it is hard to say
and my mum
a fierce gentleness
born of the tin plate works
died on the alter putting others first
a gentle tongue
a sharp tongue (sometimes)
a funny tongue
hard times
they were hard times
and they took their toll
all of them
including me
a window box of wood
in the industrial terraces
where ne’er a flower will ever grow
a child asks and it is made
a window box of wood
green
water is talked and risen
under the hillsides of a dull glow
that grows
in the furnace of a young boy’s mind
a heart is smelting
another kind of thing
do you know what he said
he said
i will not
i will not go
swords into ploughshares
swords into ploughshares
are
now ploughed into shares
and
what seemed a fair return
is
not a share
but
a steel blade
potter’s bus
potter’s bus
hit the seats and you’ll get the dust
of rode men from the rattling colliery
but now bouncing us sunday school kids
up the hills and down the tales
of the beach soon to be sea soon
the fairground at barry island
there in the sparkle of sparkle of sea
the sea everyone shouts at once
then it’s gone then it’s back
and closer the excitement grows
on a pocketful of silvery lode
figure eight out the water shoot home
the house of horrors electric dodgems
candy floss and toffee apple lips all
stuck in the gyration of expectation
until at last at last we must we must
runs all the way back to the bus and
bouncing the coal dust home we
learned that abnormality is the new word
on a summer that must be returned
and returned and returned
and returned
language?
it is like a long balloon
press here and it pops up there
press there and it pops up here
lose control
and it zooms off like a fart
inflate it too much and it bursts
rub it too much
and it will cling to your head
even when inflated just right
it is difficult to tie
often it is the wrong colour
happy on sad days
sad on happy days
often it is someone else’s
a panic attack
above the thorns of life
put your fingers in your ears
and it will slowly fall
catch it and you’ll feel the screech
at party time it is
partly yours and partly mine
a bag of them
enough to go around
take one each
all take deep breaths
here we GOooooooo …
hey! who took two?
palimpsest
only the right words call for the right words
it is as if a jigsaw haunts the page
upend the jigsaw
rip the page
the right words are entangled
bounce in oscillation
reform in seconds
on second thoughts
no other word will fit
the palimpsest of time
a reply to a john guzlowski’s poem
you sap
you bloody fool
the axe is but a tool
to bite into your bark
what is worse
hanging lanterns
to illuminate a lie
picking the bloody cherries
with lady macbeth
are you not but one tree
in birnam wood come
high dunsinane hill
once more
fabrication
a word is a bag
and in that bag
is another bag
with another word
two hands
hold one handle
of each bag
pull !
and the words are a tombola
not meaning what i meant
but now you mention it
it does sound rather good
those
26 letters in the warp and weft
of fabric ate each other
revolution
and yet sometimes
sometimes
the relentless carriage
is derailed
by a revolution
not of the wheels
but of the mind
fractured
the road bifurcates
another route is taken
john guzlowski’s coat hanger
the question on a triangle
is
why is the ménage à trois
unclothed here before you
hang a thought
think
why is this icon hanging
here
is a thought
the emperor’s new clothes
have been brought out again
to clothe the commonality
of the 21st century’s
bright shrouds
yesterday once more
the roads that you strew with flowers
all rotted away
potholes reappear
under feet that fear to fall
upon the prejudice of youth
callous stones turning an ankle
away from the straight to stray
back into the briar
to draw thorn blood
from the crown of indifference
laid bare
laugharne
laugharne
the resting of boats
on the tide of a poet’s eye
what all see
he turns
what people think
he returns
what runs to mind
flees on the falling
of his tide’s oscillation
on a stained beermat
a bloody minded poem
an aside
tenby
in significance
the small things grow big joy
big worries are put aside
in winding down to the sea’s beaches
north and south
rocks and sand
headland and bandstand
kid’s cannonade of mirth
surrounded by the bluest sea
you will ever see beneath
a coloured town’s
slim girth
bravado
you cannot climb out of a high sea
you can see the land sometimes
sometimes
the sky comes really close
the gulls laugh
screaming
if if
the unanswered plea
is swell
sometimes
it will lift you well clear of the pull-back
the looking back
staggering
in bravado
doff doff doff
kneeling
before a prince
i think
does he worry
about rising prices
arise
sir
lord help us
all rise
doff doff doff
RS & Dylan Thomas
and their words turn souls
if any have them now
for souls are out of fashion
but their words stir where rivers meet
to drop silt pools for the trout to lay
the eggs of the running gold for
i am sure their souls climb upon
each other’s shoulders and in running
raise their days
and yet and still
the bright young things
are all dead
now
you are the bright young things
that is how it works
that is how it works
hide it while you can
sooner than you think
it will be all over you
and me?
well you don’t need to know
yet
ahh and yet
do they care
what can one say about another’s grief
that cannot be seen
that is hidden deep
the outage a trip switch
to black out the pain
of a life
never to be
the same again
what can one say about another’s rage
come on now
turn the page
i think not
do they
care
what i think
a vignette
fragrance in a time of sadness
petrichor says the emerging sun as
all steams right with the world again
the scent of a rambling rose
do you
i often wish
that a poem would get to the point
of not getting to the point
sooner
than later for
ambiguity is best served hot
RS Thomas’s Aberdaron
the dead march
well they sort of flow
into the sea’s flow
well it is a sort of march
along the shores of our thinking
did he really write here
of the absences filled with waiting
the scythe to grasses screaming
on the high stones
in the down hours
fretting on wales
in silence
words a fountain of words
words
a fountain
forming and reforming
floating to the edges
into the sump of the pump
and whoosh
a fountain
forming and reforming
floating to the edges
go on
spit into it
break the surface tension
send the rainbows awry
why?
well why not?
dear god ~ not again
does god exist
i asked myself
am i god
he asked himself
am i
god knows
i am
for i do not
am not
am i
not god
then what
are you
can i move the chair closer to the door
if you whisper
i’ll close the door
if you shout
i’ll open the door
if you walk out on me
i’ll leave the door ajar
are you coming in
or not
maybe the sea is
of course it’s in the movement
the incessant rounding
the pushing in and across
filling the bay with sunlight
and the seagulls’ lowering
delineating the wind’s tenure
the children’s meandering talk
shrieking in the fairness of a blue sky
as deep as the fullness of saying
high tide of this one and only
tomorrow the moon
will pull a fast one
then look out
big trouble
run
