Good morning

the breakfast kettle roar 

is climbing up my spine

another storm in a tea cup 

settles 

on another geyser day

Requiem for a village night

<Audio>

Knife cold. Always. In the valley

of my short-trousered village.

Stone chapel over the glowering gates.

By hell, the pub glows raucous in its corner,

smoking on the slag-terraced hillside, frowning

as the trains slice and rape the night.

In all ways, the village is ageing.

The choleric ice inside the bedroom window,

behind its fern fans, as hard as nails.

When the glow of the cinders subsides,

cold clock chimes count down the night.

Damp black, the woollen balaclava night,

tightens on the boy's wandering minded lanes.

Sulphated in culverts, the broken adventures hang,

full blown beneath the village's pumiced veins,

pain striated in the sidings of the night.

The cold sweat of manacled workmen,

absent from the housewives’ gossip shop,

bread and dripping whispers,

mangling the washing lines of thought,

upon a haughty night.

The sepulchre rooms, linoleum cold,

bright on a diadem mantel piece in braid,

with ornamentally insignificant motes,

of the "oh, sigh don't know" toiled of days,

and days, punctuated by the night.

Glued to the fire, and tired

of the stains on the cold heart

of a village prostrate, on the black altar

of industrial grime and greed.

A night for all lost souls indeed.

Yet, see the summer sunburnt boys

in their self-conscious bathers,

coo cooling so very out of place.

Dew mun, never found a jewelled field,

but the stars upon a moonless night.

The shining doorsteps polished

by scarf-women kneeling in worship,

pouring scorn on the stone,

with soap and water guttering,

and spluttering into the drains of night.

Above the catacomb culvert lungs,

petrified in soot and ratted in slime,

the village floats, a bog wort bloom,

held and threaded by the silken people,

moonbeam and lamp lit, lonely of the night.

Cold then, but golden, set the scene

in aspic, chapel doored and psalmed,

firesided in pubs embalmed in smoke.

We folk, are the joke, of course.

Our bravado shattered in the night.

I hereby swear

I asked our cat for an "oath of affirmation".

But she just walked away.

It is taken by the MPs of our nation!

"Yes," she said, "but cats are here to stay".

Adolescence senescent

<Audio>

The old songs plait the glances,

backward at childhood,

forward to teens in quicksand.

Where no one has gone before,

or so lies the music.

The ghost train's slamming doors.

Belonging, on the back seat of the bus.

Bright tears, drying on lace-wings.

Cooing boys blaze in bravado,

turning the girls chat inward.

Loud the boys don't care ~ hmph!

We are on our way somewhere ~ so there!

Where're we going then, like?

An eye to eye smile is drawn thinner

and thinner, across the coy girl/boy thing,

as their hearts in a crush are smelting,

the flushed infusion resists.

A kiss spins around and walks away.

That rush of slow emotion,

the magic alchemy is turning 

led astray into here to stay,

coupled golden in your arms.

The rest is a blur.

Swansea bid for City of Culture 2021. A request ...

I would like my photography blog:

http://jimyoung14.blogspot.co.uk

And my poetry blog (includes audio):

http://baitthelines.blogspot.co.uk

to be involved in the presentation of Swansea as a city of culture.

** If you enjoy my blogs would you please consider contacting Swansea City Council to tell them how much you enjoy them. I believe they have appointed a team to steer the bid, and hopefully they will forward your message.

To give them an indication of the "outreach" of my blogs could you please give them your location (country and city).

Here are the contact addresses

tourism@swansea.gov.uk

cc to: 

contact@swansea.gov.uk

Many thanks for your support

Jim Young

jim@glycosmedia.com

time and tide

summer is teetering

on the pinnacle

of sandcastle days

no turning back

or holding back

the crumbling

the tide

Black HOoo...

Tattoo of a black hole,
just there.
Singularity too small to see.
Don't touch!
Shloooop.
Oh no!
Another event horizon
has been crossed.

National Library of Wales has requested a copy of my poetry book

forever and a day

<Audio>

forever

the gloaming o'er the bay,

    turning on the tide exhales,

and slowly dries on salted skins,

    of a summer day in Wales.

and

where such enchantments lay,

    the evening slowly pales,

and the coolness of dusk begins,

    on this summer day in Wales.

  

a

dream of heat, let's say,

    mutes the alpha males,

tunes them to the child within,

    on a summer day in Wales.

day

long in castled spades at play

    has subdued the emotional gales,

and sleep seeps deep there,

    in their summer day in Wales.

stampede in springtime

<Audio>

nostrils for newts 

fistfuls of frogspawn 

bog mint mud redolent 

of lamb on the bone

a boy running springwards 

with wings on his heels 

spawn-eyed with jam jar

and glistening in flight

insect a hunting 

down on his knees

caddis fly larvae 

the waters slide

adventures budding 

across the fields 

or over the hill 

let the river decide 

on the ricochet day

this way or that 

with so much urging 

let's go let's go

further and further 

a giant moon cheese

on a dusky horizon

the War of the Worlds

halt lads in mid-breath 

standing star-eyed

dark calling homeward 

where stories glide

together in lore 

and tolled down to bed

in this Eros village

snuggling in thrumming 

and wrapped in the clouds 

to dream of tomorrow 

where shotgun will ride 

to his galloping childhood 

hi oh silver away

so terrier bite 

on this feral age

on this time of your life

and never let go

Courting

Courting

<Audio>

So young, walking out on summer hand in hand.

Our newness overcome as our fingers entwine,

in a besideness pinked in dress and eyes,

we float beneath the dappled surface.

How you shine.

Floating oblivious we see, in a sky

rising thin and clear, in a sense sublime,

that with each light squeeze around your waist,

we knew that we were merging.

A first kiss turning in stopped time,

and I am yours and you are mine.

Was it really fifty years ago?

Canaliculi

                         Canaliculi

The poetry flows in the Venice of my mind.

     Bells on backwaters of memory ring

        down the years, down the years.

                  And down the years

                         the tears

                           spring

                               to

                           remind

                         the tears,

                   that down the years,

         down and down upon the years,

    memories are backwatered on the bells,

canaliculated my Venice mind flows in poetry.


                         <Audio>

  Inspired by a text from Andrew in Venice

Gone and forgotten

When the human race is extinct,

my poetry, along with the dead, 

will really be dead. 

Remember,

there will be no one to remember. 

Don't forget that, will you?

Hello?   Hello? 

New lines in old bottles

Don't stop the flow

of the vintage lines,

or worry the sediment.

The bottle is crazed

and will surely blow,

ere all that’s meant is said.

Check out my latest article on Swansea News Network

Early July diary. Summer playing games

http://swanseanewsnetwork.org/july/early-july-diary/

Dylan

<Audio>

Your words inflect the corpuscles of my womb,

and lilt my tongue across the old Braille town.

Swallowing your windfall light upon my throated apple,

I gag in crying for the child's night spun down.

Leaning against your corduroy trousered tree,

bark black hair and stare, impudent in the cravat

that smoked around this pouting town of ours,

that my eyes, through your eyes see.

Your short-trousered lines go where

the people stained their walled-in times,

when Jesus wept, and the parable of the pub

sought truth beyond your death mask,

and not our lime washed rhymes.

No lie of the land to say we walked today,

where the chimney cats and skulk Sunday dogs

paused to pee into your reservoir of words.

Or the salt rimed jewels of the hunchback sea,

shining on the salt encrusted streets,

as the mist slew back into your grave,

and the lid on your sunlight closed.

Park-wise by owl light, the altar of your night.

Glorious to have been there with you today,

Swansea boys and running.

Lovely like, in it?

Diolch Dylan

Prose acre

<Audio>

What are the edges, where there are no edges?

That restrain the boy, "no further!" Shall I go? No.

The hillside heather, stepped so many times before

in a mind's adventure, on a boy's bouncing shoes,

from rock to warm rock, or in the deep grass world to lie.

But on this cusp, above a small holding, the easy path

around the fenced fields; so why not step forward?

What invisible glare, there, holds me back?

Why not down the south side as I do the homeward north?

Or down along the river tread the scrapyard's tricky path,

before "no further's" creeping flesh turns back.

Or up to the 600 weir, where every dereliction's frown

turns down the drizzle collars damp enough, turn back.

The river boundary plain to see, and then the sea of course.

But what minds a boy to "stand back!" from the inner, 

of the inner, of every rusty, smoke-bricked factory, 

or works long dead, has said, in a bit more? But "no!" 

Falls down upon a frown, I wish, I wish to go. But no.

Oh boy, your boundaries grow with you in height and depth,

but the phantom "do not cross!" so rankles the lust

for just a bit further, then further. See how I cannot see it?

How far and wide can my home range be stretched before

it is home no more? But a bubble universe set to break away.

Beat the boundaries good and hard, and take a quick look

over there, and down there, and across there. Then turn

back home and beat a slow retreat, back along my beat.

The "Why?" Of  "no further" seems to be, quite simple see,

that the boundary is too fragile. Deep down I knew it all along.

Tactile the feeling that to push too hard would bring the edifice

of childhood tumbling down, and all my pals, the boys and girls 

would flood out. Melancholy, as the days pour in stinging in tears,

blurring out who we were, in a "do you remember when?"

But I am not yet ready to relinquish this story-minded childhood.

So I do not cross. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after?

The threadbare shawl still wraps warm around the days,

and all the whispered ways, that lead to the edge, of ...

A patchwork quilt of Swansea built

<Audio>

Morriston

A snake street of little shops,

tabernacled in stone.

A church on an island,

an eye on a herring bone.

Plasmarl

Aircraft carrier, on its deck lined up,

fleets of new cars all glossy in garage,

hands off, for takeoff, prices and prices.

While stingy terraces strike down the mirage.

Landore

Bridged by trains and dark arched through,

monumental black just simply is.

"Bee Brrrp" the diesels comment,

on queue, for cars that just as simply are.

The Hafod 

Tighter knit these matrix streets,

these lodestone houses of industry and more.

Measled by pubs and tiny, tiny shops.

Poor in the richness of its history lore.

Dyfatty

Racecourse crossroads, traffic lights abridged.

High rise, city-like, birthing and borne.

Fags seething red on public house steps,

grouped by stringy men of deep eyes forlorn.

Upper High Street 

Last station of the cross,

"All Change! All Change!"

Tower offices nudge the glory buildings, 

surely this crime must be duly arraigned.

High Street 

Artily varnished fingernails pander too dry

under apocryphal wrinkly and fading facades.

Will it ever decide?

This threadbare tapestry of hanging brocades.

City Centre

Where is it centred?

Laying the ghosts that went before.

Now bored in smoke and obesity.

Re-planning? Oh! No more!

Marina

All flotsam and rattling lanyard masts,

and upwardly winding and windy mobiles.

Waiting (again) for the lock gate to open,

"Would you live here?" Brings wry smiles.

Sandfields

Tall door steps and coal holes black,

all roads lead to Joe's.

On most corners a little shop 

or a pub, and the next round is yours.

Walter Road

They lived here before the lawyers,

before the business hues,

like the grandees of Fynonne,

they are all gone, to where? Who knows?

Townhill

Look at the view, the best in town,

and the community spirit is swell.

The number 12 chugs up and down

past the municipal university - well, oh well?

Uplands

Student-land bustling and dormitory down

to the knot of tight Brynmill.

They walk the paths in the greening parks

yet fail to feel the thrill ...

Promenade

... that the dead, remembered on the cenotaph,

had felt in their last days on this earth.

Walk along the shadows of the colonnade,

and ask why, oh why? Of the modern in mirth?

Sketty

Another crossroads for cars not people,

beep, beep, scurry up, hurry up!

Chipshops and takeaways,

for school kids on the hop.

Derwen Fawr

Neater, wider roads,

but can you see any one at all?

All commuted away in their cars,

bought from the garages of Plasmarl

Blackpill

Bathe in the pill and you'll need a pill.

To bathe in pool you must find a space,

while parents a coffee or ice-creams a kid

until you burn in the sun, all red in the face.

Mayals 

Clyne gardens in a Rupert Bear mystery,

of ornamental bridge and follies bizarre.

Below it the sea, above it the common.

The people of Mayals are lucky by far.

West Cross

Council houses and the grand detached,

and West Cross Lane away to the stars.

The dear little green (with a sign in wood),

and Dick Barton's chips "tweet now and vinegars?"

Mumbles

Infusions of visitors in their bleeding queues,

which ever way you travel in your hot little cars,

the lighthouse and pier have seen it all before,

the tenders and yachts, and the jolly Jack tars.

The piers

Mumbles pier all silver and wood,

looks to the West pier all concrete and baits.

But the West pier guards the entrance to docks,

while the Mumbles pier is rotting and waits and waits.

St Thomas

The seamen home from the sea sit to eat

at the tables that look out in distance to sea.

Over stevedore docks that craned all the oceans

for what they have scent - you see?

Danygraig

The end of the houses at the east side of town,

down to Crymlin bog and out to the marsh.

Was bombed in the war, or so dad said.

But today there is nothing nearly so harsh.

Kilvey 

Kilvey terrace church shut down.

Oh God forgive us, but do not disown

all the souls who walk this narrow old road,

asleep under Kilvey hill's heather and crown.

Pentrechwyth 

The jewel of slag in the city's crown,

where metallurgy blazed and chimneys smoked,

to make the money for the foundation stone,

that now is Swansea, and to that history yoked. 

Bonymaen

"Up the Bony" the policemen patrolled in twos,

now more refined, on the green valley side,

with views across this grand poem of ours,

this tasty Swansea where we all abide.

Then ...

Penlan, between the devil and the deep blue sea,

or Fforestfach in tradesmen's entrance,

or Cwmfelin way down to belie,

secret Greenhill cocooned in a trance. 

But what of (and more) ....

Birchgrove, Clydach, and Pontardawe?

Or Gorseinon, and Pontardulais?

Or Penclawdd, Penllygaer?

Well they all warm Swansea, in tears and mirth,

wrapped in this quilt, this heaven on earth.