La Luna

Written for Paul Brookes' ekphrastic challenge - one poem a day in April 2021. 

 

The art work for this day is "Alterations" by Kerfe Roig

 

La Luna

The moon is melting, slowly losing layers
of ancient skin, that peel and drip away.
The moon is boiling where dark forces flay
it's surface, set the satellite ablaze.

The moon is burning, smoke plumes into space;
now blood is oozing from its screaming eyes
its dark side now exposed, an end of days
and there's no mirage of a human face.

They say the moon is made of solid rock
that cannot burn; not able to weep blood
or cry, or vanish, turn the world to black.
And people all around me pay no heed,

it's me they seem to fear, their faces turn - 
am I the only one who sees it burn?

Tim Fellows 2nd April 2021 

Equinox

 A sonnet on the changing of seasons. Thanks to Mick Jenkinson for some suggestions that improved it. 

Equinox

The earth has tilted and we’ve reached the time
where day and night are weighed; and weigh the same.
With nature balanced, summer’s lilting rhyme's
replaced by autumn’s slow and brown decline.

As day meets night the planets mark their course
across the cooling, cloud strewn moonlit sky.
We stand and watch as time goes calmly by,
helpless to fight the mighty unseen force

that drives us all, we want to stop the flow
and hold a universe within our hand.
To keep this one strand of our life’s fine yarn
poised; cherish it before we let it go.

But day by day we lose a little light
and welcome in the coming of the night. 

Tim Fellows September 2020

Image by Gisela Merkuur 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

The Lark Has Flown

Like to the lark at break of day arising
from sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate - William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

The Lark Has Flown

The flowers in earthy beds were gently swaying
Near where the lark had built her perfect nest
The ground absorbs the sound of children playing;
the breeze blows soft, the fragrant scents caress 

The lark flies high, she swoops and sweetly sings
Around and through the blossom laden trees
her call the catalyst that fuels and brings
the tiny creatures; lures the eager bees

But time flows cruel; its purpose to deny
sweet moments only it can take away
The sullen earth will turn; the skies will cry
and darkness will return to claim the day

The garden wakes when dawn's first seeds are sown
All seems unchanged except the lark has flown

Tim Fellows 2019

The Almanack

The Almanack

My homage to cricket.

I see, upon my dusty library shelf
in ordered rank, six heavy thick-set tomes
mustard-brown guardians of our summer game
that bring those far pavilions to my home.

I take one, and I let it open up -
(it's never to be read from front to back)
sampled, like a statistical buffet,
the tale of cherry ball on linseed bat.

I picture, as a half-remembered dream,
a field of green in distant empire lands
another run is added to the score
etched in time by the scorer's careful hand.

Though stumps are drawn, the players now are gone,
the book is closed but Wisden carries on.

Tim Fellows 2019

Where The Pit Was

This is a follow-on from the 3 Miners' Sonnets that I published as a sequence earlier this year. I've had it in draft for a while.

I don't agree with the sentiments in this poem, but I understand them.

Shirebook Colliery - healeyhero.co.uk

Where the Pit Was

The village has changed in so many ways
where we hung around and played all our games
I cast my mind back to my childhood days
saw in my mind's eye two Meccano frames.

Where the Pit was a new monument stands
but not to the men who worked down the mine -
a symbol of all that's gone from our land,
an emblem of greed for slick modern times.

Minimum wage for overseas labour,
turn up at work more in hope than in cheer.
Can't understand your new foreign neighbour?
Don't worry they say - you've nothing to fear.

That work was hard but I want the Pit back!
This vote's my chance to give you lot the sack

Tim Fellows 2017

Forge

I wrote this sonnet for my daughter Lydia's wedding.

Forge

The love of youth is like a burning flame
which, if unleashed into a blacksmith's forge,
could make cold iron with white hot purpose gleam;
no cold wind nor harsh words its heat assuage.

The love which wraps itself in common bonds
of friendship, care - unwavering in time -
grows stronger still when vernal longing ends
and glows with inner strength and joy sublime

But if each heart wants only what it wants
and cares but for its own needs and desires
then love will slowly cool as lust departs
extinguishing those faint remembered fires

When love is new its flames blaze readily
But tender care will forge sweet unity

Tim Fellows 2018

Sonnets in remembrance of mining

As part of the Poetry Business workshop on May 27th 2017 we were set the task of writing a sonnet - the subject was that of burying an old life and starting afresh.

The link to one of my themes - the end of mining - was obvious but I decided to start with something else and work towards it. I ended up with 3 sonnets, the final one being the one that addressed the challenge. Only 151 more to go to catch up with old Shakey.

At the bottom of the page is a description of what constitutes a sonnet - at least an English, or Shakesperean one.

Miner's Sonnet #1

The cage door slams and down the shaft we fall
The rope that holds our lives the first set trap
Of many heartless ways that death may call
To transport us in its eternal wrap 

The roof that hangs low o'er my lamp-lit head
May just decide to slip and down-ward drop
The work's too hard for me to dwell on dread
That comes from cracking sounds of failing prop

We hew and hack the black and shining seam
As with no warning firedamp slyly creeps
One fatal spark will light the gassy stream
A man is gone, his lonely widow weeps

Though peril tracks the collier's daily grind
We are within its thrall of pay entwined


Miner's Sonnet #2

With comrades brave to work each day I'd go
Joking as back and forth the wit and craic
We'd scarce be fear'd or cowed or weakness show
We knew our brothers always had our back

Communities were built on mines and coal
One whole and nourished, fed by that dark pit
The bond we had held tight within our soul
Strong as atoms no government could split

With pride we marched together as one kin
In war the ranks of blue against us stood
Knowing that should we either lose or win
We'd pay for our revolt in flesh and blood

Yet danger lurked and lives were harsh and tough
The death of coal did come not soon enough

Miner's Sonnet #3

The strike is lost; so back to work we go
The fire has gone; the will to fight is slain
The comradeship continues down below
But things will never be the same again 

There's coal down there and they all know the price
But no-one counts the cost of human pain
No jobs, no hope, a village slowly dies 
Our leaders arrogant in their disdain

A collier's spirit I will surely find
At school I failed; or was it failing me
I'll not allow despair to rule my mind
Can I learn a new trade at fifty-three?

Leave behind the only life I've ever known
My future I must plan and I must own

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

Sonnets

The Shakespearean, or English , sonnet has three quatrains (4 liners) and a couplet (2 liner) which follow the rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a key role, ideally forming a conclusion, confirmation, or even the opposite of the previous three verses. In Shakespeare's sonnet #130, the quatrains compare the mistress unfavourably with natural beauty. However the couplet refutes all that went before as the writer declares his love.

     My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
     Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
     If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
     If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
     I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
     But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
     And in some perfumes is there more delight
     Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
     I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
     That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
     I grant I never saw a goddess go;
     My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

Sonnets also use iambic pentameter - here's a quick explanation from Wikipedia

An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The rhythm can be written as:

da DUM

The da-DUM of a human heartbeat is the most common example of this rhythm.

A standard line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

Straightforward examples of this rhythm can be heard in the opening line of Shakespeare's Sonnet #12:

When I do count the clock that tells the time

and in John Keats' To Autumn

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells