Gower Walking Festival 2025

 Gower Walking Festival 2025

strangers walked and became friends

paths unknown became known

known paths became better known

you know how it is

you sign up to the first step

to the rhythm of the ups and downs 

and it is fortuitous 

for you and me

the leader in front is a font of knowledge

the back-marker a font of explanations

of reiteration 

and the air  it is

and the scenery  it is

and we are it

isn’t it

names on the map

become miles in the muscles

legs revitalised by the going 

there and back again

now there you are

look where we are

what a view

dared to say

 dared to say

someone famous has been shot dead

i cannot forget that 

i did not know him

too late now to regret that

i cannot remember where i was 

when the news broke

or what i had lost (or gained)

when he was shot

dead

that  that  that

all light on the night

 all light on the night

so many shadows of hurt

from so many candles

in the moving lanterns of the past

in their untrimmed exegesis

regrets wax and wane and fail

thought’s shadows merge

corners no longer cut to the bone

tradimus lampada no longer

the concept of a singular moon

brightens and brightens

and holds

post-ectopic

 post-ectopic

a cry

for the cry that didn’t 

fallopian

sounds like dystopian 

tubes like the subway

down there below the streets

where everything rushes everywhere 

   unaware

that’s the bit that hurts

and then the tears flow

down the drains of never

i held it too tightly you see

and now it’s gone 

cut!

the parable of the jehovah’s witness man

 the parable of the jehovah’s witness man

he called to my mum

did mr dean

had some cake and tea

then left his magazine

never talked of christianity

so you’d never know that he had been

each month as i recall

of his beliefs we knew absolutely bugger all

never read the watchtower or awake you see

used them to line the budgie cage wall to wall

but he sure did like my mother’s cake

she baked like an angel

said the jehova’s witness man

sipping his tea in 1950

after reading that RS Thomas poem

 after reading that RS Thomas poem

rainbow poets

taking the mayflies on

a slow stream

one world feeding another

which one is spirit

which one mammon 

one goes under the bridge 

one goes over

its shadow moving slowly

with yesterday’s son

father upstream

spirit across the fields

where seeds fall winded

as the river silts

and sitting counts as a

reflection upon the ocean

where the trilogy is trident

lore and behold the knowing

of that infinite depth

from whence cometh

what?

crossing the line

cossing the line

in death

we are all vagrants

                   migrants

looking to go back

                        home

you say

i didn’t then

i do now 

                at birth

seeking asylum

i cried and cried

for at death

the milk curdles

breasts sag

where is everyone 

a lone voice asks

but death is as deaf 

as life’s dumb smile 

on course

 on course

the axis and the allies

their ranks are shaping up

war is coming

one way or another

sooner or later

i told you so

will tell you so

and you will listen then

how to load your gun

how god is on your side 

how to recall that

one of the backroads of evolution

is extinction

the fulcrum of the seesaw

is crumbling

pick your side

lobelia

 lobelia 

you look so fine

in your tallest blue ballgown 

crinolined and suave

as the midnight horses steady

to pull the golden coach

at pantomime’s curtain call

look out behind you

button’s buds are tightly bound

his eyes rise to your eye’s occasion 

as the iced slipper so becoming of winter

fits the price of spring-flower’s gown

a fillet of my childhood

 a fillet of my childhood

above the sawdust 

they hung them silver hooked

whole sides of beef

man chops i called them 

everyone laughed

some memories are lard 

rich but unpalatable 

the dry blood had a sadness

wrapped in greaseproof paper

the till rang it all up 

those times

priceless now