the darkness of the sea

the sea rolls past in the dark
and it won’t say
it never does 
and it never will
stare if you will 
but it never will

BOY

BOY

kiss his little kiss-curl your lovely baby boy

kiss along his little hand upon his little toy

kiss away his tears when it fell off

and wouldn’t go no more

look mum 

said his wide sad eyes

kiss away the sadness with

a bright new toy 

for your boy’s big beaming smile

then kiss away his bemusement

when she bit him by the beads 

in the nursery and pushed him away

and kiss his friends 

with jelly and ice cream 

and tuck him into bed 

after he has fallen to sleep

kiss away his bloody knees and

fears in his tears 

and plaster the disaster 

before he runs back out to play

on the day he went 

that bit further away 

and came home so very late

quick 

kiss away your tears before

he sees the pain that he can cause

because there’s plenty of time in childhood

before that clause is drawn

then kiss way his dejection when

his girlfriend has another 

and then another girlfriend 

presents another tear 

for you to kiss away 

and you have to explain

that you too have been that way

kiss away the tears of laughter

when you share a precious joke

while you are still together

and not yet looking back 

then kiss away his growing pains

as you grow a little more apart

when his friends 

the boys and girls

has him cruelly say

you don’t understand 

and those tears of frustration 

you must not kiss away 

upon the day he stood alone

looking darkly back

yet you will still kiss away 

with careful words

the snares upon his track towards

independence 

that will never be total 

for you are always there 

at home 

for

when the big girl troubles really hurt

he’ll sort of beg you to kiss away

his pain 

and then run from you again 

denying he ever did

that it’s all

water under the bridge

standing tall upon your kisses

with the hint of a hint of a hint

of a tear in his eye and

he has no idea why

then you will kiss 

in a far away way

saying yes I am ok

when all the while his happiness 

with his princess will take him

further and further away

until finally he is gone

with a bag of your secret tears 

stored well away 

for him to draw upon

on a far away rainy day

and he has one special tear for you

kept deep within his heart

he’ll not need to call upon that

until you finally depart

and the big little boy

will drop that in your grave

and kiss away the tears

of his own little boy

who asked 

why did nanna 

have to go away

Jim Young

rack and rue in

ruins

           ruins

                      ruins

industry 

  in ruins

lives 

  in ruins

the rape of the valley

my valley that cut my knees 

bleeding as black as the slag tips

that tripped my feet 

and tricked my mind

my wide-eyed playground

of touch stones

the soot encrusted bricks

that tattooed the gap-toothed buildings 

roofless and ruthlessly crippled

but 

with an open armed silent welcome

a wagon train circle around

the children who saw only ruins

not ghosts

no anguished tears soaked into

the ruins 

no camaraderie of the exploited

the manhood of grime halted mid term

the children

me

we 

saw the

topple down walls crash

and splash into our river of laughter

our cake tray of bricks

the brail of the hardened cinders

the satanic black of the slag frozen now

we walked the cobbled roads

into the ruins

cobbles that still would not tolerate

a single weed

to infiltrate the years laid thick

upon the clog ringing ways

that we flew over oblivious

and frivolous in a spin

in our dare-devil pull it down

fun we saw only fun

had no inkling of the rich burghers 

who’s names named our terraced streets

and statues lorded it over their beneficent parks 

or the cascade of manacled managers

and subservient men

who lived and died for their brass

that was our class and we knew it not

ragamuffin boys and torn gingham girls 

we had tight horizons

tall ruined walls to call our own

that were our sin and secret

our pushing of the boundaries down

until the rebellion of adolescence met its match

and we conformed in ruin to our ruin

our houses were built from the ruin of slag

on the ruin of slag

and bucolic was but just a plague

amongst the stunted grass as

we bowed low under the weight

of our prospects in our tallow

the ruins are visited 

down through the generations

and when play turned sour

ruin came home to play with

the tarot cards that were stacked

and dealt the death card that was 

always the ruined slag

and our hands were callused

as our minds were callous

then we saw our children laugh

and scream in delight at the ruins

at the blight of sulphur and red ash

and 

        and

the ruins 

                  the ruins

were our ruin

out there we knew 

were other ruins

but these were our

ruins

our ruins

                ours to rack

                                       and rue in

turning

every grain of thought is
a jewel on the sands of time
even when the tide returns
to wipe them all away
as it must    
no tear is ever wasted
in the tides of history

listen

the sea breathes a secret,

the gulls scream do not listen

lies, lies, lies.

ignoring them 

the sea breathes a secret 

to those who listen;

especially to those who swim

in the catechism of its embrace.

R S Thomas.

R S Thomas. 
my nose in his poems,
my head upon his pocket watch,
that ticks time’s mountain rocks. 
where the heavy tears cascade, 
drying down the lonely years,
staining the pages there,
where he questions his faith,
or the dearth of faith,
and the loneliness of death.

Adolescence and beyond

to be an adolescent is like being rolled along under a glacier,

the motion of the diffuse light far above predetermined.

the golden gravel befriended grind upon each other

as the mons veneris rocks of the smooth bottom

caress and release the fingertips of the goodbye times.

the bright fertile sea under the whole sun waits,

even as the open sky’s chill winds hold back the emotion

for an agonising instant.

the berg breaks and floats away.

lifted on the skirts of a wave, abreast the golden spume,

excited by the frisson of the sea race, the cold creep of

adolescence melts. by the time the berg meets its mate 
at the equatorial tropics, the decay has already set in;

as the fruits fall in the family orchard, 

the leaves turn to russet in their sunset.

tears evaporate into the storm and the clouds gather,

to deposit the snows of age upon the upper glacier.
the winter solstice presses, and presses, and

one by one they crystalise.
deep below the journey resumes.

a call of the sea

a call of the sea

slips into my garden,

slattering the sunbeam gate.

the landward lanyard releases me,

and I run high rocky paths that harden,

above time’s tide in surges hasten, be not late.

the Beatles

the Beatles pumped the tears 
        around my veins,

hung me from a sky hook,

        and shook me 
to the soles of my feet,

tapping the sixties kisses

around in fairground reels.

well hot dog! 
               the salt and vinegar

days would never end.

but end they did; 
  and yes they do,

reincarnate 
                     every time we hear

the Beatles pump it up;

my blood runs cold 

even as my heart’s aflame.

dead? certain?

the best truck is a dead truck.

its extinction clothed by nature,

its carcass gone to rust.

a cold frame for the vegetation

that cannot believe its luck.

the speedometer, we trust,

is stuck below sub-zero, the

steering wheel in exasperation

at the child's brum, brum,
it must
           go on, it must!
was it only yesterday,

this trade-in for tomorrow?
or its final curtain call?
how bright will they be,
how bright do you see,
all our tomorrows?
or do you prefer our yesterdays?

it’s time, for you, to decide.

well go on then!
decide!

Muse time for a rhyme

the matter of a dark question

i am an atheist

but

what if

like dark matter

their ‘god’ is sensed by

the movement of

bodies close by

they are moved

even if

we are not

to say we are not

is not to deny 

that 

it

moves them

an atheist 

a rock in a

moving sea?

second hand prose

the husk pages of a book 

in seance with the summer wind,

restless across the corn field; 

the harvest of memory

that poets in memoriam be,

in their twilight days,

they have laid down the years. 

smell the must of their words

that they say “must be”,

they simply must be. 

wake up!

the storm approaches. 

the newts of spring

the newts of spring

spring of the newted boys,

infatuated the many mile,

up the cefn, 

to the clay pits, and

turning the mud bricks,

and taken with a smile,

pot the newts with magic.

the safari floats home

back down the memory mile.

the tea is drunk

the tea is drunk
the log fire dawdles

the music wanes

the seance begins 

the words cross over 

onto the page

  here

    see

you are reading them

  now

the beholden poet’s clatter

is spilled in word’s that clatter

it doesn’t matter 

          it doesn’t matter 

let the seance resume

let the abscess that gathers

all the puerile aged pus 

yield to my sinus pen

be lanced the boil

drain the mind marinade

of the all the anthologies

and all the libraries of noise

  how 

can I sear this tattoo 

of the past and

brand the page anew

or water mark it

as my own

  exorcised of the poets 

the vacuoles still remain

to permeate my poems

  is there no icy pool 

into which I can dive

and emerge pristine

let me think

      let me think

failing to reach escape velocity

my childhood; a stone in my shoe,

a wallpapered memory, peeling;

trimming the lamps, and dimming

grandpa’s gas-mantled dusk.

rejecting today’s vermillion carpet,

unwelcome by the zinc bath boy;

the iced windows are, thoughtlessly,

not listening. they never did.

the hard slag tips’ strong foundation,

is ill-designed for building today;

they will not house my childhood.

false, they call back; false, false!

eyelid heavy, the village days wrap

up my today and throw it away.

the village ball and chain drag,

and i fall back as i always do.

said the four o’clock abed

westminster dolefully downs the cold fired night

where the black pads scurry crumbs 

homeless on the grit coal carpet grate.

then chimes the hour balanced moment 

between the days down either side,

and thoughts suspended simply are,

and we? where are we halted then?

between a dry tear and a lemon smile,

a rising laugh and a choked off frown.

the scant breath off the lake of night

lays a black cracked window feather,

to stir the stardust ashes

around the point of no return.

with no signpost forward,

sleep comes to kiss;

there, there; hush now,

my cariad,

nos da,

night you night,

for everything’s alright.