A BLACK FLASH

 

      A BLACK FLASH

the thought of not existing

          ever again

                 is

   a rare mental flash

   a flash that is gone 

         in an instant

     that lasts forever

   the blackest of black

  that you will never find 

               again

although its shadow stretches

through a skipped heart beat

  the vibration of quicksand

      the sinkhole of a pit

the long drop of the gallows

    the eternal question

  do i dare close my eyes

or should i never open them

           ever again 

but then the hormones kick in

  the feedback loops loop

 the neurones tell their lies

        and memory 

never what it once was

            forgets

 that thin-gamy thing

thither boys

 the winds of march 

  my birthday

  running like the years 

       will never end

one day    one day

the running clouds will stop

and look down and see 

the end

but today we run together

the ides of march

      the welsh marches

heels on the wings of a skylark

the hills are heathered 

thither boys

thirher

that i

 that i 

that looks me in the eye

i do not know

you

i am talking to

you

me

i am nobody

don’t change the subject

i know your game

oh yes

I know your game

Jimmy Mac

 Jimmy Mac

come back they call

but i have lost my way

it was so long ago

so long ago

that they sang that song 

“Jimmy Mac"

“Oh Jimmy Mac - when are you coming back?”

i remember those days

but i have lost my way

i have taken a wrong turning

or two or three 

how many now 

i don’t know

VERNAL EQUINOX

 VERNAL EQUINOX 

clock this  ~  this clock

clock this  ~  this clock 

clock this  ~  this clock

clock this  ~  this clock

clock this  ~  this clock

           choo choo

we have arrived at our destination 

yesterday!  yesterday!  

all change!

    all change!

WHITFORD LIGHTHOUSE

 

WHITFORD LIGHTHOUSE

each barnacled nut and bolt

each rusted panel    how old

do you think this lighthouse is

  ask the tides flowing each day

over and past and marooned

then high and dry 

momentarily 

the past intrudes into a thought

of past horrors on a stormy night

black and estuarine the flow

of times when there was a light

although there was no man aboard

this pavilion of iron on a base of stone

all alone on this ring of stone

all alone 

looking up at it now it is frightful 

the fright of not knowing if

there were horrors or ghosts

       for this must be haunted 

by every childhood late night book 

candled in flickering

hand it 

feel it 

palm the rough barnacles’ blood

whisper a few words 

an incantation called wind

what should be whispered 

in a goodbye’s forgive me 

for you are so alone and i visit so infrequently 

  well it’s the sea and the tides where you ride your

ignominy returning flake by flake to the tides 

that break over the decades of fleeting visitors 

who pat you rough sides

but never leave a kiss

  ah yes 

on writing this i see now what the horror is

not the black seas but the realisation 

that i never left a kiss   never once

i am coming back and i will stumble over

the weed rubble-wracked stones

and i will leave a kiss i promise you this

and we will sleep all the better for it

upon the winds that blow through the stanchions of gone 

THE SLEEP OF THE DOUGH KNEADER

 

THE SLEEP OF THE DOUGH KNEADER

the cat

the music

       soft

the bread dough kneader

      clunk   clunk   clunk

coffee  soon

              coffee soon

under a flaxen moon 

the cat sits looking

       and looking     and looking

at the fox

under a flaxen moon

when the music stops

and the bread has risen

the oven warms the cat

who has come in to dream 

of cream and jam and fresh bread

straight from the oven a great time

for we are all asleep in the sleep

of the bread dough kneader

#LoveTheWords #DylanDay #haiku 

"How time has ticked a heaven round the stars”. 

after the portrait 

before the ink had dried

the sitter was gone 

how did he know 

the poet with his pile of words

what was hidden there

i gag in crying 

for the child's night spun down

Swansea boys running

do you think we ought

to linger on his shadow

and kidnap a word

what stirs the damp wind

that the apple blossom snows

upon winter’s death

times past

when the poet’s pen is raised

be sure you listen

poet’s hermitage

pilgrims looking for clues

are clueless 

Jim Young

Swansea

@BaitTheLines 

ripples in space time

 ripples in space time

    falling

the black hole refuses to say

that it is a black hole

         we say

say it    say it

the event horizon draws to a close

ripples of applause

that no one hears

ripple outwards 

the curtain closes 

everyone gets up and walks out

the nib strikes oil

 the nib strikes oil

a gusher - we are happy

until it congeals

we cannot escape

it is set in words

zoe reads marina tsvetaena

 zoe reads marina tsvetaena 

she took a deep breath

one to bring your head up from the words

rising    her blue jumper spoke of below

her words spoke of tenderness

did she sigh    or was it me

or was it you   from those long years ago 

or was it just the secret of the breeze

the grimes

 the grimes

becomes their life

those times when

a pinafore wife

on the door step

of the works hooter

the smoke wept

as the child turns on a corner scooter

in the merging of home and works

of life and deaths

where tillage lurks

in a cinder field of wreaths

and a belief that nothing changes

and so nothing ever will

reincarnation is a sintered slag

when everything is in the bag

there is nothing to spill

in these graveyard times

even the black lichen lies

born x died y

never asking

why

50 - always

 

50 - always

a fingertip away from love

in the abstract that is life

behind the confusing canvas

in the abstract that is wife

she calls me her husband 

i call her my wife

we’ve been together 50 years

that is nearly all my adult life

she sees in me what i cannot see

when all i see is wife

we both see our children

the reasons for all our life

the blossoms going over

for now it’s that time of life

when she says i love you husband 

and i say i love you wife

for now our days are numbered

under the long knife that cuts life

we wonder who’ll get the last word in

goodbye husband or goodbye wife

pulling

 pulling 

when words are

pulled like teeth

a denture smiling at

the silly similes you spit out

bloody clots congealed and rinsed away 

drwoolling anaesthetic 

mumbling platitudes

as the pullers clatter on the tray 

and the nurse turns away

look in the mirror

is this really old age

when the sparkle in your eyes

defies it

weight

 weight

wait 

the fire draws the day

wait

the dishwasher is on

snoring like the cat

her beside me waiting

wait

down the long avenues

deep inside of my mind

gathering the thought of a thought

into my fingers that are tapping

here on my iPad

wait

bloody typo sends me ricocheting 

up the pin-ball machine of the past

laughter dried like blood

tears rimed with salt

wait

for kintsukuroi to set

tumbling the the counters

the golden treasury congeals

one can drink from the cup now

for dawn has broken

again 

the catannogga sure sure

 the catannogga sure sure 

the sun come out 

the cat goes out

the sun goes in

the cat comes in

the sun stays in

the cat asks to go out

i ask

are you sure

sure

the cat asks to come in

i rename the cat eternity

plus one

are you sitting comfortably

 are you sitting comfortably 

and how many have sat in a seat like that

how many bums have wriggled the gaps

and how many pigeons have scoured for crumbs

when we get up when the train finally comes

taking our striped bums that (thankfully) no one can see

on the crowded journey slowly home for tea

and now they say

 and now they say

how beautiful you are -

and the sea said me?

and she said me?

and we said fare thee well,

for we are in awe of you both

such beauty such beauty

write

 it is written

that the pulse quickens

when it has written

the quickening pulse

when at last 

it is written 

the rockery

 

the rockery

we beg them to stay 

but off they go

all over the place

but for this wee while

there they are 

smiling back in all innocence

salad days

they say don’t they

say

we can clean up

after they are grown 

send the old clothes on

but it was nice when they were here

wasn’t it

 

the bird that forgot its song

the saddest thing i have ever heard

is about the rarest the rarest bird

that has forgotten how to sing its bong

how to sing its ~ dong

how to sing its ~ gong

how to sing its long

demise of all that the world meant to me

that things are not as they were meant to be

that the birds no longer sing to mate

i really do think that it is all too late

for a poet who has forgotten how to write

un-reverential

 un-reverential 

the right reverend

the bishop blob

opened his ecclesiastical gob

and talked and talked about his dog

and how god’s dog is a dyslexic god

sniffing around the rear end 

of the very reverent reverend 

mam

 mam

the regular thump of the flat iron

fireside warmed by thoughts

hummed to the radio’s sad tunes

on any dark night of winter mam

was there there my boy

there there

the re-dying

 to mark a  death

they put out flowers to  die

to mark a  death

they risk  lives

to say we need  laws

they break laws 

now  death

this really is your  sting

innominate

 for a moment 

it is all there is

before it was after

it is just you

i am not a trained poet

 

i am not a trained poet

i am not a trained poet

my telescope looks at the moon from the wrong end

it is far far away from being a poem this dot of light

and try as i might to train my mind otherwise

it is still only a white dot 

but the telescope is an interesting thing ~ is it not

i can point things out with it like a walking stick

across the valley over there by the meadow tree

i can open and close it and polish the leather

with my hand upon the hands that owned its moon

but i am not a trained poet

i have never been running along those lines

shunted into all of genre’s sidings buffered to a stop

i am off the lead feral and wild never to be trained

in anything that pens anything in the flocks’ soaring 

i leave the universe’s laws and draw unto myself

all the thoughts that i have trained on you

a poet’s words

 a poet’s words

these words from a poet

made her a poet ~ they say

he wrote these ~ that poet

as if words make a poet

or a poem             although 

‘that’ is a word full of poetry

to you and me

if i type fast enough my autocorrect 

turns simple words into profound sentences 

that makes the maker of the autocorrect a poet’s poet

for in the cloud we see what we want to see 

and that’s enough for me      but

you might disagree 

there’s no competition

 

there’s no competition

     poetry competitions

now let me get this straight

      we pay you

    for the chance 

  of you choosing us 

to sell your anthology

of us                    to us

me?  i make no apology

i place my poems on my blog for free

you can read them there for free

there’s no competition     but

the only thing that is not free

                                  my muse

who demands a piece of me

a piddling whittling little bit

of my mind’s branching tree

for every poem

that is not free

oh no!        it takes time

that is not free

but why should you pay

   here

take it

it’s free

the gannets on the first stack rock

daggering the atlantic’s guano

to grow whole countries

to scream the whitebait

to fledge the petrels  

that fly from pole to pole

circumnavigate the globe

upon the trade winds of my words

freewheel the dales

hang-glide the mountains

catch a whiff of me

and be gone