Friday 31 August 2018

lullaby of my day

salt on my skin,
  straight off the sea;
apples and pears,
  straight off the tree.
the last of the plums,
  blushing away;
sun on my shoulders,
  on a lullaby day.
i sink of the winter,
  my rise on the spring;
when all’s right with the world,
  it’s such a wonderful thing.

Jim the pebble poet

Tuesday 28 August 2018

the black blood of pentrechwyth

the black blood of pentrechwyth 

corroded valley, halted in slag,
clinking under the child’s fleetfoot,
braggart and venturing high
upon the blaggard tips.

child of the brick-ruin walls,
with their arched windows,
glassless, halted in agony;
dark and deep in the sunshine.

the railway-blue empty veins,
drained of yesterday’s blood;
where the footstep sleepers, take 
the boys on their every which of ways.

the dead body river knifes
the village through, drunk
on gutters of the village mores, 
white and more besides.

and yet; ponded and pooled,
frogged and newted,
and fished in evening’s attire;
the boys have caught their sleep.

the hills boil above with larks
and hares, and foxes fast asleep;
above the burring docks, the 
the fire boys run amok.

fag-smoke pubbed in respite from toil,
and chapels handed in organs stoned;
the boozy news or the pious pews,
echo down of their pray day dos.

summers brambled and heat oppressed,
autumn collected and bonfired high,
winter cobbled under lampposts blind,
until spring comes shot with green.

the quick and the dead, 
with the metal hosts,
screech their slag-glass nails, 
and hammer their rusty nails,
into every village girl and boy;
who are born and borne,
in this, my dead-alive, 
my very own,
industrial graveyard,
in wales. 

Sunday 26 August 2018

summer in august

Summer in August

my dear girl, why are you crying in the wind,
tearful rain in tresses running?
are the nasturtium kisses not enough?
or the plums that are ripe with rouge?
see how the shut-eyed daisies bow
before the geranium’s coronation crown;
and how resplendent the tomato courtiers are,
and how grand the runner beans, in bishop’s green;
and how your champagne rings and rings in pools.

smile a little as the cat whooshes in,
flying over her patio paws; 
and smile a little more 
at the snobby browning figs; and see
how the lobelia grandmothers gossip
about the stuck-up russet pears,
with dew drops on their nose.
and how the windfall apples go bouncing 
red on the dancing gardner’s head.

but look now, the heavy sky rolls eastward,
and it is lightening in the west;
the greenhouse door squeaks open a peep;
where it has been sulking behind the woodpile, 
that is not half as high, as it should by this day;

see there! a flash of squirrel, 
eating of the hors d'oeuvres,
as the rain pumps up the nuts.
and of course, the sea sings all the more
when it is flouncing in the rain.

so summer, my love, take the day off today,
until the bank holiday rain has soaked away;
then put your best boater on,
the one with the yellow ribbon and a sash,
and we’ll warm to the promenade band again,
where the brasses shine up high
on a late august sunbeam’s flash.

Friday 24 August 2018

Worm’s Head (the Worm)

Worm’s Head (the Worm)

I met myself along the many ways;
the which-way ways of the muscle beds,
and barnacled greys of the rocks across
the causeway to the Worm.

Renegade, on either side, the sea threatens
to renege on a long time contract, 
and claim us for another sad sea shanty.

So we push against the wind that
struffles our hair like grandpa does,
and it brings a tear to our eyes;
for we are dazzled, stiff-necked,
by the kestrel hanging on the blue wind 
who sees the shine upon the rocks 
that have been there for the many hands 
that have climbed over many hands, 
on that precarious way.

On the one side,
  the seal sea;
on the other, 
  the surf sea;
under the rock bridge,
(that of the quivering knees), 
it is deep, and dark-down and blue.

All is beneath, on our final push to the end, 
where, up on the head,
the Atlantic wind stretches the mind,
and we can taste the futures of past walkers,
who have stood this test of time. 

Ever child’s story book of high adventure
wiggles through the wind grass,
and the small blue flowers;
so how can this be a sad day?

Because, there is a late summer rasp, 
cold, even under this speeding sun.
I don’t think we will return this year,
I am sure we will not.

And so, we race the rain 
that will watermark this day 
in our memory book; and as we
step back on dry land
the sea rises and reclaims its right;
and so, everything is alright, 
out on the Worm,
and here at home
where the curtains are drawn
across the running moon.

Thursday 23 August 2018

look, a secondhand book

a page turns, languid, like a revolving door,
this secondhand book has seen it all before;
as the dust held-breaths escape,
ask how many years forlorn
has it waited for the rape,
for time to be torn,
violated by a new reader’s eyes,
it, in resurrection dies,
and is stillborn.

Tuesday 21 August 2018

perforce

so when my verses cut the wind, 
and sent it rankling in the trees,
perforce they finally shed their leaves;
and then, and only then, did i see
deep, deeper o the shankle woods,
and soft upon those russet words
did tread ever so lightly,
before i dared and tiptoed in.

Sunday 19 August 2018

day-down way

damn the cliche when i say that 
i lay my head in the fold of this book 
and how i look forward to the end of day
and the company of the poets down
all their wending ways 

and how i long to write the one
poem that has teased me all these years
that i might use it as a flannelette pillow
and cobwebbed in it deep to sleep 
the sleep of the damned
and be damned i will 



there?

when you expire 
who will re-breathe your last breath
who will exhale it as a cold lit mist 
anonymous on any wet street’s night 
where a sundial worm searches 
in the neon for the sun

my pals called

but the gravestones are warm
in the suns of yesterday
sit a while they say
bide a while
drift a while
come 
sleep
like we did 
in our long grass days 
you under the sun with me

NO!

i’m not done yet
i’m off for a swim 
a swim in the sea

the great game

the great game

zygote loves zygote
  there is nothing else  
  there is nothing else  

all is subsumed by this 
  giving 
  gamete to gamete 
  receiving
  gamete from gamete 
all is subsumed by this   

 there is nothing else
 there is nothing else   
zygote loves zygote

Friday 17 August 2018

high tide of the heart

high tide of the heart

and then a crashing wave
breaks upon a gladdening heart,
shimmering in the sunlight, that
in sparkling ways, sprays upon,
and prays upon, the dead-down spume,
that is shawled along the high-tide line
of many a broken heart.

Thursday 16 August 2018

season without reason

the sea is the cradle of time
like snow around a black lamplight
it induces a trance
that will melt the icicle dark within your heart
and then the tears run 
to garnish the bruised sea
where the snow hisses
and stops
and then
a brassy sun smiles

Inky interview

http://www.inkpantry.com/inky-interview-special-pebble-poet-jim-young-with-claire-faulkner/

Monday 13 August 2018

midnight imagining the dawn

dock pier gulls riding tide and wheeling,
upon a morning mist’s goldmine;
that undresses, ever so slowly, 
velvet down and brightly flowing,
to caress the trees, and along meadows,
so delicately in flagrante kissing
all the delicto grass plans of days. 

or sat high above the deep swim,
the sun so waters my wandering eyes,
that i drift away into the clouds,
to saunter along horizon way; and
in this cove beneath the headland,
all is mightily fine, and i stay my stay.

Saturday 11 August 2018

Film competition



We have entered a short film in an international competition: "Laver bread (Bara lawr)"

You can see it here: https://www.rode.com/myrodereel/watch/entry/6094

and if you like it, please for it. Every vote counts! Your vote counts!


It has to be voted for on the competition website & not on YouTube.

Jim




Sent from my iPad

the wet bus

the wet bus

a coughing of the undead,
the perspiration of angels
upon the windows of our souls.
running on time
to the destination of
the damned if it is;
belled for each headstone,
that halts my reverie,
on every journey
to there and back again

Thursday 9 August 2018

latch

i left my childhood 
rattling on the latch
it’s not locked
i am just going out to kiss 
and then i’m coming back

Tuesday 7 August 2018

let secret lives lie

let secret lives lie

my mother hid a dildo,
she had a secret life;
although she was my mummy,
she was my daddy’s wife.

now this was in the sixties,
and it was made of wax;
wouldn’t allow that today of course,
but then safety was more lax.

i didn’t know what to make of that,
for at the time i was a middling;
now we are nanna and grandpa grey,
and we spend more time in fiddling.

but boys of every age,
have to in their bravado;
and women of that certain age,
have their needs, and what oh!

but love the glue between me and you,
down through our time and all the ages;
has twinkled in every eye,
and raged across the pages,

of the book of life, where
man and wife, their sages and their scions;
are writ in blood, and sweat, and tears;
and this is the thing, the only thing,
that you can, in all trust, rely on.

waking from a snooze

waking from a snooze

"let the cat in, she’s scratching"
but she’s not there 
by the door 
and you are 
away
in bristol 
so i drop back to sleep
with the cat
who stirred
one eye
momentarily 
and dropped 
back 
with 
me
into a snooze of a snooze

Sunday 5 August 2018

the games foot

the words afoot

in an instant it has sent the 
hare of a poem, running in my mind;
and i raise the larks in startling, 
the bees in spelter yellow,
as i crash across the heather. ch, ch ...
chase it! chase it! to the end of gasping,
but
i never see it stroll home to its lay. where,
ears back, agouti it is hidden, with ignition eyes;
and there, through the days it lays.   
so, my dear reader, tread carefully 
as you stride across my words,
my tussocked lines, this grass sea of pages;
for here, somewhere, a hare doth lie!

and there he goes .......

Saturday 4 August 2018

bury me in a yoghurt pot

bury me in a yoghurt pot

opiate on an errant breeze, or
like a cat caught upon another’s food;
lithe in secret so to tease; a dream under
my ptotic eyelids adopts its snoozing mode,
to count the summer days that go by, go by;
for goodbye soon, and hello to fall will fall,
and the year, to our greedy eyes, will die,
and soon the deep winter will be all, be all.
so bury my seed in a yogurt pot
and i will await the spring.

Friday 3 August 2018

Film competition

We have entered a short film in an international competition. It s called "Laver bread (Bara lawr)" you can see it here and hopefully vote for it:
Please note that it has to be voted for on the competition website & not on YouTube.
Thanks 
Jim

breakfast in a summer garden

breakfast in a summer garden

as the gulls chide and gargle 
far away in the bay,
and the bees bob happily
up and down red bean way,
and the rooks across the meadow
brouhaha in their greens;
a wistful of sunshine
warms its way through the haze.
when my breakfast-table nasturtium,
its flowers dotting the vine,
shares this perfect, lobelia, breakfast of mine;
for this is the way that it always has been,
as on and on the weather falls fine,
slow, long and languid, on
this summer morning in time,
as it settles down sleepily,
mind’s brush in hand,
to paint on this year’s canvas 
the most perfect morning of days.

Wednesday 1 August 2018

Sveta

Sveta

an enigma arrived on my doorstep,
sinuous and wrapped in black,
a mysterious woman, with olivine eyes, 
a voice like Anna Karenina,
and a story far and wide,
an illusive paper chase. 
but come in; please 
come inside; unfurl your paintings
and step out of the canvas,
to talk your evening art.
and then 
you were gone, moved on, 
and the feather of question floated down;
were you just a phantom on a moonbeam,
between two lonely hearts?
or the rarest of the rare golden keys,
swinging upon a ribbon,
to unlock an aching heart;
and was it you or i 
who released that wicked thought?
and was it you or i, 
who bid the story start?