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Category: Poetry
A kitchen table
1953
its wood surface lined by
the scratching and scraping
of five thousand meals
gravitated around by people I haven’t met
save through the study of dry documents
lichen edited inscriptions
and reverential anecdotes
they’re gathering as if for an important event
in the calendar of living
I’m kind of hovering like I did in real life
trying to listen in to the language of condolence
the wording of commemoration
the patois of those well known to one another
the music of best china
touching
my 12 year old mother is here
with the other females
permitted at the house
to help with refreshments
and friendships
but not at the open grave
she will grow into a Bardot
of the school bus
the chapel pews
the perambulating lanes
the first job
until marriage and me will alter
that possibility
that destination
a member of the branch
of the suicide sister in law
is among the mourners
death grief thief of time
but healer of familial discomfort
at the chapel in the forest
among the crabbed literature of wreaths
one dedication reads
from all at Police House L-V-
32 miles and a half century away
from the great uncle of the deceased
who had ridden from those walls
to collar the lawless of his day
from the first day of that county’s constabulary
these were the days of the start
of our separation from our beginning
our unravelling
when we forgot so much
of what we were and what was us
our relatives and their dwelling places
the reason for our being
a time too when we became unfamiliar
with horses
their aroma
their voices
their muscularity
their fidelity
when we became a little less human
a little less animal
Eyes closed to the sound
of a breeze combing fir trees
reminds him of the curtain border
of that cemetery
hypnotic historic
ultimately soporific
a misspelt dedication
next to where he left his parents
his grandparents
the dear ones snug in the clay
returned to the earth
on the edge of that village
that gave him his scars
the shed tears
they all left only to come back
the sadness not interred
not boxed
but marks on their existence
decades of indentations
runes they couldn’t decipher
though fingertips unthinkingly
traced them in the quieter seconds
between the pressures
a new face gets a new face
that he will learn to wear with pride
his split cheek beneath a bonnet in a pram
a spider’s web of darning in skin
a stitch in time that saved him
from being bled dry like a wounded bird
in a winter whiteness impasse
and quietened his parents’ guilt
that boy from Cwmcou
with its free flowing sparkle Ceri
a branch to the Teifi tree of life
a tributary sacrifice
that took the boy from Cwmcou
but not Cwmcou from the boy
carry me away
carry me away
bring me home
I want to go home
Our fibber whose art is craven
furloughed be thy fame
thy Brexit done
broke times to come
in Neath as it is in Devon
give us this day our daily dread
and forgive us our trust issues
as we forgive them that are classist against us
and lead us not into inflation
but deliver us from shortage
for thine is the kidding
the poorer and the gory
together or severed
Amen
Our felon who has paid his fine
allowed is thy shame
the playing dumb
your japes undone
unearth untruths so uneven
give us this day your daily lie
and forgive us our press passes
as we forgive those that press pass against us
and lead us not into Trump nation
but deliver us from Priti
for thine is the comedown
the sour and the sorry
never so clever
amen
Jimmy Jangles would have liked
to have been a highly-decorated warrior
relaxing in a highly-decorated lounge
but this was not to be
instead he obsesses over his fetish
for Dalek-like killing machines
and how he is obliged to hand over
money to bankroll violent regimes
he doesn’t support
by governments
he did not help elect
he tries not to get too hung up about about demarcation
he has a door a gate a fence
a scripture of passwords
and a clear understanding of where his personal space ends
he admits that he has at times fallen foul of the Trades Description Act
existing on a small island
in the middle of a tarn of sodium hypochlorite
just like in the legends
afraid to venture out because of the risk of corrosion of his disambulation
he deplores TV programmes like Britain’s Got Talent
the exaggerated melodrama of slightly delaying the announcement
of which hopefuls have been voted in or out of this week’s show
that pantomime pause
a menopause
by the men of pause
perhaps it could be improved by replacing it
with a different format such as
Britain’s Got Tory Parties
Britain’s Got Tax Avoiding Superstars
or at a push Britain’s Got Tommy Robinson
these would be much more sincere and entertaining
especially if the same selection method is used
closer to the current democratic process than he could ever imagine
television as the new Tower of Babel
that moved like a demented crab
into boxes then flat screens
and into our gibberish conversations
he buys gin goblets from a budget foreign supermarket
and is enchanted by the bell sound they make
when brought together in a gentle semi pendular action
he fills them up
throws in some handy botanicals
like consuming a boozy salad from a globe
representing a swirling world without continents
it’s nearly Christmas though it has in effect been since the last one
for the last four decades or so
at least he can forget for a short while
that many worthy companies
feel motivated to make modern slavery statements
each Thursday he attends a workshop for those debilitated
by post traumatic retail stress disorder
the hours in shops waiting
his hands glued to his pockets
ignoring the signs
the smells
the sounds
the eyes
unnerved by showroom dummies
sometimes feeling that they could be moving
when just out of sight
some of them appearing to have been posed
grotesquely in unrealistic human biological positions
still it beats working
although it is in its way a form of occupation
another usage of jangling useless time
in the name of the market
in an age of continuous austerity
when he gets the shakes he closes his eyes
until he is taken far from where he is
back to the early 1960s
the bars of a cot surround him
the first feeling of imprisonment
of containment
of being too safe
he's sleepy in this place too
riggings of snow grace the corners of a sash window
a draught making him shudder with cold
his first encounter with winter
though he doesn't yet know what it is
and what it can do
his unseen mother sings quietly to him
something old
something of that location
before the rest of the world
and its non stop jukebox
would roar into the family life
he gardens industriously and ironically
now that the UN has given the soil sixty years
he could cry and allow his tears to water his parcel of land
at least he'll be long in the ground by then
but he feels for the kids
the birds the beasts
the fish the insects
the trees the flowers the forests
the wind the sea the streams
the rivers the lakes
the lovers and the possibilities
this morning his web photo provider sent Jimmy an image
to remind him of this date one year ago
a shot of an area of dampness on a ceiling
the reminiscing of an algorithm
the inhumanity of technology
there's no contest
even if the robots will take over as it appears they will
he chuckles and recalls the word clusterfuck
that crops up in his news feed rather often these days
tonight he waits for a meteorite shower to arrive
he knows this is an honour but he's a little impatient
fretting that he's looking at the wrong patch of sky
he need not worry for this has been done before
and is still a thing of wonder
Scaffolding around an old church
in scant countryside
a skeleton encasing lungs and a heart
that pulsate more weakly now
at the wrong end of a millennium
of belief and taxation
birdsong and evensong
are rarities nowadays
so a disembodied choir
of barbed wire
and its round hollow metal posts
murmurs low
to a congregation of livestock
a crew of crows guffaws
for they know all about
worms that abound
the marvellous underground
its secrets to keep
kiss me quick
kiss me dead
I have not yet found God
nor has He found me
on another winter’s solstice
but it’s a new day
one that has never been before
so it’s going to be alright
the mounting illumination of its early morning
a sky going through the shades of blue
then pinks and reds
there’s a ghost on my lawn
a ghost of dawn
maybe it’s only there
before anyone looks that way
before the stillness is scared off
by the yapping of excitable dogs
as I wait to be enveloped
by a fog of unconsciousness
waiting for no reason
that’s worth knowing
waiting for me
to wake up
to make up
to shake up
and when I have done so
meet me at Durrington Walls
where we’ll raise a glass of fortitude
distilled from the bitter fruit of native trees
in the new Neolithic new towns
retreat into the light we have created
until the sun promises to linger once more
I guess that’s winter for you
look to the future now
it’s only just begun
(Slade 1973)
I used my lunch hour to eat lunch
I went on breaks in order not to break
on Bank Holidays I holidayed
in abandoned banks
and slept safe in their safes
I am neither anti vax nor anti mask
but I have my suspicions
I was not a girl
neither am I non binary
I object to having to pay
to withdraw my money at an ATM
and getting a do not reply email
there was a wondrous sunset yesterday
people felt compelled to share
images of it on social media
I saw it too albeit from the corner of an eye
and am sorry that I passed up that chance
I abhor racists but am uncomfortable
about residing in a fragile country
where nearly everyone appears
to be a stranger and new names
join the lexicon of living here
in this xenophobic kingdom
it’s getting hard to remember
so why bother trying?
how much of memory is incorrect
to such an extent that is
a fanciful falsehood?
in a nation of controversial statues
it might be an idea to render them
eventually anonymous
it wouldn’t work for the first few months
but our bruised attention span
and the conveyor belt of distraction
would soon make us warm to these
handsome and interesting strangers
poised on their magnificent plinths
as though they are contemplating
jumping into our world
As the light dwindles again
and I am returned to that winter
my baby face a horror show
of scar and NHS stitches
I spy a large spider on a Lino floor
my mother christens the arachnid
pida pw
syllables I can almost parrot
the invented dialogue of infancy
delightful dictionary-free words
that bubble and exist only
in a certain time place and feeling
the music of the mother tongue
my boy imagination
in Yuri Gagarin’s shed
cosmonaut caught
in dawning thought confusion
my reverie when sleep
was blessed and not timetabled
foetus as astronaut
tethered in the helmeted womb
every amazing event
each star show has its mundane side
something so down to earth
we can’t escape
no matter how high we climb
(Curriculum vitae)
he cuts the lawns of an empty property
the cable of the mower in his hands
is the microphone lead of a famous crooner
on a 1970s television light entertainment show
cracking the whip on kitten backing singers
what will the neighbours think
in their own private theatres?
in the evening when it is more seemly
he pours two glasses of rosé wine
equally mainly by sound
and during subsequent replenishment
he thinks he can hear the chorus
of the hymn mae’r Iesu yn geidwad i mi
(Jesus is my saviour)
in the meeting of drink and glass
the music that follows work’s end
in vino veritas or so it is said