Snippets

Inspired by a tour guide in Bucharest and a colour from a paint palette

Peasant Bread

The people's palace
built by monsters
with no expense spared
for their opulent legacy.
The marble floors,
the chandeliers,
nothing but the best.
Paid for in full
by baby's milk
and stolen peasant bread.


During the COVID-19 pandemic


Isolation Haiku

The frog is awake
He sees the shallow sunrise
and breaks the silence

Blackbird on the lawn
Unaware of our lockdown
Sings in the clean air

Eyes dart back and forth
There is a predator loose
that we cannot see

Just before the 2019 election...

Tug Of War

Lean back, lean back, grip and pull
Each side with the strength of numbers
Well matched, convinced that they are better
Digging in with no surrender
On it goes, on and on
The handkerchief inching back and forth
Barely shifting for all that effort
As bystanders watch, they just get bored
Or laugh at the sweaty, straining faces
Perhaps one side will win
Gloating over broken losers
Or instead they could all collapse
A fruitless waste of grim endeavours. 

Just after the 2019 election...

The Masque of Apathy with apologies to PBS

Lie like pussycats after slumber
In easily vanquishable number
Tie your own chains round and through
The manacles that were put on you
By the lying, boastful, arrogant few.

Summer 2019...

September Haiku

It's that time of year
when smart new school uniforms
swamp my facebook feed

Summer 2019...



Nero


At least when Nero
picked up his bow and played
it was only Rome
that was burning.


Spanish Poem

I'm getting angrier and angrier
Because we've run out of
Sangria

Airport 9am

Another day, another airport.
They're on the beer at 9am.
"We're on holiday!" they say,
"Get another gin for mam."

Promises

Boris's promises
are not worth
the paper
they aren't written on.


Not Again, America


How many more of
your sons and daughters will die
in a hail of lead

before you decide
that chlldren's lives matter more
than your precious guns

Spring 2019...

Closing Time Haiku

Get one more in, Joe!
Just in time before the bell
Seventh foaming pint

Ding, ding - tolls the bell
Clinking glass on polished bar
Time gentlemen please!

Spilling through the door
Its chucking out time again
Neighbours bear the brunt

Winter 2018-2019...

Icy Cycling

Icy cyclist eyes an icicle
Cycles icily, eyes the ice
Ice is cyclically icy I see
Cyclist's eye sees ice is icy.
I see a cyclist cycling icily
Icy cyclist circles his ice
See, ice sickles the cyclist!
Silly cyclist ass over eye.

on Ian Parks reaching 60

Ian

Born into rain-drenched, grime-etched Yorkshire streets,
where expectations ended down the pit,
a boy, whose mind marched to a different beat -
his path by words of love, not lamp, were lit.


Tim Fellows 2019 - 2020

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay