Tomato-stained metal lends 

Light-rays fresh meaning,

Ground coffee to kettle shouts:

Hasten your steaming!

Eggs, sausage and bacon

On plates white lie gleaming,

Bleak nightmares’ embraces,

Stuffed belly redeeming.

 

Do life’s adult quirks

All begin in like fashion –

As fern-frond-thick mud-pools

Of childhood’s rich passions

Embed, and then sprout forth 

Deep-seated reactions;

Hard-wiring dejection,

Instead of elation?

[South Wales Evening Post: 23/08/19 as PM]

Some say that memory is house-like;

A massive mansion, stuffed full of rooms,

All of them packed to bursting with

Wonderful fragments,

Byzantine tapestries, even

Treasures of electrum.

 

And so, if you want to recall a particular

Image, idea, emotion, you just

Need to work out how to trail-track

The snail-moist mosaic tilings of

Evocation, from place

To mind-cracked place:

Prickly, fresh-mown grass’s nostrils,

Green live hay-sneeze, eyes tight scrunched;

Oily heating, mud galumphing; leafy

Scrunching, boot-pool splashed.

 

And, Oh, yes – Those one-time kisses,

Caresses; Bramble-wires that now but

Bloom again, unsought-for, careless –

Yet toting loaded thorns.

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 27/11/18 as PM]

 

Sometimes, you know, I have desired,

with a sharp-quilled desolation,

to rub you out, erase you,

efface your very presence,

effect your immediate

eradication,

chisel out your eyes

from the world’s scratchpad,

with childish scrawl.

Of course you do.

 

And now and then

in swamp-dark moments,

quagmire’d in soul’s quicksand,

I have thought that

permanent absence would be better

than continued existence,

even for an instant.

Can I lie to you, any more

than I can deceive myself?

 

When thinking or moving eluded me

I, sweating, have struggled,

to the death almost,

to shake off

the gnashing, gnawing grip of

the wanton black dog

who’d come to me, stealthy, as

a slobbering puppy and,

bastard hound,

hooked a howling shard,

somewhere,

deep inside my heart.

 

But, in moments of

lighter being, whilst making, creating,

outwards expanding, not

inward looking,

accepting, revelling in

companionship,

surrounded by children’s love,

playing, enjoying wallowing

in the luscious mud,

I become an airier fairy,

brighter, breezier, sporting

uncertainly in

crazy, lopsided, mucky fun.

 

Then, I can see that this picture is

not mine alone to sketch, and, as

people do,

purposely perverse,

just for the sake of it, I

carry on doodling along,

a dinky ant with inky feet,

importantly insignificant,

a wry smile painted on its

antsy face.

 

[Inspired by “Coat” by Vicki Feaver, in “Close Relatives” (1981)]

 

Gold-red curling leaf-fall scrunching

Vinegar hardening conker battling

Daylight saving spread toast dripping

Pale skies glowering scarf and gloving

Noses blowing bobble-hat donning

Pom-pom jiggling fur-coat shrouding

Pumpkin carving trick-or-treating

Fancy-dressing door-step jeering

Skelington scampering — get lost!

Old-guy pennying bonfires blazing

Firework lighting sparkler writing

Chestnut munching thick stew slurping

Tree-bough decking holly prickling

Late night shopping bargain hunting

Turkey stuffing pudding steaming

Yule log blazing tree arraying

Baubles bobbing tinsel glinting

Christmas making:        oh        —         my       —         gosh!

Landing lurking midnight waiting

Santa spotting reindeer prancing

Tension mounting tiredness creeping

Parents giggling mulled wine draining

First light rousing stairs tear-downing

Open-sacking faces glowing

Pressie pouncing fishy-mouthing

Dinner scoffing cracker pulling

Table groaning stomachs bulging

Mistletoe hanging grandpa yodelling

                                    Scrumble plocking winglog lurbing

                                    Glurble nurdling furgle pwaking

 

 

—  o  —  o —  o —  o —  o —  o —  o — o —  oh!

I never wanted to be a tree, really

when I was a young shoot,

(not that I had much choice

in the matter, although

I hated outdoorsy stuff),

but I cherished anyway

the green sapling hope

that my forest-father would

recognise me,

and maybe cast out in my

direction some

filius-ment 

that might

lick me like a loving look.

 

For trees are supposed to be toweringly tall,

silently strong,

monstrously majestic, even

(on a good/bad day);

not needing to love or be loved,

not talkative, either,

and only being moved

when the wind shakes them,

whimpering secrets.

 

Dad’s tree, though,

was much moss-infested

(apart from the upper branches

which had shed all pretence

at leafiness

when he had but few rings).

 

Not a proud oak, he hovered,

wavering,

always at the edge 

of clearings,

stoop-shouldered,

somewhat stunted;

 

Huge-boled and always

mother-hen-pecked,

his clumsy boughs were born

to break everything

they carelessly scraped against,

as they frequently did,

flailing, failing

to fall away

from affection’s

affliction.

 

And I was just like him

(to everyone else, apparently,

though not

to his musty eyes,

and dusty ears) –

talk about chips and

old blocks, let alone

beams and splinters.

 

Thus insulted,

inculcated, inoculated, insulated,

insinuated, inseminated, I

grew, like him, as full of self-love

as I thought I must deserve.

 

But he looked past me

and my new sisters

(rapacious, usurping,

needling, wheedling,

demanding, commanding

attention, always mewling)

into the middle distance:

 

A love-blind, earth-bound sailor,

lardily land-lubbering,

never blubbering,

but forever 

(eyes starrily staring)

yearning for the sea.

 

Ah, years have passed,

the sea’s dried up,

or at least ceased its

incessant whisperings,

and I’ve (by accident

if not by design)

grown, groaning, into

a man, rather than a tree.

 

And now I talk, and run, and laugh, and love

(at least I try, a little bit,

with aches jointing),

and hardly see the old blasted bush.

 

But when I do happen,

accidentally, sometimes,

to amble shambolically

into his ambit,

I can, now at least, begin

to be the old drippy

hippy, he never

was, and tree-

hug him, tendrilly,

in (more-or-less) loveless

arboreal interaction.

 

So, in silence,

we sit,

and,

together,

vegetate.

 

[Inspired by Gladys Wellington’s “I Wanted to be a Cauliflower” (1977)]

He lives his life through razorblades

Fifty-nine and never laid

Mach-3 12-pack sorts his shaves

When, or if, he’s rarely paid

            In kind with razorblades.

 

With razorblades he lives his life

All pleasure self-inflicted wank

In one-room bedsit  – there’s no wife

The lust for love a throbbing blank

            Gilded with razorblades.

 

In razorblades his life is lived

Existence strung out noon to night

No friends one ounce of solace give

Midday sun but velvet blight

Ripped through by razorblades.

 

You live your life in razorblades

No choice but play this God-cursed game

Stumbling daily to the grave

Along a path strewn thick with shame

            Studded with razorblades.

 

In razorblades you live your life

Frustration’s fangs carve bloody paths

Forearms witness signs of strife

Condemned to bear time’s comic wrath

Traced out in razorblades.

 

In razorblades your life is lived

Just one man’s touch could wipe the pain

You yearn to share but cannot give

Such pent-up rage drives you insane

Taunted by razorblades.

 

Gilded, ripped through, studded, traced;

Taunted, wanked-off, self-sliced with hate;

And blank, and strife, and shame, and blight:

My life – I – living, died, with each day’s shave.

And then

            I bought

 

                        A cut-throat.

Ginned quinine-glowing tonic,

Teeth spearmint fluoride-flossed,

Marrow-mangled thigh-treasure,

Despoiled by bone-crazed dog,

Grande Cuvée Jeroboam flutes,

Carbonic-berry frothed,

Tears’ lachrymose secretions,

Ears cerumen-wax clogged.

Saliva glands starch-pulp enmeshed,

Buccal amylase infused,

Bacilli-laden finger-whorls,

Quick to poison gastric bristle,

Fanged iron-tasting flint-blade slice,

Blood anvil-red death-pooled,

Herbed Haggis-offal whisky tang,

Bagpiped by skirl of thistle.

Itched histamine-cursed pollen-germ,

Green-chopped by breezy-blades,

Gored petrichor of humus-soil,

Ex-tractor’d from mute ground,

Sharp ozone-scorch, rich compost funk,

Rainforest’s leaf-mulch glades:

Olfactory vibrations tweak,

To nose-receptors bound.

 

Molecular messages, sealed detonations,

Emotions commanded through forced inhalation:

Vexatious vibrations inspiring mentation;

Gyrating elated on swift-winged sensation –

Flirtation's palpations refusing deflation,

Orated quotations eluding stagnation,

Temptation's pulsations truncating salvation,

Cremation-flames licking forgotten oblations,

Cognition mutating, escaping ligation,

Starvation, privation, negation, damnation,

Dissolved and chelated by nasal creation –

Fogged memory-traces avoid liquidation,

Life-story's striations defying ablation,

Zapped startled awake in this whiffy causation;

Odiferous powder kegs – lacking translation! 

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 15/10/20 and 19/10/20 as PM]

A beautiful youth named Narcissus,

Was loved by a lithe nymph, delicious;

But the self-obsessed lad

Sat pool-gazing, so sad:

He’s now lily, she Echo – how vicious!

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 13/10/18 as PM]

If I found out,

Somehow, that

The whole world

Was about to end

With a bang, tomorrow,

I imagine, maybe,

I would dash outside,

And bash my thick skull

Real hard against the

Nearest red-brick wall;

 

Blood boiling at all the

Opportunities squandered,

Cwtshing not done, joy cast aside,

Excruciating embarrassments multiplied,

Idiots indulged, friends not made (or lost),

Loneliness endured, potential wasted,

Monstrous frustrating boulders hefted

Up monotonous mountains, even,

When I could have screamed

'Fuck off!' and run a million miles,

(Or held my ground and fought,

If I’d had the guts).

 

So here stand I, Exhibit A,

My heart weighed

Against a feathery truth:

I’ve suffered enough from

A lifetime of learning,

And now there’ll be

No more 'no mores'

(I think). It just goes to show –

 

Some things never change ...

Do they?

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 20/07/20 as PM]

 

[Written at the “Poetry of Negation” Workshop with Brian Turner 

at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Tŷ Llên, Swansea (25 June 2011)]

 

 

 

“… cellar door is ‘beautiful,’ especially if dissociated from its sense …” (*)

 

You feel them scutter, x-ray shadowed in the walls,

Know they whisker-tune the leprous plaster;

All along the threadbare slats, they snuffle through

Rust-tincture; porridge-crust wax-scented night-prayers;

Everywhere, slime-infusing tight-wormed holes,

Where pink snouts pluck out, blind paws churn up,

Once superhero-klonk’d, now ink-sick, comic-paper.

 

Too bestial for language though, their peculiar motions –

Corkscrew-sliced from hollowed nests that, mothball-clouded, nearby lie –

Loom upwards; random incursions always threatened,

As nigh-light stifles in breathing dark’s under-handed glove-velvet play.

 

From bed-time dusk, the walls seethe, no tiny mercies rendered, vengeful,

Bear down with hidden tongues, maggot-wiggly, acrid, wet and warm,

Mewling out to those oozing, shadow-melting brethren,

Insidious offspring, suckling at alkaline battery-holes,

Delved, corrosive, down to dismal cellar-burrows, deep below sick concrete kitchen                                                                                                                                          floor.

 

That fungus-fogged lair where foul Selador,

Berserk, unstoppable, fear-feeding King,

Slick, fur-beaked beauty, stalks – misbegotten

Tyrant – gristle-feasting, eyeball-slurping, rending wings;

 

From whose hot red rage, grown-ups’ critical absolution flies,

And in whose monstrous sin-sight, one child’s guilt-infused innocence dies.

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 23/06/20 and 24/06/20 as PM;  (*) J R R Tolkien, “English and Welsh,” in “The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays” (1983) London: George Allen and Unwin)]

Trite tears plop in sluggish river

Sluicing maybes to the ocean,

Where petrolled seagulls squawk, forever

Splattering emotion;

Yes, by God, I'm here and single,

Again, as if by curse divine

Why do gall and passion mingle –

My love, with wormwood thine?

 

Lardy cherubs flail in heaven,

Showering barbs on earthly brothers;

But never will you be forgiven

Slinging hooks to bed that other:

As poly-ethene clots the earth,

And crude oil-slicks blood the sea –

Your pork I curse, for all its worth,

Whose snout once nuzzled me.

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 21/0618 as PM]

Live liquid light illuminates

Dank dusky, duckweed-dappled depths,

Pale pond’s putrescence bathed in bright;

Meet metaphor for poetry

Containing secret meanings tight,

Enwrapped in language magical,

Deep speaks to hearts, grants second sight.

 

But where shines sun slants also shade:

Brash brassy babble quick begets

Misinformation’s murky night;

Untruth, mistrust, deceit crawl forth

With urgent demagogic might;

So hate-filled propaganda grows –

Sweet buds of true communion blights.

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 20/07/18 as PM]

Attention tumbles, inconsequentially groaning,

Acceleration quietly quicker, neck-whip flipped

Into vast, void nothingness, unfathomable black

Where even night is not; No – blank, cold hole,

Intemperate temperature frozen, ultimately

Unchanging; in entropic exhalation, enshrouded,

Entombed; Clothed in cerements of suffering,

Moon’s star-skull death-mask screaming blue murder,

Where hemlock and cheap bourbon cannot

Efface you – nor excise the pain.

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 29/09/19 as PM]

Oh bile-filled Dad – lay off your lies –

Why blight bright offspring with stale cares?

In desperation's mire Mum cries;

But is that reason angst to share?

Of course, your old folks too were mad:

The bawling you misunderstood;

Harsh treatment stopped you going bad:

To them it was sign of true love.

We’re cursed from birth; life’s just a glitch:

The only answer, death’s embrace;

So suffer, lonely; don’t get hitched,

Nor propagate the human race!

 

[South Wales Evening Post: 24/01/20 as PM;  apologies to Philip Larkin]

A bullet came searching,

It found rookie’s head:

Like a pumpkin, it shattered

In skull-pulp of red.

“What a bastard surprise,”

The shocked padre-man said,

“To be felled by fire friendly

Is surely no jest!”

“Let’s not rub salt in fresh wounds,

Let sleeping dogs rest;

“She needn’t have died:

Keeping quiet is best.”

 

Oh, how racked were her children,

The tomb stood beside;

But fluke life-loss for homeland –

Only ratfinks deride!