the empty inkwells

the empty inkwells

well far back the glass black tips

are borne by railway veins and

terraces of doorsteps shining bright

and black-leaded grates and fenders

and waisted wives in curlers and aprons

and sleeves rolled up to the day’s work

for the chapel stands and the pub stands

and the shops queue for bacon slicers

to sing of gossip for the cold room doors are closed 

the brasso tins and carbolic attitudes to

all tillaged and turned in furrowed 

brows that say they never did did they

the works hooters blow the time for what time

it is to do what ever is done at that time and

every day the works hooters blow at that time

when the furnaces drop the cupola loads and 

sparks fly like wasps or burrs down socks and

necks scarred in the tattoo of metal splinters

claimed as their own until the six foot box

stores all for the midden ages to come

pelting down the slag tips and the smelter dross

tipped by drams on chains of thought like

valve-veins engorged with standing at the furnace

doors that are all green in the stone cottages that

are all as clean and tidy as the front parlour is 

armchaired in aspic polish and glass cabineted 

with bald heirlooms and books of pressed petals

tulip blood never opened like the poppy tombs

on the battle field of neighbourliness 

never-the-less there are more spider webs of memory here

that call to manacled toil and hard chit dust

trusting in each other and not the masters at the

other side of town never down wind of these

sulphurous guts of metalled seams and cold streams

and dreams of sundays on the hillside above the 

below and skylarked smarting tears in the wind of

no change that never will ever change is questioned not

either now or back down there

every soul entombed in rusty-railinged chapel’s overgrown

graveyard corners dry knotweed browned and still of

dead nests and birds that have flown back to earth

where the rivers run in white culvert blood back to the seas 

that seize every thing they see and thee is a chapel word 

for you know what they say about the deacon’s dusty suits

and vestry whispers cobwebbed in teacupped crinoline and

windolene and shoe polish Sunday lunch and death’s snooze

until the cat wails dawn on another day of toil and the 

inkwells are dry in the school desks but the chalkboards

still spell the times tables of time added up

remember

remember 

when i walked you home

and then i walked home

the cold wet nights at either end

of us in the middle

home soon

sigh less

sigh less

fingers of silence in the sun

my eyes run into the non-sound

of the ringing of the mind

              stopping 

forever seeking

the source of the ending

  daffodil to daffodil to shrub-hedged rolling woods 

and mountainsides of thoughts climbing out of this lea

lead me lead me to thee

any bloody alliteration to jar this soundlessness

  any peregrination to any squealing gate    but no

the fingers of silence press

even the frog in my belly has left me

    the caressing sun almost a sound upon my skin

the hair’s frenetic raising at the ghost of a chance

that this silence will be for evermore 

oh no  no   no

                       but yes   yes

why not retreat down into the cavern 

down the back of the neck-spine 

  down

to where the screams are pulseless

to where the tombstones whisper

welcome home   welcome home

  don’t knock it son

    don’t knock it

tutt tutt

tutt tutt

the light singing

  in the shed 

    on the mud

of gone tides 

   flowing in words

in deed 

     this 

           is where they were born 

in the heart of night’s loneliness

when the flagons should be abed

and the smoke swirling in dreams

  and not the this endeavour 

Laugharne you have the last laugh

  shed of opinions

    roosting on the hill

life’s a pitch

life’s a pitch

he’s the man who draws the white lines

on the pitches every Friday

ready for the games on Saturday

always straight

always the right length

with the leftover lime tipped

and running down the red brick wall

then he goes away

and comes back the next Friday

all through the winter

taxi days

taxi days

days‬

‪and the way days and days‬

‪change our ways‬

‪if i pay my fare in words‬

‪are you for hire‬

‪and will you drop me there‬

‪at life’s desire‬  where

the dark downs like a cat

eye-lidden the fire begs

to be lit

but light can be denied for 

a time   for a short while

there is a music wormhole in the veil

and then we’re through and it closes

why are the tear ducts cemented

the tears build up to a pulp of roses 

at three hundred pounds per square inch 

thoughts unable to whip stop the stallion

galloping away until we are left 

with the flies and empty reigns 

in hands that smack of despair 

the needle has sewn the pastiche quilt

it’s time to sleep

tides

tides

poetry is like the sea

it comes and it goes

it come and it goes

yet we come to see

the giant wave crash

and drain away away 

leaving the sun sparkling 

in a pool 

a fish waiting

caught but still free

free but still caught

the thought that

came that went

went and came back

caught but not caught

free but not free

what words are these 

who made them bite this way 

to lick away sorry sorry

yet bite again and again

until the moon turns red 

the earth turns blue

and tears douse the fire

the fire dries the tears

again and   again 

and again   again

the end of the road

the end of the road

the pub at the end of the road,

the last one before the hill

where the light from the one stride,

between bar and bog, shone over the 

nothing fields of slag and ruin.

                             wintered tight 

the warm hubbub of knocked dominos 

chalked dart scores, both as pained

in battle as any army that lent their names

to the terraces that housed these night men

manacled to their lot, which was not a lot.

when the ice clanged and the snow blew

every one of them home to wife-beds turned 

to a wall of reticence;

beer snored the deep lands of the day

and morning seemed so far away.

The Rising Sun, Pentrechwyth (circa 1966)

midden earth

midden earth

will we be found in the permafrost

after the melt waters have done their job

will we be a 46,000 year-old preservation

in some distant uplands bog

and will some civilisation say

see how they burnt away the peat

and the oil of their debilitation

down that one way street

so embalm the best bits of our shit

in the poetic medium midden

and take your takeoff seat

My Little Brother

My Little Brother

my first typewriter was called a

‘Little Brother’and I was ten

much better than a pen

I thought 
              that the poems looked real

typecast and not typecast

and putting the words down

clattered as if they mattered

to me they emptied my pockets 

to make room for more of the words

that were simmering on the back burner 

of the rain on the hobs of childhood

wait - stop

don’t smudge the ink with tears you silly old man

forget it mun 

Dusty Springfield singing

the old songs the old flames

over the log fire crackling the 

static of time pixilated over

and over the cat’s snoozing on

a night that is as wet as a frog

drowning down the backroads the

graffiti of a mind in dissolution at

all the thoughts that these winsome tears 

have torn from the blackness of a

 black sky   on a black night

that thought   that   thought ..

                 mmm ...

make no bones about it

walking backward

deep in this poem

         bones

and in these bones

         marrow

for  tomorrow we die

  right here and now

            yes 

these self-same bones

run through fields of flowers

   even the black tulips

but one day   and soon

    they will stand alone

    as all poets do

turning the page

turning the page

drinking it in is alright,

it’s inside right?

but pissing it out, well -

it don’t feel right, does it,

dribbling these words

down the legs of a poem.

what’s left right here is retention

of the extravasation of a feeling

that there are more words to come;

but how damp the mind is these days.

tears running inward down one’s spine

don’t feel right either. stand up straight!

and let the tears run into your mouth

as you mumble the sobbing words,

and turn the page.

so this is how it was

so this is how it was

take this tortured soul (for example)‬

‪wrapped in paper‬ damp with the sort of tears that will never  ‬

‪ever ever ever (dry) for ever the‬

‪watermark of a poem that attests‬

‪‘real and genuine’ ‬

‪expect no less of the truth

when the dagger finally pushes home‬

by dawn drawn

by dawn drawn

that hushed breath

across dawn’s lake

the fallen reflection 

the sigh that mists take 

to reflect upon the sky

the sun’s blush

the palest blue

the skeletal trees

the two suns that turn 

upon this world’s dawn

i take a breath

i think of you

i do

R S Thomas

R S Thomas

sitting upon the rock at the

sea’s side he waits to become

the nothingness that is time’s

turning

hearth and tired

hearth and tired

when the fire blew down on

the night of wind and rain 

when the cat was deep and

all were chaired to the hearth

of unsaid family lines

the raising of hearts in times

that were as dark as the night sky

before the stars and the snowy moon

shining as the fender brass and the

poker glowing red as hell

those songs hanging forever on 

sleepy eyelids and weary bones

in the downing days of heavy time

cadillac was as strange a meme

as winsome as the movie toffees

and the longing for the other side

of any walled hillside

or the veneered panelled walls

behind which the cockroaches slept

until the fire died and we were abed

and then they came over the coal-grit

to eat the crumbs of the crumbs 

that our meagre dinners had left ledgered

here in this corner of a neglected village

in wales 

a people tipped under slag and

toil so numbing that the sinews of life

crystallised in grime and death that never died

in relief of times best forgotten now

for when you think of it

we cried enough dryness 

to last a lifetime 

you - you

you - you

staring down heartbeats ‬

‪waiting for asystole ‬

‪the defibrillators are locked‬

‪no one left to use them‬

‪coffin in our cars‬

‪eating plastic words‬

‪it’s their fault‬

‪not mine‬

‪it’s your fault‬

‪

hello - hello‬

diminuendo 

                   a library

                 a book

                  a page

∞         a haibun

          a tanka

        a haiku

        a monoku

    a word

  a letter

a

crescendo 

the emporium’s new clothes

the emporium’s new clothes

take the top off my skull

shake out all the words

jumble them up and lay

them out as a poem and

all the literarti will exclaim

my boy you are a genius

what a genius you are

a poet beyond compare

out of the box and over there

such splendid words as

  we do 

    declare 

          them 

          to be

and with my emperor’s new clothes 

I will sup at high table

with the hoi polloi polloing hoi

and keep it under my hat 

that all of my complex simplicity 

is simply me

5 0

5    0

newly married 

  she made stew

  i don’t like stew!

i thoughtlessly said

golden wedding 

  i like stew

  i like you

i thoughtfully said 

but

how did you 

               how have you

put up with me

all these years

                  all the tears

shine

smithy

smithy

strike the words

smithy

before they cool

bend them to your will

and let them not be annealed 

into hard tears 

until our hearts are melted

gold 

storm Ciara‬

‪storm Ciara‬

recite into the wind‬
‪in a reverse tug of war‬
‪the storm will try to stuff it down your throat‬
‪spit it out     spit it out‬
‪who needs to breathe‬
‪when death surrounds‬
‪lash yourself to the mast‬
‪and prepare to go down with the ship‬
‪and maybe you’ll soar‬