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Had a bit to drink so I began to think
what had happened to my ancestors
what is happening what has happened
and is likely to happen to me
the right to protect the half memory of half lives
to live and earn a living among one's own kind
to put a brake on the creeping amnesia
that separates us from who we are
who we are from who we were
and where we came from in the longer view
newly arrived faces discovered our legends
animated as though they had known them all their lives
and not told by their mothers as we had been
in places our grandparents sold them
in which we used to play used to laugh
used to love used to dream used to remember
but they are not afflicted by the itch that resulted
nor the scratching that persisted into
the fantasy of growing up
I await analysts to tell me where I have been going wrong
pathologists to reveal my causes
and detectorists to definitively pinpoint me
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Poems
Had a bit to drink so I began to think what had happened to my ancestors what is happening what has happened and is likely to happen to me the right to protect the half memory of half lives to live and earn a living among one's own kind to put a brake on the creeping amnesia that separates us from who we are who we are from who we were and where we came from in the longer view newly arrived faces discovered our legends animated as though they had known them all their lives and not told by their mothers as we had been in places our grandparents sold them in which we used to play used to...
Read MoreThey said "high" but how high turned out high enough to keep out the locals the subdued other types sufficiently lofty to conceal the life of the enemy and too tall for us to peer over even with the aid of a leg up the despised and the besieged the attacked and the defended the architecture of oppression blotting out the horizon and eclipsing the sun and moon the domination still tacit at times we sullenly embattled our invaders with haircuts language and time until they were redeployed to another outpost another link in the chain mail empire the arrow slits squint the curtain walls...
Read MoreSteam escapes from tears the dream of the sleep punk those guitar solos based on choruses lull me to lullaby absence my participation on the edge of the plantation of easy guilt trying to keep safe in the attacking air dry in the angered rainfall as water percolates from the eaves roads that meander through the forest and around its scraped-out mines its quarried foreheaded depressions also leak and leach generously they’ve left a few trees standing in the meadow to remind us of trees the mirage of a cared-for landscape the deception of orderly lifestyles the ludicrousness of plans...
Read More2 CommentsNear-deserted lanes mid way up low hills the sodden escarpments of unfashionable zones unvisited by most who know of their existence in this interlude when a shadow cajoles our attention the damp hushed houses of this year’s departed dust on shelves weeds between paving slabs awaiting tidying up and reinvigoration and the lengthy sigh of a decision reached (starling darlings lingering watch unwatched) among the personal effects in those corners not accessed in a period compromised by the seizing up of bones and the disorder of failing and forgetfulness an antique from the top of a...
Read More2 CommentsI listen to and learn from the eulogy for a poet from my village recognised in his death this awaits me or vice versa or verses versus verses a book is not its cover but a chimera to ward off stereotypification a taxi ride among a cavalcade of red tail lights to where the bokeh is okay I met Billy and his grandson Ryan in the x-ray waiting room his eyes had red circles around them as if he'd spent a lifetime crying he joked he'd been hiding behind a tent at the siege of Rorke's Drift and that I'd limped with a different leg on leaving not much chance to use the old language here where...
Read MoreWaterloo Peterloo portaloo no can do in Manchester Liverpool Newcastle Nottingham too no can do dead man's shoes dead man's hand do the right thing you and all hands face space waste of space new rules for scrubbed old hands I'll try to remember but feels like I'm back in work or school Eat Out to Help Out aka Eat Out to Help The Virus I was there too I took the money I dined at that trough like everything else masks constantly evolve from the Lone Ranger to the werewolf from PPE to mandatory wear whilst enjoying the retail experience to the jaundiced faces of our corrupt...
Read MoreFlop flip flop from one bad decision one delay to the next no fillip fulfilled but flopped enough flimsy filleted conscience flame grilled ideation sears the nation flannel fans the sidelined fans the tarts and flans the dollops lollop unable to gallop the plumped up propped up plops that rule rather than govern glib guff guilt gripped gulped ending griped top hat toffs lop off that lot lorded and loafed yet levelled little you're having a laugh
Read More2 CommentsOne two three tier lockdowns in a two tier country the second wave a two tier cake for the Great British Bake Off the Great British Shut Down tier suggesting structure when none is present Covidspeak curve and peak hands face space test and trace fear and inequality cases and capacity untruths and nepotism loss and pessimism please don't speak Covid to me I'm just waiting for a vaccine waiting for another year better than this one for the next TV presentation by the scientists with all the gravitas of a wartime broadcast of grown-ups telling us the worst of news the maps and graphs...
Read MoreA masked ball coverings of many colours patterns and materials those beautiful surgical gowns social distance dancing move those hips waltz away regrets trance into herd immunity as the local lowdowns creep closer more local be vocal about your future your survival dance on my lovely what will be will be hold my hand and promise to keep your balance try not to slip up in the ballroom of spores
Read More2 CommentsEdge of an armada liminal keels keening over the bay on a fateful day limping blooded wasped by frigates and hawk-faced wreckers trying to get away invasion doesn't always reward though this is not our fight this is our day and for this you will pay your cannons fall silent spiked by salt water to the depths you dive to the mystery of our bay
Read MoreI am looking out for a comet but I am distracted by what could be a fox maybe only its eyes or a suggestion of movement one is never alone in the dark a moon illuminated tree at the edge of a field bales of hay hedges reeds in sharp relief (I see the moon the moon sees me) that way they ask where we were what we were doing and who we were with on 09/11 the day that Princess Diana died or when the first lunar landing was broadcast the graininess of our discoveries on trembling flickering screens do people of different times recognise the changing face of the moon altered as...
Read MoreCurves and Where One is in Relation to Them
Paul Steffan Jones AKA - @paul-steffan-jones2
28 Aug 2020Are locksmiths key workers? is the curve flattened yet? is it flat as I understand flat to be? will I feel any different? and what about people who had been cooped up for months in tiny flats? my father died the month before the lockdown feels like a hundred years ago that man in a spring and summer of national mourning what should we do? let's plant a new arboretum of remembrance with statues of nurses doctors delivery drivers supermarket staff carers postal workers my father I'll lay a posy of daffodils at his feet and dig my spade into the flinty mud of his settling grave how...
Read More3 CommentsOutside little moves save for divorced foxes corner-of-eye birds and abandoned face masks breathing in a confident breeze indoors TVs cover walls broadcasting shows of people who used to be famous for being used to be famous but he's safe here he thinks high above the plain of the Great Pandemic the lifts still work he doesn't remember the last time he travelled in them though each Friday he waits at the gaping shaft for food parcels from the charity whose appeals fall on his deaf ears charity begins and stays at home he disposes of his waste in bags that plummet to a ridge of refuse...
Read MoreYou've Missed a Bit (Patterns of Incompetence)
Paul Steffan Jones AKA - @paul-steffan-jones2
13 Aug 2020A disease that largely affects the elderly now they're targeting the young as they too are succumbing to the virus and could pass it on to old people as they enjoy newly relaxed freedoms "don't kill Granny" the latest deadly catchphrase in a whole literature of them and on the subject of our grandparents over 20,000 people died of Covid-19 in care homes in the UK despite Public Health England stating in February 2020 that the pandemic was unlikely to affect that sector and despite the "ring of steel" the Secretary of State for Health claimed had been installed in order to safeguard our...
Read More(Jeff Bezos Mark Zuckerberg Tim Martin Sir Phillip Green Sir Richard Branson Sir Alan Sugar) he sees them on the TV reads about them in news apps he declines to subscribe to he thinks they're contemptible and wouldn't urinate on them if they caught fire all vocal all opinionated all money grabbing modern style barons with no shame or few scruples the unacceptable faces of capitalism the unacceptable faces of humans three of them are titled wonder what the Queen really thinks about that when he’s tired he thinks “titles” reads a little like “titties” maybe he needs new spectacles...
Read More2 CommentsPlease keep your distance I don’t want to catch anything from you and I'm sure you feel the same way staying indoors like a rained-off summer holiday but this time with endless advice on how to fill our days as if we can't be trusted to function outside the tethered thinking of workplace diktats I tell you how I will spend my time I will memorise the confusion incompetence and untruths that have led to this moment while I fashion my response among the sawdust of my lockdown lock-up I will weaponise a disarticulated wooden garden chair leg convert it into a crude war club a coup stick...
Read More2 CommentsIn the pews mouths open to out spew the hymns known off by hearts in heaving chests the rote the rota the cheeks redenned and redeemed corrugated teeth framed by yellowed collars and furtive eyes on servant girls and recent widows this interior world is shadow and that which inhabits its shade the weight of the Bible its brass clasp keeping the colour pictures of faraway places tight until the right moment the envy the avarice so many reputations at stake in Adam's grove where Lucifer takes over the sêt fawr sitting side by side with the faithful as the Word is heard but no longer...
Read More2 CommentsIf someone says the word "unprecedented" one more time I will not be held accountable for what comes next what about the Spanish Flu the Black Death and other plagues including the Bible ones? did they not happen? did they "unhappen"?~ does no one read history books any more and did no one look at what was happening in China in these supposedly connected times? what about those warnings from the World Health Organisation? are we no longer a part of the world? do we think that we exist in a bubble and that nothing or no one will burst it? what about our own scientific community? what were...
Read More2 CommentsOn twenty two consecutive days in April 2020 over 1,000 people died of Covid-19 in my country though Ministers daily downplayed this abomination with figures of three digits my country in need of care though you wouldn't know it from the way it is treated by its careless rulers those leaders that morph into cheap game show hosts Brylcreemed three digits knowing winks and prizes you can't use my country a bump on the earth a thing of beauty radiating from the smiles that come gladly to the faces of the low paid and short changed I applaud them I applaud anyone who has not swallowed...
Read More2 CommentsMunching a Crunchie bar he splutters as the daily death figures don't come down quickly enough for him when the total reaches 44,000* he starts to feel a bit like it's Medieval days again only this time with apps that don't always deliver and the act of dying more private splutter splutter mutter mutter stutter stutter he gets restless as the deaths are now at least twice the amount the scientists said would be an acceptable outcome not so long ago who can you believe? who can you trust? thank God for TV remotes pity they can't switch off his mind too and those of the others though...
Read MoreHe dreams of capital cities the pyramids of money the cut-price labour that raised them now laid off in quarantine blacked out streets avenues squares lanes the underground and overground railway tracks emptied no children at play no vehicles in motion parked forever a sky reprieved and exonerated is reflected in lakes fountains and tributaries where fish nervously return and dolphins are anticipated sea eagles ravens and sparrows rule the high buildings their glass blue in the reconditioned atmosphere quaking in expectation learning to breathe again sleeping cities are...
Read MoreThe much vaunted app that seems to be no longer so vaunted if at all the commitments that wither almost as soon as they're uttered the NHS Track and Trace tsar a baroness who had formerly been the chief executive of a telecoms company when there was a breach of thousands of its customers' data and who left with a full year's salary of £550,000 despite working only two months of that financial year and who as a Jockey Club board member argued against cancelling the Cheltenham Festival as Coronavirus cantered towards us allowing a quarter of a million people to congregate be socially...
Read MoreA five year old patient with underlying health conditions diminutive in her intubation and her chariot-like bed nameless to us victimised beloved in this scary place of scary-looking people the sounds of ongoing urgency of breathing big as a country it's hard to read a person's face when it's behind a covering they say that with this bastard you die alone no one to hold your hand no one to lie that everything's going to be alright no one to say goodbye goodbye
Read More1 CommentsBrit holidaymakers in Malaga at the start of the outbreak herded by the police as they're falling foul of developing public health restrictions singing and slurring "we've got the virus na na na na na!" as they grin and stagger clutching their tumblers close the wit and the swagger the representation of a stereotype abroad caroused but not often aroused hope they stay safe on a plane with one way tickets to embarrassment when they arrive home they find that the world has changed they blink in a newly relegated and regulated third world country that still thinks it rules the waves...
Read MoreChildren's rainbow pictures in windows Thursday evening national applause fests with saucepan percussion accompaniment guards of honour for those discharged from Intensive Care Units joyous scenes of a joyful population the best of us in the worst of times acts of kindness of selflessness sacrifice and courage the rubbed-out outline of community becoming visible once again through the paper-thin official effort the erasers in temporary abeyance frightened by the zoo tiger rattling its cage bars let’s be tigers once again and as for so-called “protection” for our care and health...
Read MoreHospital ship a sailing cathedral that brings its crosses and enormous floating decks of sick beds beautiful impressive hopeful and quietly terrifying cruise ships suddenly no one wants or wants to be aboard no port in this health storm the talk the imagery is of hospital wards I've spent too much time this year in the halls of our National Health Service but I wasn’t to know entertainment is replaced by the thirst for information which in turn is replaced by a thirst for entertainment anything that will blank out the unfolding horror every day we sit down turn on our...
Read MoreOur World King who art in Heaven abhorred be thy name thy fiefdom scum thy will be dumb in slums as it is in Number 10 give us this day our daily dead and forgive us our trepassses as we forgive those that trespass against us and lead us not into infection but deliver us our Hermes for thine is the freedom of power and fake stories forever and never amen
Read More7 CommentsTwo young men in the back of a small car accepting balloons of nitrous oxide the drum and bass booming they turn it down a touch as I approach but are not laughing what sort of animals are they? I pull in next to them the only other vehicle on this bumpy patch of elevated ground the gateway to the hills to a sanctuary that has no walls but a view a saner place of isolation in a curfew what sort of animal am I? considering whether a drone winging and glinting in sunlight could be making a note of my car’s registration number for the incipient police state the sheriffs of our private...
Read MoreOur loved chieftain our revered penteulu a fulcrum to us dreaming men in the counting house of valour a cogent leader a tangent's goader a guardian's guardian a helmet against life’s iniquities your troop of spear pointers pennants fluttering neither scabbard-scuppered nor burdened with hilt-guilt but astride hungry-mouthed mounts the thin line of depleted sons facing the advance of marauding North Men Mercians and Scotti we dragooned Demetae dragons toe to toe with those who dare a foothold in the shoes of our country and then at Hyddgen again feuding uphill rising to the Flemings...
Read MoreHow many homes does the Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government need? how many houses does anyone need? those deprived property-rich people trying to break out of the boredom to be in another splendid isolation 200 miles or more from where they live most of the time incurring the wrath of locals vigilant against the spread of germs and holiday home owners and the "stars" (what does a star actually do?) suggesting that they feel a little incarcerated in their mansions on video links live from throne-like wicker chairs on patios on which starter homes could be...
Read MoreHow the past looks from the present and how our present will look in the future Dunkirk is invoked for the ten thousandth time while the Prime Minister lies in Intensive Care during the biggest crisis of the last seven decades masks for NHS heroes soon we’ll all be wearing them and the headwear of some Muslim women will make more sense perhaps we’ll learn to leave them alone grim economic data arrives early wealth versus lives vacancies and candidates the thinned-out workforce of the New Deal for the Dead feels like this is the end of something that no matter when or how we leave...
Read More2 CommentsHe's dog-tired in the doghouse dogged by 6 weeks of restrictions and daily Coronavirus updates feels like he's been sold a pup by the dog in a manger democratic process and is sad that Dave Greenfield and Florian Schneider have died his world will be quieter and less amazing without their input he tries to order fence paint online but doesn’t have much luck and does not want to pay the profiteers’ prices so he ekes out the battleship grey in keeping with the times there's a bank holiday coming up VE Day 75 celebrations with no crowds with hardly any humans apart from socially distant...
Read MoreCaptain Tom for Prime Minister or Health Secretary if that particular promotion isn’t available or anyone else really instead of the current cumbersome incumbents this embodiment of unpreparedness these foggers of obfuscation the economy wealth versus lives the workforce dwindling for the ghost gig the leadership inadvertently solves the crisis in social care through neglect and amnesia maybe that's how the prisons will go too no relations but expensive to the taxpayer the elderly and the guilty captive audiences sitting ducks but the baby was saved the robots wait in the wings...
Read More3 CommentsSunbathers on beaches in a lockdown and a new type of offensiveness is born one that is inflamed by citizens doing what was ordinary two weeks ago but is now essentially criminal and under scrutiny some of the land's private wealth is revealed in the news of owners caught visiting their second homes among them those extraordinary beings who are our well-funded leaders exhorting us mere plebeians to stay at home protect the NHS save lives the dual-edged maxims of governance the mantras we do not all follow do as I say not as I do our two tier society where did we lose our country?...
Read MoreBuild up herd immunity selves as cattle livestock locked down in slaughterhouse towns stay home protect the NHS and save lives protect and survive taking back control the language of our various crises the slogans of our desperate times the litany of avoidable lunacy an opportunity to inform on those who veer from the restrictions of the pandemic's regime of new laws with new rules to learn the requested change of behaviour of travel and purchase patterns the twitching net curtains betraying an increased interest in the essential comings and goings of one’s dear neighbours funny how...
Read More2 CommentsHerons explore new flood fields red kites patrol the hearse road up Suffering Hill old and young the two tongues kin and friend at the end crows cosy up in creaking conifers to watch the never ending pantomime the rise and the fall of the curtain of life the labour of lowering the strain of the load released the denizens of the soil will accompany you on your journey from person to depersonalisation our endless recycling our cheated Valhalla of heroes without faces of valour without bloodshed later when routine resumes a surprised mouse looks up from among kindling in a black plastic...
Read More1 CommentsI hope I don't grow old and declining running out of ideas running out of running out depleted of free will knowing that I will depend on others burdened with unreliable memories irredeemable consolation prizes and an unreachable hole where I used to be with people who have since left there's little certainty a leaf lands where it falls then is moved by a breeze or the industry of insects the tramp of shoes I am but a leaf from a great tree called family I will land where I will fall
Read MoreIt was always night would always be so to him how it crept to become his friend after childhood dread tonight with axe and hammer (or bwyell and mwrthwl in his language somehow sounding less edgy and threatening but almost comforting) in that tongue in their hands choosing the longest spell of blackness cold clear close to Yuletide they began their work Thomas David Jacob and Joseph trusted masons and joiners from the scriptures timber and thatch nails and planes saws and chisels grinding gouging grunting cursing as bats reconnoitered low he knew that David would later admonish him in...
Read More2 CommentsThe amnesia of politicians the mule refusal to learn from the past the expensive studied ignorance leads to the bonfire of billionaires and reparations for the original Americans and those of us driven from our lands for any reason and all the silver gold coal wildlife wages spaces and hope they made us help them steal from us in ongoing plunder featuring in blockbuster movies for which we receive no royalties and this despite the proliferation of information or perhaps because of it the overload of data required to thrive or even survive nowadays I drive in the low hills of autumn in...
Read MoreAspects of a Puncture in November or I Chose a Path But Don't Remember Which One
Paul Steffan Jones AKA - @paul-steffan-jones2
15 Nov 2019What is the story of a bra jettisoned on the white lines in the centre of a road eyed by a bevy of starlings on a telegraph wire while green wheelie bins line up on a mucky grass verge like recycled squaddies at ease or lazy cut-price Easter Island statues? our parents used to exhort us to always wear clean underwear to spare our blushes in the event of emergency personnel having to intervene when some inattentive motorists unseated us from our bikes bish bash bosh if you're free a week Thursday afternoon why don't we start to dig up the clogged-up motorways then do the same to their...
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Interview (2019)
AmeriCymru: Hi Paul, care to tell us a little about your new collection 'Otherlander'?
Paul: Otherlander is a collection of poems mainly written in the last two years. Many were written for the project Gwaelod, a collaboration with the artist Chris Rawson-Tetley that is inspired by the Welsh flood story of Cantre'r Gwaelod. The poems respond to ideas of identity, memory, history, diaspora, loss, and the relationship of these concerns to the location where these events and feelings were and are experienced. It has more of a story-telling feel about it than my earlier work. It is my first attempt at self-publishing, a return to the DIY punk rock ethic of my teenage years, a chance to re-connect with the possibility of independence and a more express way of getting work out.
AmeriCymru: "A collection of poems of reverence and rage.....". Do you agree with this characterization of the poems in 'Otherlander'?
Paul: I think that "reverence and rage" is an apt description of the collection. I have included poems that celebrate marriage and others that are elegies. There is admiration for the way our ancestors struggled to survive, both economically and culturally, and anger over the way they were often treated and how their descendants are being treated today. I have been researching my family history for about a decade and have been humbled by the many sacrifices made along the way.
AmeriCymru: One of my favourite poems in this collection is 'Anger One'. What was the inspiration for this poem? Where or what is 'hangar one'?
Paul: Anger One is a middle aged rant, one of a series, I'm afraid. It deals with our changing shapes, the demands on our resources, the feeling of amnesia and our relationship with our parents. Hangar One is everywhere and is nowhere. It is the larger structures that oppress us-churches, schools, supermarkets, the Houses of Parliament, castles, prisons, the state and its offices. It is also as small as one's internal secret guilt.
AmeriCymru: One poem featured in the collection, 'Ceibwr' is written in both English and Welsh. Why this particular poem? Is this something you plan to do more often in the future?
Paul: Ceibwr was suggested by a painting by Chris Rawson-Tetley and by a request by a Welsh-speaker to write a poem about it in that language. It is a favourite landscape of mine and I think fits into the edge of the scenery of the Cantre'r Gwaelod theme due to its coastal location. Yes, I am aiming to do more bi-lingual work.
AmeriCymru: Are your previous collections Lull of the Bull (2010) and The Trigger-Happiness (2012) still available for purchase?
Paul: My previous book are available still though stocks of Lull of The Bull are low.
AmeriCymru: Where can people go to purchase 'Otherlander' online?
Paul: Otherlander can be obtained via Otherlander Face to face I will sell the book at the austerity price of £5.
AmeriCymru: What's next for Paul Steffan Jones? Will you be promoting 'Otherlander' with readings? Any new projects lined up?
Paul: I am currently nearing the completion of the next book, The Ministry of Loss, which I hope will appear next year. These poems continue the theme of identity and will feature more tales from my family's story. Also, I am writing new work for a fifth collection of about 20-25 mostly longer poems, Rant. These will include the state of the nation diatribes, Where Did I Put My Country? I hope to promote Otherlander at readings. I am still writing for the Gwaelod/ Pictures of Us project with Chris and have an involvement in the collaboration, Room 103. The latter deals with George Orwell's ideas in the contemporary world. Though this seems a fairly busy workload, I am giving thought to the form my poetry will take in the near future as I feel I need to come up with a more lyrical style acceptable to a much wider audience.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Paul: Best wishes and thanks again for taking an interest.
ANGER ONEGrind my teeth down
mortar and pestle
molar pestilence
at the dentist
get a new set
a horse look
my masculinity blurs
whatever it is or was
weight piles on
semi-industrial consumption
of ill advice
that amorphous shape
my eyes dim with tears
my ears struggle to keep up
everyone wants
my money
my effort
my support
my attention
my input
my time
my vote
my life
while the flora
and the fauna
disappear
memory as a sequence
of half snatched-back vignettes
that perhaps I was never in
we can’t escape our parents
they’re in our faces
our ways of moving
of hoping
their bad luck
their diseases
their misjudgement
in the diaspora of kids
leaving home
the energy of synergy
in hangars of anger
the anchors of rancour
with truncheons of tension
in Anger One
anger has won
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Gallery
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Paul Steffan Jones is a Welsh poet and author.
Paul Steffan Jones was born in Cardigan in 1961. To date, two collections of his verse have appeared, Lull of the Bull (2010) and The Trigger-Happiness (2012), both of which were published by Starborn Books. His When You Smile You’ll Be a Dog No More won first prize in the 2012 West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition.
Over 100 of his poems have been accepted for publication by periodicals and anthologies including Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, The Rialto, The Seventh Quarry, Roundyhouse, Red Poets magazine, Seren Books, Hanging Johnny, The Slab, Eto, Poetry Cornwall and The Western Mail.
He has recently worked with the artist Chris Rawson-Tetley on a project entitled Gwaelod which responds to the Cantre’r Gwaelod history and other notions of identity and diaspora. He has also collaborated with Glenn Ibbitson and other artists in a work called Room 103 which attempts to consider the relevance and importance of the ideas of George Orwell in a modern world of inequality, surveillance and manipulation of information. He is in the throes of assembling two new collections of verse under the working titles Otherlander and I Thought I Had More Time and regularly performs readings in Northern Pembrokeshire and adjacent areas.
Paul has had some success in writing song lyrics. His most recent is Ar ôl Yr Angladd/After The Funeral, a response to a request from the rock group Datblygu. A song he co-wrote with the late Charlie Sharp, Bombstar, was released on the AA side of a single by Datblygu, Cân y Mynach Modern/Song of The Modern Monk, on Ankstmusik Records in 2008. He was one half of the underground folk-punk duo, Edward H. Bôring, who achieved a small amount of notoriety and a session that was broadcast by Radio Cymru in 1980. A track he wrote and recorded in 1981, Byd Heb Tywydd (sic)/World Without Weather was recently re-released on Recordiau Neon.
He used to be a Civil Servant and Trade Union activist. He believes he is descended from Owain ab Afallach, the semi-mythical originator of the Royal House of Gwynedd, Alfred the Great, Charlemagne the Great and William the Conqueror and is pleased to count Owain Glyndwr and St David as distant cousins.