Thursday 31 January 2019

No blizzard in the gizzard

No blizzard in the gizzard

And so it did not snow,
did it?
This is a cuckoo winter.
I told you that

the eggshell ice,
global warmed by dice,
thrown awry, mistimed by,
the cracked buds (of May?).

But i told you that!

Didn’t i behold it so?
Didn’t I know
that the snow would go?
See now, how the new year cries,
birthing in a biting wind.

Wednesday 30 January 2019

snow is forecast

snow is forecast 

the day lies cat still
belly up to the log fire
in the midnight minutes.

no moon or stars tonight,
the sky is stalking the snow lark 
for the morning’s children.

the trepidation of every winter
builds in the guts.
if it will, and it will,

seems to be the collected awe.
the shawled in times,
the do not venture out times.

the fire follows the cat
to sleep. the ash is snow white,
the glow has gone missing.

the bed soon warms to dream
of summer and winter mixed,
in the way dreams do.

on the verge of a something
is the recurrent spark of life,
when we defy the death of

fear; way back to the garden
the snowflake is the fig leaf
of our naked fears.

that we must endure to reach
summer says bring it on.
let us cuddle up now, for

it advances nearer and nearer.
in sleep we quake,
awake we take comfort

from the lore of the soothsayers.
for as we stare and stare,
the first flakes fall.

no time to say no time

no time to say no time

     time there was
    when poets died 
       young or old
  they left their words
           for us
 then new poets came

 now no time there is
      time is dying
           for us 
     young or old
we leave our words
        but sadly
there will be no future us
   no one left to read 

                     soft morning
        shadows of sparrows 
 chirrup down the red wall

Sunday 27 January 2019

poetry you ask me

poetry you ask me 
to sleep with you;
come sleep with me
your blanket secret says,
let me wrap you in as many 
words as you desire, to dream
the things, that sleep brings,
when neap tides meet the fire.

the impotential poet

the impotential poet

she was afraid to fry
in case she got 
egg on her face

but try
i said

any ways
you’re sizzling 
in panic
at
the ending of
days

the paranoidal poet

Saturday 26 January 2019

upon a sea of words

upon a sea of words

cast adrift 
upon a sea of words
bait your lines
and catch me 
if you can

cast adrift 
upon a sea of words
i bait my lines
to catch you
if i can

but

the fish once landed
flaps agape
and dies

while

the flash in a brook
of flowing words
illusive flies

Friday 25 January 2019

a rain drop

a rain drop
hanging in the summer wind

that the mirror is two faced 
is transparently obvious

hanging in longing
on a call they fall

raising rings on the pool
rewinding all

down the summer wind

Driftwood poems



Thursday 24 January 2019

then

then

place me in a plastic coffin,
nice and thick.
fill it to overflowing with oil,
nice and thick and black.
ignite it with shale gas,
earthquaking 
upon the tundra of methane,
permafrosted not.
methinks it will burn as 
a warning, descant hot 
upon the smelt of our final days.

you are no longer needed

you are no longer needed 

nothing more bemuses 
you
than being unemployed
who is it 
that refuses you
who is it 
  who has 
toyed so long with
you   
         when
  told toil long 
  who tailed along
but           

you

Tuesday 22 January 2019

soon the black ...

soon the black ...

... rooks have gathered, strut and
strutting, woe betides the moaning sea;
death-blacked, dusk-clacked, clouding 
away to roosting, see them flying
castle-wards, on battlements set and
settling down, dotting the trees of time.

soon the black ...

... cat at the back-cracked widow,
under night’s regaled skirt is sitting, thinking,
and wide-eyed in the wild storm running,
chuckling down the gutters much amused,
by the black stabbed blood of space. 
   know now!
not many have seen what you have seen, for
never was there ever such a godless place as this.

but soon the black ...

... night draws down the dawn, 
around shoulders yawning, as the 
shawled-in darkness slips away 
westward, and oh, how it aches
does glory’s sunrise, graceful,
rook-full, black in snow, up and down
the morning foreshore feast.
up go the gulls, down the rook soot,
shoot the rapids of the rising day;
and when the moaning tide is hushed,
and when calm descends to feeding,
far and away, dotted, mottled,
lies the morning sun, throng and fey. 

Monday 21 January 2019

So why is it that

So why is it that

when someone we love dies
the hurt is too great to contemplate
what we should be asking of time.
When the hurt fades it is oft too late,
for life resurgent denies
any urgency to the question. 

But

when a famous personality dies,
we know who they were, and
their obituary tells us things 
that we did not know 
about who they were,
and we wonder at the waste
of time; so we ask of time all 
our whys and wherefores?

But we know it will not even say
farewell. 

Bleeding Swansea slag

 Bleeding Swansea slag

The Tawe town, as it was then, when
it crawled across the river, along
with the smoke, rolling eastwards, 
plundered by the prevailing
westerlies, and the money that bought
the defenestration of the damned
workers in their metal works, upon
their slag tips, leaded grey from 
the Vale, or ochre cindered by the
copper works, speltered and raped,
upon fiscal’s alter ego, 

ergo: split off 
from the Atlantic air, and the graces 
in their elegant places there; while
the workers slept two up two down,
in streets named after the owners 
of the town, know for their grand works, 
and their dirty works working
for the shirking of their sweat.

The slag river valley with its pubs,
and wood grained chapel pews,
spurned by the green spaces 
loitering by the sea.     
For them, always it was
the slow running into the sand of 
any hope that dare walk westward.

Except for a few ‘brains’ of course, 
who would stir the grammar school 
gene pool for the market, banked 
upon the sweated graft of men of ore; 
hard men of yore, who, Lord help them,
never saw any good times. Never did.
But, hey! 
That’s just the way it was then.

Or is it now, nicely perfumed,
and so much better hidden?





Sunday 20 January 2019

Laugharne

Laugharne

Origami of a Wales 
    folded down in
        to a castle town;

where sits its craft
    why and dry, 
        and Dylan silted

upon the muddy Taf.

Saturday 19 January 2019

locum lunaris


locum lunaris

between memories of childhood
and the failing of memory, 
sits the me of me; 
                               stands the i am;
crawling down the moonlight, long
on the slate of snow. 
the balaclava of this domed tomb of night, 
seems like a skull to me, surrounding a dark
and singular place, at the 
very edge of frozen thought.

a needle of torchlight stitches
a bridge to the distance, and where light
can reach, we can follow; the boys ganging
up in unhesitant trepidation. the music 
of heartbeats dare steal a word,
dare to see the axis of our history, 
frozen in this night; 
infinitesimally slow to tear away 
from this once and only,
and leave it hanging there.

haiku

January rain
on the salmon pink quince
reflects the sunshine

Friday 18 January 2019

catharsis in the stones

catharsis in the stones

the cat’s eyes see beyond 
the empty cottages,
  roofless in the rain grass,
bowdlerised, under-stated,
de-slated, under boulder skies.

sees the fool’s told history,
icy in streams that boldly cut
through the pretending heath,
warmed by the mountebank sun,
that promises a cure for all, in time;
in dreams, if you would so believe,
that the stag at rut
once more will boom
majestic at his grace,
in the desolation of this place.

but the cat’s eyes see 
  beyond the lies.
sodden in sleep 
and knowingly curled, 
under these 
rain grass boulder skies.

Thursday 17 January 2019

outpouring

outpouring 

on the knife of night, held
in the bar door’s glowing light,
declares aloud as smoke insists,
‘let the moon be my witness!’
he said he said, 
‘didn’t i say i said?’ 
so stays the long on the
‘bid begone, goodnight’
waving around, around
the faltering footsteps
cheering long, 
following his nose
he goes,
numbly thoughtful that 
of god’s truth it is;
and in the morning
he’ll damn well tell them so.
burp giggles into the dark,
and squinting scares, but 
n’er a curtain flickers.

Wednesday 16 January 2019

boy oh boy

boy oh boy

then spring came carrying frog spawn;
tadpoles to count the summer of days 
stained on grassed knees, red grazed and 
smeared by the sap of the sun-long ways; 
blissfully unaware that he was amazed
when his footsteps trod the ages of all 
boys that ride the corking sun rocket,
stirring the pollen stars to wild abandon
in the golden meadows of his mind. 

many were the keepsakes of his pocket,
plundered of the ransacked day; 
strung of the secrets be-known, says he,
but to a few, flared in nostril, daring-do,
on the edge of the precipice of that first 
homward step, wild on vagabond dust
loading the turnups of tomorrow’s trousers.

Remember Pentrechwyth

My chapbook of poems ‘Remember Pentrechwyth’ is now just £2 on Kindle from Amazon





Tuesday 15 January 2019

how sad the dusk is


how sad the dusk is

how sad the dusk is
falling into the west
monochrome
far from home
at night’s behest
the fled and fallen is


always so cold

always so cold

away to the stars stream
the cold boy’s thoughts
feathered on the ice window

hedgehog curled in
bed’s ferryboat riding
the westminster chimes
so dark so dark there
dying down the embers 
creaking stairs

the lonely clock of the cat hours
the creeping of the shadowed moon hours
in that room down there 
while up here there are things
beyond the back of his eyes
he knows that they say
he will be ours

as down the sleep he slips 
to days of pals afoot the boundaries
of a world strung around those
hidden frights 
that they would never declare 
there were 

but the clock is squinting evil
minutes waiting for them there
tonight and every night
and every night there are
the cold shivers 
that ice the cake of dreams 

and their sweet teeth will chatter 
until warmth rises once again 
from his feet to his head among the stars
and tomorrow he promises himself
he will he will kiss the rainbow