Forum Activity for @paul-steffan-jones2

Of The Fields

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition 2016

I am of the fields

the ones in which my grandfather

used to toil and hunt rabbits

to feed nine mouths

always close at hand

in the distance

the horizons

the cattle-hooved mud at gates

the perpetual feeling of trespass

among the thistles nettles

and cow pats

the trees the largest objects of that world

my parents had left the meadows

to live in brand new local

authority housing

and benefit from modern technology

and labour-saving labours

the fields followed them as

lawns borders hedges weeds

wallpaper and cemeteries

I am of the fields

I played at soldiers there

and honed the loneliness

of the imagination

and learned how to die

Parent Animals

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition 2016

In the time when the sun

still shone on the West

my mother used to sunbathe

in her garden

joined by a lizard that basked with her

...

she would chide my father

when his appearance caused

the reptile to scurry back

its home

she could anticipate the hatching of hedge birds

sometimes keeping her husband waiting

delaying a shopping trip

or a visit to a relative

in order to be present at the births

once the hatchlings followed her into her home

becoming entangled in net curtains

she freed them and pointed them

in the right direction

my father still talks reverentially

about some of my mother’s attributes

as though he has at last realized

that he had for five decades

been in the company of an amazing creature

(her name was Rhiannon

and before we knew her

she was from another world

we can only read about

in ancient chronicles

in the littoral language

of our family)

updated by @paul-steffan-jones2: 11/24/19 06:16:51PM

The Future : A Retrospective

West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition 2016

Saxifrage non Anglo-Saxon

equinox economic migrants

just like you and me

so come in join me in

a draught of peace mead

and supermarket Spanish red wine

and toast the Cathars

subsumed within the contours

of bottles

as good as any place anywhere

in this imperfect present tense

the light at windows

creates a space

no great shakes

lily white imaginings

magic thinking

what happens to odours when

they have expired?

what becomes of expiated

thought processes?

is the past still alive

and being continually re-invented?

or are we all dead and interred

in the defining moments

of our respective countries?

a wasp-induced September

with insects queuing at exterior lights

while rotting fruits

marry fallen leaves

in stagnant holy water

the Earth still moves

updated by @paul-steffan-jones2: 11/19/16 11:52:46PM