why the question why
the meaning of life
if one theory was true
there would be no other
but there are so many
so why bother seeking
is not the question
the question is
why do we question
is it the meme of the selfish gene
preservation of supremacy
prancing across the lily pads of life
the blooms of theory shining and dying
there are depths but therein lies death
the only truth being not being at all
The pub called The Rising Sun
There was a pub in Pentrechwyth
that was called the Rising Sun,
it served Ben Truman’s to many a poor boy;
by God, i know, I was one.
My mother was a housewife,
she ironed my ice blue jeans,
my father was a drinking man,
steadily within his means.
Now the only thing a young boy needs,
is to stay one drink away from drunk,
and keep the old men ratified
so that it will not be me they’ll debunk.
Oh mammy I’ve got chilblains,
from doing what I have done,
walking that snowy walk in misery,
down to The Rising Sun.
I’ve got one pint on the counter,
another behind the bar,
I’m going to be a good boy tonight,
I promise you, my lovely ma.
But I was in that pub in Pentrechwyth,
that was called the Rising Sun,
Ben Truman’s brought down many a poor boy,
for, by God, i know, I’m one.
With apologies to The Animals
those chippy times
the chip shop on dark corner
a lockup in corrugated bitumen
breathing windows as bright as angels
on a night of the fallen wings
half way from the half way inn
out of the darts’ stare chalking
the score board on another black
guard what you say mate
at this time of night alright
get it like
your round and be quick about it
right
like last night and tonight
i’ll see you tomorrow right
right
great
tidy like
gissa chip mun
salt n vinegar
tweet now
shit it’s starting to rain
again
tis capital
and everyone
with even a tiny bit of capital
refuses to give up
even a tiny bit of that capital
capital they say
spiffing old chap
tipping a tiny bit
to a top hat
to the crap end of society
that they perceive as being
a huge nuisance
a huge worry
fleas on fleas’ backs and please
don’t say the worms are turning
don’t bait me with that old yarn
sling your hook
nothing to do with me
this hiding to nothing
means nothing to me
sling your hook pal
i’m ok like
don’t rock the boat or the bilge
of capital will lose its ballasting act
steer close to the wind
no stopping for those fallen overboard
it’s a rough sea out there
no chance of
turning beam end to the economy
for truth it will capsize you
bottoms up old chap
welcome to the club
put it on my account
the writer caught in the act
can you stop the rain falling
can you stem the rivers
hand-off the cataract
swimming with the flow is so so easy
so why edit H2O into XYZee
the only fear
the ONLY fear
is the watershed
of the headwaters of the mind
behind the waterfall is a secret cave
walk through
a child’s bed in winter
that window scratched with fingernails
the icing long gone before their unfurling
in a cold bed of breathing
a nose only peeking out later when
the temperate zones bring dreams
of warm fruit swooning until
a sheet falls away and
damn me is the expletive
that is in itself a roaring fire
funny things
standing on my head
the snow ‘falls’ upwards
flakes upon my toes
hanging from the fence
the railing in the crook
of a knee
in the mooning
you well know
how the girls skirts
exposed the morning grey
always a smile
always this way
a hundred years
or more ago
mumbles head
the light walking
tip toe to the end
and them some more
stranded upon a high tide
the escape beam across a silver sea
dark the treasure chest found by just you
and me within a winking
the dusk falls
on you and me
you see there
do you see Jan
ahhh yes you do
a propos a poem
a metaphor with a wooden stake through its heart
a cliché outside hanging on a barbed wire fence
an a nag ram banging its head agains a tone wall
the analogy of a medley’s malady
the personification of a cemetery
the hate of an alliteration as the ablation of language
the cadence of the wind running down a widow
the blues of rhythm echoing in a cavern
meter hail fellow well métier
unable to open the door
to enjambment
alluding to a blind illusion
an anaphora is an another anaphora
now i never meant metonymy meant
zeugma to carry the day of a poem
the home and colonial stores
and i was just thinking
of the home and colonial stores
child high in window marble
black and incised with gold
a checkerboard doorstep
and things inside
that my mother bought
wrapped in brown paper
the hands that stilled time
of all the hands that have worn the door
or curved the footfall steps
we know you only by what you have taken
by degrees these hardly times away
having shone the rivet and the rail
or replaced the bronze patina with a glow
and now in the repose of a scolded death
that once was eased away by prayer
remember all the hands that once prayed here
as we do now upon seeing just one last tinge
of verdigris under the nail of a hand
that stilled time and still does still
the sea swimmer
to dive into that wave
not the next one
but this one now
to gasp at the grasp
of a life resurfaced
seething in angor animi
ashore being assuredly
as absurd as this sea is
home to that thought
an adventure boys
we boys crawled the crawling boards
under the railway over the viaduct
watched the sound of the steam trains
ripple the boards in their vast approaching
what a drop there is from the main pillar
and how fast the river flows beneath us
as fast as the fleet adventure boys
on the run from time itself
just there you see
to walk childhood’s fields again
with the sun’s eyes upon the grasses
a tear lodged yet long in eye
and but not one day passes
when i do not think of you my son
at the spring of a summer’s sky
reflected cool in my roving eye
the sweet waters slowly running
and the gingham bright young lasses
you bee the heather’s lizard sun
on secret newt bricks damply lazing
the winged heels of youth in flight
down all the ventured turns of days
spent under a blazing look you why
don’t we this or don’t we that
and why not this and not this that
sped on lust all the pollen days away
chests full of sloe’s lovely molasses
we ran and knelt the field’s empire throne
the curtained dusk in baulk at asking
for no more can we stretch this day
or live even just one more little minute
be satiated here now upon these dreams
for sweet dreams will never limit how
this summer solstice sweetly trifle
spooned down on cool sheets basking
under a slow moon’s tender asking
there you see
just there you see
that’s where we’ve been
and where we’ve been we’ve done it
febrile politics
febrile politics
someone comes forward to say
they were the person who didn’t do anything
now is anything as damning as nothing
hands up who didn’t do nothing
not that nothing
the other nothing
what’s that thing about double negative
not that one the other one too
turning off
the life support
of a life that wasn’t there
giving breath
to death to say
come my cyriad
cwtch down here
and there
i’ve written me a shiver
for that is all you are now
my love
febrile politics
febrile politics
someone comes forward to say
they were the person who didn’t do anything
now is anything as damning as nothing
hands up who didn’t do nothing
not that nothing
the other nothing
what’s that thing about double negative
not that one the other one too
well you know how it is …
to get there together
where everyone goes sooner or later
and to return changed
and to return again and again
until
well you know how memories play tricks
how getting older is ageless
the sunsets rarer and redder
trying to recapture the attraction
of the going
again and again quicksilver through old fingers
the warming of warmth
the exchange of two pasts for one future
the coyness of coital
in the dictionary of life
ad infinitum sleeps soundly
afterwards
well you know how it is …
on reading the physiology of muscle contraction
your actin
and myosin
depolarise
my calci um um
i am not so sure now
about this musculature
so puck your orbicularis oris dear
and kiss me just here
and here and with your
orbicularis oculi
wink me goodnight
and my physiological
rush of love
just might
tenby lights at dusk
the light dusk breaths of welcome dear
a welcome doorway a welcome here
come day down the light blue sky
is fading fast as the colours hail
from the friendly facades of this friendly town
come down my friend
come on down come on down
to the warmth that awaits in this friendly town
hell he am
and they all had arms and legs
and heads and all our senses
these aliens from outer space
never written in any book
beyond comprehension
beyond heaven and earth
there are things that are
not things as we understand them
for they are beyond comprehension
we do not even know where the holes lie
vacuoles that neither explode or implode
if we do not need other senses to know
then it surely must not be important to know
what cannot be know will never define us
other that knowing that if there are things unknown
we know ourselves incompletely
meet me or
a meteor
burnt away into a meteorite
no larger than a spec of dust
that settled on the ocean
above an abyssal trench
and spent many lifetimes sinking
down to the down to the
ocean floor
where the subduction zones
murmured no
and in a volcanic convulsion
spewed yon spec of dust
way up into way up into
the atmosphere
into the jet streams sped way
and eventually as eventually will
buffeted by the aurora borealis it
escaped with a velocity of only just
wandering off into intergalactic space
and all alone in thought and deed
lived happily for ever after
an ode to an ode to Paul Carroll
never heard of him
never read him
i know you
you wrote this ode
telling me i should read him
sharing my exegesis of those times
when all that stood was a poem
it doesn’t matter which one
or which poet
it matters to the reader
at a point in time
when time itself is explained
the permanent transience of a spark across two electrodes
the writer and the reader a clichéd monolith brandishing
both dawn and dusk
oh i read you i have read of you
i read your ode in my ode isn’t that odd
the leach of the mineral words hanging in a stalactite
building a stalagmite display of the dark waters
i can see the slowness of leach
but i cannot see the immediacy of teach
teach me how to change me
no thank you
i prefer to remain an uncut diamond
fascinating to dig for
brash when faceted
climbing down to the summit
well that’s the sum of it John boy
one awful ode in this odium of self-expression
as feral as the wild horses with matted manes
snorting dawn’s breath standing untamed
elemental in the reading of the sky
the seas and the coming storms
let the pain of fear teach me to chisel
your ode upon my heart
there now
come here
and if
you’ll show me your ode i will show you mine
