poem
Autumn. The pink-footed
Geese return.
On Arctic wind borne,
Anser brachyrhynchus
Drawn south for winter
By the failing sun.
Icelandic guests
Yakking to and fro
In loose formation,
From roosting site
To tattie fields.
Heading eastwards tonight,
Under the tattered canopy
Of variegated cloud,
In thin, ragged lines.
As pixelated soundwave,
Rippling and scratching
Across a dusk sky
Too pure to photograph,
Too perfect to be real.
Now I am not I,
Nor is my house now my house
‘Romance Sonambulo’, Garcia Lorca
He was sitting at a window
Watching the hour resolve itself
From the night’s black scrawl
To a muted green of dawn,
Listening
To the house
Coming back to life
In the morning’s pale cold.
The morning greeting him
With a stilled garden
Caught in the lure
Of autumn’s chill air.
Overnight, rain fell like lead,
Silvering the thatched lawn.
The beech hedge threaded
and interwoven by roiling coils
Of bramble. In the beds,
Apologetic poppies
Shaking sorry bonnets.
In the earth, worms ooze.
His eyes lit upon an apple tree
Planted by an unknown hand
Barely capable of bearing fruit
Its branches chafe
As if for warmth, like two hands
Over a hearth. Its neighbour
With one or two still clinging on:
Rotting baubles pecked by rooks,
Carcasses littering the grass,
Eviscerated carrion
And turning brown,
Left to spoil and seed.
He was sitting at a window
Looking upon a world
That was not his to know
A world being reformed
By the sun’s steady hand.
A garden which was like
A room of the mind
In a house returned to life.
They’re an unusual pair.
Him gangly and goofy, a string-bean Swede,
In jacket and trousers that don’t match.
Her diminutive and compact, blonde curls.
The farm-girl glamour she never lost.
Smartly dressed in Sunday best,
They might be off to church,
Or his father’s coaching inn, or else
Pushing the boat out a bit,
Taking a trip in a borrowed car
Or her father’s horse and trap,
On a road to who-knows-where,
Past milking fields, hedgerows
of hawthorn and ash, spring
Uncoiling into a hint of summer.
Or perhaps no further than this garden.
The evergreen lawn this portrait depicts
In varying shades of sepia grey -
Slight stain marring the print -
As something vague resolves itself
Into something indelibly real,
Like the familiar becoming loved.
All that a camera cannot capture:
Sun essaying from behind the clouds,
What words passed between them
As they held their smiling pose,
The footprints left in the deep grass
As they walked toward the house
In cahoots, closer than close.
September arrived in Laugharne
with weather fit for a pilgrimage:
This being Dylan Thomas Town,
the place where he lived,
worked and should have died.
Not on that trip to New York,
where 'eighteen straight'
and one misdiagnosis
did for him. He’s buried here
with Caitlin - under some
sore-thumb, cruciform stone
at St Martin’s: his painted cross
jarringly jagged and white
among the mellifluous
bible-black stones
of lesser-known folk.
We retraced Dylan’s steps,
til the weather closed in;
scarfed scones and jam
at his house: now a museum
bearing his name. My wife
breast-fed our first-born,
carried him in a loose sling,
as he snuffled and mumbled,
moored in gentle night.
Saw The Boathouse
where Thomas lived
with Caitlin and kids,
and composed poems
with one eye on the Taf,
that broad expanse
of table-flat water
encircled by hills,
palavers of curlews
giving flight
to his words.
His writing shed with cluttered desk,
shelves a jumble of well-thumbed books,
portraits and notes, a seldom-lit stove,
and an old grey jacket
draped over one splayed chair:
as if he’s just nipped out
for another beer
and will soon be back.
rediscovered
in my
grandparents’ loft
rusted
canisters
of cine film
we go over
for dinner
and to watch
old selves
in celluloid
me
my brother
my mother
and father
uncle
and partner
grandparents
curtains drawn
lights dimmed
the
projector
beams
a fine
blade
of light
into
the room
an image
of a garden
forms
flowerbeds
pink
with roses
then unfamiliar
faces
long-gone
aunts
and
uncles
great
grand
parents
resurrected
in Sixties
suburban
utopia
Brasso-faces
in suits
and skirts
nursing
cup and saucer
Potteries
china
reserved
for best
horn-rimmed
and ruddy
a young woman
laughs
and shakes
russet tresses
a tall man
pomaded
in shirt
and slacks
pings
with
rubber band
a glider
skyward
for two
small
brown-haired
children
a girl
in summer
frock
a boy
in short
trousers
run in circles
on the lawn
the plane falls
and is caught
by the roses
it is summer
high summer
flaming
june
my mother’s
birthday
the penny
drops
a jump cut
we are
next to
a field
my mother
throws
breadcrumbs
to a horse
at grass
a brown mare
just out
of shot
her foal
my mother
turns
a breeze
brushes
a strand
of her hair
she asks for
something
her small
mouth
pleading
can we have
more bread?
my mother says
from her spot
on the floor
in the film
someone
hands her
more
but when
she turns
the mare
bolts
and runs
across
the
paddock
with
her foal
the first
and last
and only
time
I saw
my mother
as a child
Our eldest brings stones
And sticks home from the park.
Bits of grit, lumps of gravel,
Marbled pebbles, tiny rocks;
Indiscriminately selected twigs;
Branches, feathers; lichen, bark.
What will grow from this stony rubbish?
He cannot know or say, though each
For him is as a curate’s egg,
Growing the small, neglected stack
In the corner of our porch
Where leaves and cobwebs collect.
A broken nest. A disturbed cairn.
A stone age ruin. Signifiers
Of his untroubled realm:
A time without rules, or doubt,
Cruelty, or loss - where things,
Like names, do no harm
And all his days voyages of discovery
Through those secret places close to home.
Hangover from yesteryear’s lesser days:
Rain, like wrapping paper, falls in sheets.
This house, shrouded in New Year's grey,
Was a cradle of ebullient Yuletide light;
Now the tree is back in its box, the wreath
Resting in peace in the wheelie bin.
Our firstborn has almost stopped teething.
We’ve barely dented the Roses tin,
A snowball of Christmas cake remains.
The nights are drawing out again. On the table,
Our 2yo scrawls with pens
While we await his late rival.
All our clocks are out of synch.
The boiler clicks off and on at once,
As if releasing an uncertain breath,
Or remembering something of significance.
Their movement is a kind of pain
circulating about the room.
The idiot flies are back again,
triangulating their doomed campaign
to quit the space they assume.
Their movement is a kind of pain,
limp prelude or weak refrain,
weaving at an invisible loom.
The idiot flies are back again.
Trapped by sunlight, held by rain –
above all nature abhors a vacuum –
their movement is a kind of pain
of ceaseless endeavour, one in vain
repeated, reprised and resumed.
The idiot flies are back again,
etching the signals of the brain,
until one smites them with a broom.
Their movement is a kind of pain.
The idiot flies are back again.
The first time we came here,
Sans enfants, we were the children
Modishly trying to be grown up.
A thank you meal for your parents:
Teacherly in mood, quietly composed,
Gentle-voiced, modest-meaned.
I barely knew them. Nothing was certain,
Our offspring no more than an inkling,
A light blinking on broken water.
Now a taste of freedom, time regained.
Just a couple of anonymous covers
Dining alongside resident and tourist:
A long line of Germans chewing steak,
Mute Scots wi’ nary an aye nor a nay,
Flustered waiter fussing over the wine.
After we ate, a six-piece folk-band
Struck up their husky tune. We snuck out,
Drink in hand, to watch the bats flicker
Over the loch into the watery night.
You said you wanted me to taste
Of cigarettes. To my regret we had none
To savour, that other flavour predating us.
So instead to home, where we swiftly fell
Into the arms of sleep: toddlers each.