku that I posted on the Daily Haiku facebook page in 2020. I was doing one a day at one point, but it was starting to get obsessive so I just dip in occasionally now. The page offers a prompt for that day, and one for the week if you like.

I find now that haiku are good warm-up exercises before starting to write.

 

Anyway, here they are. Some are better than others, some are closer to the spirit of haiku than others, but sometimes the subject matter is hard to map onto the haiku philosophy. 

Existence

Because something exists,

or someone, does not mean that

it lives, loves, or dies.

Rivers

When small rivers join

they become bigger, stronger.

Rivers rarely split.

City

The city at dawn;

concrete and glass emerges
to face a new day

Wild

Where the wild things are
our shadow-minds can live free
while our body sleeps

Galaxies

Huddled together
in the vast vacuum; swirling

to oblivion

Japan

Spring will soon be here

sakura will bloom again
cool skin feels the sun

Paris

Night falls; like a fire
the shining city of light

explodes into life

Dusk

Colours are fading,
vibrancy lost in shadow;
light is sleepy now

Honey

His words, like honey,

seeped into her ears; so sweet

she was almost sick.

Childhood Memories

Fragmented; snippets

of broken time; fading fast.

One day they'll be gone.

Darkness

This night, cloaked and black,

is like daylight set against

my deep inner thoughts.

Rivers

The old river. Made

in mountains from endlessly

recycled water.

Surfaces

Skin is a surface;

whether rough, smooth, dark or light

when broken it bleeds.

Paths

As the path narrows

we push back scratching branches;

is this the wrong way?

Travels Imagined

Following Darwin

where ancient reptiles, small birds

mock the Creator.

Ferns

Ferns have no flowers.

When you see one, pick it - it

will bring you fortune. 

Love 

inspired by Giacomo Leopardi

In infinite

wonder I gaze at the stars

where, somewhere, love hides.

Streams

Mountain streams, ice cold, 

cascade over weathered rock. 

Seeking far off seas.

Walls

The dry stone walls wait.

Through wind, rain and snow they stay

impassive. Solid.

Elements

The wind fanned the flames.
Scorched the earth, razed the forests.
The river flowed on.

Woods

The stream in the woods;

crossing from darkness to light

over the worn stones.

Human

Apex predator.

It might be better to be

ape, ex-predator.

Sensation

I feel warmth, creeping

across the skin of my hand.

The month ends. I breathe.

Wildlife

Bumble bee lands. Sucks

nectar. Gets a sugar rush.

Departs at high speed.

Half

They say half a loaf

is better than no loaf; but

a full loaf is best.

Laughter

You're having a laugh!

Didn't we do this theme

a few weeks ago?

Anyway, I once

cried with laughter at legend

Billy Connolly

who we will sadly

never see on stage again.

But memories live.

Numbers

one, two, three, five, eight,

thirteen, the golden sequence

of Fibonacci

Meadows

Sculptured for the rich;

meadows faked by a man named

Capability

Absent

Your face is missing

from your bathroom mirror that

now reflects my tears.

Happiness

Could happiness be

achieved by focusing on

removing sadness?

View

The view was splendid

on the high bridge. With eyes closed,

he breathed, paused, and jumped.

Cascades of water,

sunlight breaks through waving leaves.

Dogs bark - small fish jump.

Gardens

Everything is trimmed -

probably with some scissors -

that man loves his lawn.

Childhood

Wonder and learning.

A whole world to discover.

What will he find there?

Porth Oer

The sand is whistling

in Porth Oer as the sun smiles

on my shoeless feet.

Freedom!

Out on winding trails

where your breath and footsteps

are the only sounds.

Bread

The machine's low hum

turns and kneads the stringy dough.

Rising in the heat.

Undergrowth

We don't see them, but

all types of creepy-crawlies

call undergrowth home.

Shells

The shells that we build

are fragile; they crack; shatter

to tiny pieces.

Socks

Solitary sock.

Mourning its twin. Went for wash

and never came back.

Play

"Play with me, Grandad!"

Remember what it is like

to be young again.

Cornwall

Hail Causley's county!

Land of tin and ancient kings;

salt washed sandy bays.

Community

Broken glass. Windows

boarded. Rubbish strewn. Former

community hub.

Broken homes. Lives drowned

in poverty. Despair. Old

communities lost.

Daisies

Tiny white petals

floating in a sea of green

seeking out the sun

North

Millstone grit. Empty

towns, derelict, abandoned.

Lost in a blue wave.

Mother

Mother pushes chicks.

They fall. They fly or survive.

She moves on. Job done.

Mist

The Great House appears

through the mist. Grim, cold, empty.

Once so full of life.

Birdsong

Waking birds to song
the morning sun pokes its nose
into a fresh sky

Gateways

They slammed the gates shut

when the plague came to their town.

Nobody came out.

When

When this is over

there will be a new normal.

But what was normal?

Why?

Why do we exist?

Ripples in an endless pond,

fading to nothing.

Riddles

What comes from Japan,

has seventeen syllables

and links to nature?

Kindness

Unexpected acts;

generous, selfless, loving;

Help brighten our days.

Myth

INVULNERABLE!

he screamed, then stopped and whispered

Whats that in my foot?

Child  

 

Watching him sleeping
wrapped in duvet, with teddy,
so much life to live.

What's Missing

There's a great big hole.

A chasm has opened up

since you went away.

Countryside

Thin paths, slow water,

grass waving, small animals.

A whole world apart.

Electricity

Crackling energy;

Thunderclouds a harbinger

of vivid lightning.

Rolling Stone

The rolling stone spins;

moss free, it misses so much,

learns nothing at all.

Freedom

Ask "What is freedom?"

You get so many replies

Don't think about it...

 

Islands

"Man is an Island"

we say with authority,

meaning we're alone.

Islands are baffled;

below water they connect.

It's just our viewpoint.

Cheese

Made from curds; mixed up

warm milk and vinegar. How

come you're so tasty?

Poets have been mys-
-teriously silent on
the subject of cheese - G.K. Chesterton

Sadness

 

"You're just sad!", they said

and I died a bit inside

and the Black Dog laughed.

Discovery

The things you find out

when you hear words about you

that you shouldn't hear..

When they "discovered"

America people were

already there. Er....

Poets

Why do we bother?

When did any clever words

ever change the world?

Light Sources

The bulb was so dim

he could barely see that he

owned nothing at all.

Recovery

A single green shoot

Bursts through charred and lifeless soil

Phoenix from the flames

Bridges

First victims of war,

smashed to pieces from the sky

breaking connections.

Ooops

I forgot to post
yesterday, so here are two
for the price of one.

Love

I don't write love songs

because I want, need, to spend

all my time with you.

The Present

Stay in the present!

But as I think about it,

it has been and gone.

What makes a difference

Finite difference?

Infinite indifference?

Which solves the problem?

Dragons

The dragon counts gold

Has all the wealth in the world

But still all alone.

Wild

Winter ends. The bear

wakes. She descends to find food

where the wild land ends.

Faeries

Sepia photos

of faeries in the garden!

Enchanting! Fake news.

Leaves

Do evergreen leaves

remember all their fallen

cousins of autumn?

Metamorphosis

For Sam Cooke

A change is gonna

come. Been a long time comin' -

change has got to come.

Weather

Outside my window

June has swapped with October

Mist, cool breeze, bleakness.

Scent

I still catch your scent;

in our garden, in rooms we

shared so many days.

Roots

When we search for roots

we all go back and back just

to find the same place.

Dandelions

Dandelion names -

lion's tooth or piss-a-bed;

pairs well with burdock.

Holding you up high,

letting wind carry your seeds;

I lose track of time.

Shoes

An old pair of shoes,

comfortable, familar,

won't last forever.

Silence

Sealed lips and closed eyes;

a final gasp - "I can't breathe" -

followed by silence

Faces

Janus' two faces

look forward and back; they both

shed the same dark tears.

Fish

Slip so silvery

through shadowed streams; never stop,

swim against the flow.

Laughter

The laughter faded

in the empty theater -

killed by a virus.

Laughter (posthumously by Bob Monkhouse)

They laughed when I said
"I want to be a comic" -

they're not laughing now.

Smoke

Where there's smoke there's fire

But now the chimneys have gone,

our fire turned to ash.

Music

Staves, quavers, sharps, flats

cannot convey the feelings

that music invokes.

Edges

We fear edges; if

we avoid the precipice

we will never fly.

Garden Birds

A pair of blackbirds

has made our garden their home.

They give me comfort.

Time

They say it's endless

but whether that is really

true we'll never know.

Resilience

Why weather the storm?

Why not let it overwhelm

and sweep you away?

Table and Chair

The lonely table

and unfulfilled kitchen chair

in the quiet house

Today

Today of all days

I would not have expected

it to be my last

Insects

Their army is strong

if they all got together

we would stand no chance

Sleep

When I have to die

I hope that it's in your arms

I dream my last breath.

Distance

We measure distance

to stars using ancient light

and our modern eyes.

Apples

The fallen apple

tempts the animal; the seed

hopes to be a tree.

Sound

The sound of the wind

rattles the skin of the tent,

tears at its thin ropes.

Missing

Thin, wispy white lines

criss-crossing the bright May skies

are simply missing.

Lust

Women, Fame. Power.
Lust's personifaction.

P.O.T.U.S.

Yellow

Squeezing a lemon

and tasting the bitter juice

makes you feel alive.

Quiet

When the silence comes

nature abhors a vacuum

and fills it with song

Opposites

A predator waits;

Eyes forward, focused. Its prey's

are side-placed. Watchful.

Ghosts

After your passing;

driving home, late afternoon,

I knew you were there.

Blue

The shiny ribbon,

my speaker's small LED,

this startling May sky.

Words

Circumlocuting

oversimplification -

problematical?

Night

The sun leaves;

In its absence night creatures awake;

Starlit, wild and free.

Water

Water in a pool

is gentle; But when it falls

we fear its power.

Remembering

Unreliable
fragments, lost in our brain but
sometimes recovered.

Wonder

A child views nature
with wonder; we feel sadness
at all we have lost.

Time

Time is something that
we can make, lose, gain, but most
shameful of all, kill. 

Isolation

That tree was once part
of thick woodland, full of life;
now it stands alone.

Its plaintive call fades
in the deep swirling darkness;
the last of the whales.

Flowers

Your beauty is clear;
but it is ephemeral.
Petals fall so fast. 

Haiku of Four (Isolation, Flowers, Wonder, Time)

When we go will our
sun still count the empty days
and stir dormant seeds?

VE Day

I'd like for the world
to have a unified flag
for us all to wave.

Home

The bee has its hive;
its workplace is its home too
yet it's free to fly

Trees

Laburnum yellow
contrasts with hanging lilac
and the pale blue sky. 

Journeys

Trees may grow strong roots 
but they never learn the strengths
of different soils.  

Friendship

A friend would tell you
if you've been an utter dick.
An enemy smiles.

Timothy Fellows
In the year 2020

One Haiku per day