Friday 28 February 2020

the empty inkwells

the empty inkwells

well far back the glass black tips
are borne by railway veins and
terraces of doorsteps shining bright
and black-leaded grates and fenders
and waisted wives in curlers and aprons
and sleeves rolled up to the day’s work

for the chapel stands and the pub stands
and the shops queue for bacon slicers
to sing of gossip for the cold room doors are closed 
the brasso tins and carbolic attitudes to
all tillaged and turned in furrowed 
brows that say they never did did they

the works hooters blow the time for what time
it is to do what ever is done at that time and
every day the works hooters blow at that time
when the furnaces drop the cupola loads and 
sparks fly like wasps or burrs down socks and
necks scarred in the tattoo of metal splinters
claimed as their own until the six foot box
stores all for the midden ages to come

pelting down the slag tips and the smelter dross
tipped by drams on chains of thought like
valve-veins engorged with standing at the furnace
doors that are all green in the stone cottages that
are all as clean and tidy as the front parlour is 
armchaired in aspic polish and glass cabineted 
with bald heirlooms and books of pressed petals
tulip blood never opened like the poppy tombs
on the battle field of neighbourliness 

never-the-less there are more spider webs of memory here
that call to manacled toil and hard chit dust
trusting in each other and not the masters at the
other side of town never down wind of these
sulphurous guts of metalled seams and cold streams
and dreams of sundays on the hillside above the 
below and skylarked smarting tears in the wind of
no change that never will ever change is questioned not
either now or back down there

every soul entombed in rusty-railinged chapel’s overgrown
graveyard corners dry knotweed browned and still of
dead nests and birds that have flown back to earth
where the rivers run in white culvert blood back to the seas 
that seize every thing they see and thee is a chapel word 
for you know what they say about the deacon’s dusty suits
and vestry whispers cobwebbed in teacupped crinoline and
windolene and shoe polish Sunday lunch and death’s snooze
until the cat wails dawn on another day of toil and the 
inkwells are dry in the school desks but the chalkboards
still spell the times tables of time added up

Thursday 27 February 2020

remember

remember 
when i walked you home
and then i walked home
the cold wet nights at either end
of us in the middle
home soon

sigh less

sigh less

fingers of silence in the sun
my eyes run into the non-sound
of the ringing of the mind
              stopping 
forever seeking
the source of the ending
  daffodil to daffodil to shrub-hedged rolling woods 
and mountainsides of thoughts climbing out of this lea
lead me lead me to thee
any bloody alliteration to jar this soundlessness
  any peregrination to any squealing gate    but no
the fingers of silence press
even the frog in my belly has left me
    the caressing sun almost a sound upon my skin
the hair’s frenetic raising at the ghost of a chance
that this silence will be for evermore 
oh no  no   no
                       but yes   yes
why not retreat down into the cavern 
down the back of the neck-spine 
  down
to where the screams are pulseless
to where the tombstones whisper
welcome home   welcome home
  don’t knock it son
    don’t knock it

Wednesday 26 February 2020

tutt tutt

tutt tutt

the light singing
  in the shed 
    on the mud
of gone tides 
   flowing in words
in deed 
     this 
           is where they were born 
in the heart of night’s loneliness
when the flagons should be abed
and the smoke swirling in dreams
  and not the this endeavour 
Laugharne you have the last laugh
  shed of opinions
    roosting on the hill

Tuesday 25 February 2020

life’s a pitch

life’s a pitch

he’s the man who draws the white lines
on the pitches every Friday
ready for the games on Saturday
always straight
always the right length
with the leftover lime tipped
and running down the red brick wall
then he goes away
and comes back the next Friday
all through the winter

taxi days

taxi days

days‬
‪and the way days and days‬
‪change our ways‬

‪if i pay my fare in words‬
‪are you for hire‬

‪and will you drop me there‬
‪at life’s desire‬  where

the dark downs like a cat
eye-lidden the fire begs
to be lit
but light can be denied for 
a time   for a short while

there is a music wormhole in the veil
and then we’re through and it closes
why are the tear ducts cemented
the tears build up to a pulp of roses 
at three hundred pounds per square inch 

thoughts unable to whip stop the stallion
galloping away until we are left 
with the flies and empty reigns 
in hands that smack of despair 

the needle has sewn the pastiche quilt
it’s time to sleep

Monday 24 February 2020

tides

tides

poetry is like the sea
it comes and it goes
it come and it goes
yet we come to see
the giant wave crash
and drain away away 
leaving the sun sparkling 
in a pool 
a fish waiting
caught but still free
free but still caught
the thought that
came that went
went and came back
caught but not caught
free but not free
what words are these 
who made them bite this way 
to lick away sorry sorry
yet bite again and again
until the moon turns red 
the earth turns blue
and tears douse the fire
the fire dries the tears
again and   again 
and again   again

the end of the road

the end of the road

the pub at the end of the road,
the last one before the hill
where the light from the one stride,
between bar and bog, shone over the 
nothing fields of slag and ruin.
                             wintered tight 
the warm hubbub of knocked dominos 
chalked dart scores, both as pained
in battle as any army that lent their names
to the terraces that housed these night men
manacled to their lot, which was not a lot.
when the ice clanged and the snow blew
every one of them home to wife-beds turned 
to a wall of reticence;
beer snored the deep lands of the day
and morning seemed so far away.

The Rising Sun, Pentrechwyth (circa 1966)

Sunday 23 February 2020

midden earth

midden earth

will we be found in the permafrost
after the melt waters have done their job
will we be a 46,000 year-old preservation
in some distant uplands bog
and will some civilisation say
see how they burnt away the peat
and the oil of their debilitation
down that one way street
so embalm the best bits of our shit
in the poetic medium midden
and take your takeoff seat

My Little Brother

My Little Brother

my first typewriter was called a
‘Little Brother’and I was ten
much better than a pen
I thought 
              that the poems looked real
typecast and not typecast
and putting the words down
clattered as if they mattered
to me they emptied my pockets 
to make room for more of the words
that were simmering on the back burner 
of the rain on the hobs of childhood
wait - stop
don’t smudge the ink with tears you silly old man

Saturday 22 February 2020

forget it mun 

Dusty Springfield singing
the old songs the old flames
over the log fire crackling the 
static of time pixilated over
and over the cat’s snoozing on
a night that is as wet as a frog
drowning down the backroads the
graffiti of a mind in dissolution at
all the thoughts that these winsome tears 
have torn from the blackness of a
 black sky   on a black night
that thought   that   thought ..
                 mmm ...

make no bones about it

walking backward
deep in this poem
         bones
and in these bones
         marrow
for  tomorrow we die
  right here and now

            yes 
these self-same bones
run through fields of flowers
   even the black tulips
but one day   and soon
    they will stand alone

    as all poets do

Thursday 20 February 2020

turning the page

turning the page

drinking it in is alright,
it’s inside right?
but pissing it out, well -
it don’t feel right, does it,
dribbling these words
down the legs of a poem.
what’s left right here is retention
of the extravasation of a feeling
that there are more words to come;
but how damp the mind is these days.
tears running inward down one’s spine
don’t feel right either. stand up straight!
and let the tears run into your mouth
as you mumble the sobbing words,
and turn the page.

Tuesday 18 February 2020

so this is how it was

so this is how it was

take this tortured soul (for example)‬
‪wrapped in paper‬ damp with the sort of tears that will never  
ever ever ever (dry) for ever the‬

‪watermark of a poem that attests‬
‪‘real and genuine’ ‬
expect no less of the truth
when the dagger finally pushes home‬

Sunday 16 February 2020

by dawn drawn

by dawn drawn

that hushed breath
across dawn’s lake
the fallen reflection 
the sigh that mists take 
to reflect upon the sky
the sun’s blush
the palest blue
the skeletal trees
the two suns that turn 
upon this world’s dawn
i take a breath
i think of you
i do

Saturday 15 February 2020

R S Thomas

R S Thomas

sitting upon the rock at the
sea’s side he waits to become
the nothingness that is time’s
turning

Friday 14 February 2020

hearth and tired

hearth and tired

when the fire blew down on
the night of wind and rain 
when the cat was deep and
all were chaired to the hearth
of unsaid family lines
the raising of hearts in times
that were as dark as the night sky
before the stars and the snowy moon
shining as the fender brass and the
poker glowing red as hell
those songs hanging forever on 
sleepy eyelids and weary bones
in the downing days of heavy time
cadillac was as strange a meme
as winsome as the movie toffees
and the longing for the other side
of any walled hillside
or the veneered panelled walls
behind which the cockroaches slept
until the fire died and we were abed
and then they came over the coal-grit
to eat the crumbs of the crumbs 
that our meagre dinners had left ledgered
here in this corner of a neglected village
in wales 
a people tipped under slag and
toil so numbing that the sinews of life
crystallised in grime and death that never died
in relief of times best forgotten now
for when you think of it
we cried enough dryness 
to last a lifetime 

you - you

you - you

staring down heartbeats ‬
‪waiting for asystole ‬
‪the defibrillators are locked‬
‪no one left to use them‬
coffin in our cars‬
‪eating plastic words‬
‪it’s their fault‬
‪not mine‬
it’s your fault‬
hello - hello‬

Wednesday 12 February 2020

diminuendo 

                   a library
                 a book
                  a page
∞         a haibun
          a tanka
        a haiku
        a monoku
    a word
  a letter
a

crescendo 

the emporium’s new clothes

the emporium’s new clothes

take the top off my skull
shake out all the words
jumble them up and lay
them out as a poem and
all the literarti will exclaim
my boy you are a genius
what a genius you are
a poet beyond compare
out of the box and over there
such splendid words as
  we do 
    declare 
          them 
          to be
and with my emperor’s new clothes 
I will sup at high table
with the hoi polloi polloing hoi
and keep it under my hat 
that all of my complex simplicity 
is simply me

Tuesday 11 February 2020

5 0

5    0

newly married 
  she made stew
  i don’t like stew!
i thoughtlessly said
golden wedding 
  i like stew
  i like you
i thoughtfully said 
but
how did you 
               how have you
put up with me
all these years
                  all the tears
shine

Saturday 8 February 2020

smithy

smithy

strike the words
smithy
before they cool
bend them to your will
and let them not be annealed 
into hard tears 
until our hearts are melted
gold 

storm Ciara‬

storm Ciara‬

recite into the wind‬
‪in a reverse tug of war‬
the storm will try to stuff it down your throat‬
‪spit it out     spit it out‬
who needs to breathe‬
‪when death surrounds‬
‪lash yourself to the mast‬
and prepare to go down with the ship‬
‪and maybe you’ll soar‬