nigel-mellor-poems | Militant Thistles

Nigel Mellor

A small town on the river

Tonight the beer is dark

I can’t understand why

The barges are low in the water

Bow waves wash along the decks

I share a word of pleasure with a stranger,

in her language,

As we watch a heron pose

The accordion player smiles right into my eyes

In thanks for a coin

In the crowd the football songs are the same

Young lads, well drunken

Ask the way to the old town

And apologize for their schoolboy English

Over fish soup

Two businessmen write down where to visit

Discuss the war

And Clint Eastwood, who they’d met on holiday

Why should anyone want to kill these people?

Private Health Providers

First they came for the glasses

And I said nothing because I could afford glasses

Then they came for the teeth

And I said nothing because I could afford teeth

Then they came for the warts

And I said nothing because I could afford warts

Then they came for the heart surgery

Nigel Mellor’s poems have appeared in a broad range of publications both inside and outside the poetry world, including Emergency Verse, Guardians of the State, Time Out, Tribune and New Poetry 1 (Arts Council England). His first collection is For the Inquiry (Dab Hand Press).

Beware of words

To kill them

You must first make them less than human

And all that takes

Is words

How the West was lost

When politicians cheat and bankers lie

And newspapers won’t fight the good fight

The man in the street joins the army’s old cry

For a strong man to put it all right

Austerity

There will come a day