Dreams

Balloon Lady

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Commentary:

Nine o’clock in Oaxaca is the ‘witching hour’. That’s when the young children go home and the balloon lady packs her bags and walks with her balloons out of the square. She really does build a castle. She stacks her balloons around her and lives within its walls selling balloons to children. Each Oaxacan child receives a balloon on his or her birthday and name day. These balloons are cherished, held carefully by their strings, walked like aerial dogs through the square.

The State band practices most nights int he central square and the balloons are moved by the music, especially that of the wind instruments, and then they wander to and fro. Sometimes they take on a life of their own and escape, skip away, go absent with out leave, and seek the freedom of the open skies. Sometimes they get caught in the trees. Then the strings are jigged and older children, experts in the art, place sticky tape on their own balloons and send them upwards in rescue missions which can be surprisingly successful. Oh what joy when the errant balloon returns to earth, stuck to its new mate. Oh what wailing when a birthday balloon bursts and the deprived child must persuade its parents to purchase another!

I can see them now, those colored balloons, floating skywards, sailing freely into the freedom of those blue Oaxacan skies. Up and up, level with the cathedral roof, ascending the cathedral tower, up, up, and away  … soaring like souls into the innocence of a sky blue heaven.

KIRA

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Commentary:

This is the new advertisement for the KIRA (Kingsbrae International Resdencies for Artists) Fall Session (October 6/12, 2019). Geoff Slater and I will be again facilitating a week of creative workshops, including drawing and painting (Geoff) and writing (Roger, both poetry and prose). These will take place in the KIRA Residence, just beside Kingsbrae Gardens. Residential enrollment is limited to five people. Just send us an e-mail if you are interested in attending this workshop. If you click on the KIRA link in the first line (above), be sure to watch the opening video. Pictures speak louder than words and the video will help you to understand what Creativity at KIRA is all about.

 

 

Westbury White Horse

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Westbury
White Horse

Winter in Somerset. No trains from Frome.
They sit in the engine sheds, boilers frozen.

Clare drives me to Westbury, in Wiltshire,
the neighboring county. She leaves me there

and I stand on a platform as white with snow
as Westbury White Horse towering above.

People arrive, flapping their arms, stamping
their feet, walking around trying to stay warm.

Finally, to shouts, cheers, and laughter, a train
arrives, its boiler successfully thawed. People

rush forward, open doors, claim their seats.
It’s a corridor, not a compartment train.

“Is this the eight-fifteen to Temple Meads?”
I ask the porter. “Nope,” he says. “That wll

be arriving later.” “When?” “About ten
or eleven, I expect.” “What train is this?”

“Ah, now this is the six-thirty to Bristol.
Running about two hours late. Better be quick.

The guard’s waving his flag. She’s about to leave.”
I open a door, climb on the train.  All

the seats are taken. I stand in the corridor,
shivering, all the way to Temple Meads.

Gower

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Gower

To be Welsh in Gower is to spell it funny
and pronounce it worse: Gwyr.
It’s to know how to say Pwll Ddu.
It’s meeting the cows in the lane to Brandy Cove
and knowing them all by name and reputation,
which one kicks, which one gores,
when to walk in the middle of the lane,
and when to jump for the safety of the hedge.

It’s to know the difference between the twin farmers
Upper and Lower Jones.
It’s to recognize their sheepdogs, Floss and Jess,
and to call them with their different whistles.
It’s knowing the time of day by sun and shadow;
it’s knowing the tide is in or out
by the salt smell in the air
without ever needing to see the sea;

and now, in this far away land called Canada,
it’s hearing your stomach growl for crempog or teisen lap
whilst memory’s fish‑hook tugs at your heart
in the same way your father hauled in salmon bass
at Rhossili, Brandy Cove, Pennard, Oxwich, and Three Cliffs.

Commentary: I was checking Gwyr, the Welsh for Gower, where I was born, and found this interpretation of the name. <<G is for generous, your giving nature. W is for wise, more tomorrow than today. Y is for young, the years never show. R is for rapport, friends seek you.>> I don’t know if that’s me, but it certainly wouldn’t be a bad set of descriptors to live up to.

 

Flower-power

 

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Flower-power
or
Why should the young kids have all the fun?

So it’s children’s day at the local supermarket. As I push my shopping cart through the door, I see the face-painter with a young girl sitting before her, getting her face painted. Behind the willing victim, several young children wait, shuffling their feet in expectation. I go out to the car park, unload my cart, and push it back to the supermarket.
As I park my cart, I see that the line-up has disappeared and the face-painter sits alone, cleaning her brushes. I walk up to her table and ask “How much?”
“It’s free,” she tells me. “It’s children’s day.”
“Will you paint my face?” I ask her.
“You’re not a child,” she looks at me in astonishment.
“No, I’m not,” I reply, “but I’m in my second childhood.”
I pull out the chair and sit down.
“I’ve got some photos on my phone, or I can try and paint whatever you would like. Would you like to see some pictures?”
“No, thanks. Just  look at me and paint what you think I would like.”
“What are your favorite colors?” she looks at me and smiles.
“I don’t have any favorite colors, but I always avoid green, yellow, and gold.”
“Oh, well, how about a nice flower?”
“Great!” I say.
One of the trolley boys who return the shopping carts in great convoys walked by.
“You need a mirror,” he says, “so people can see themselves.”
“Great idea, stay here, I’ll go and get one.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got a mirror in the car. I’ll have a look when I get there. Meanwhile, it’s a surprise. I’ll put a photo up on my blog when I get home.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”

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I gave her my blog address and I kept my promise. Unlike many people I know, I usually do.

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Commentary: with many thanks to Emily, the face-painter, who treated my second-childhood with humor and dignity. As I said to her at the time, ‘why should the young kids have all the fun?”

 

Dewi Sant

 

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Dewi Sant
Cathays

 To be Welsh in Cardiff on St. David’s Day
is to walk the dogs through Blackweir Gardens
and to nod with the daffodils as they step
their stately minuet under the trees.

Wet paths wander through rain‑speckled woods
and the fish are born blind in the gardens’ stream
on account of the coal that drifts its black silt
like fine, powdered night‑time down from Taffs Well.

Under their umbrellas, the fishermen dream
of sewin and perch; the bubbling waters
swirl faster today because of the rain that fell
last night in the Rhondda where a word‑storm

brought closure of pit after pit and each loss
cut colder than a volley of hail as King Coal
tumbled from his mining‑valley throne.

Yet still the daffodils sway, the fish are born blind,
and the Taff’s black waters swirl restlessly on
past unemployed fishermen to Severn and sea.

Dreamer

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Dreamer
Maindy Road
Cardiff

Dressed in clothes spun from the thinnest of air
I gave my dreams to any who would listen.
“A gift,” they called it, “for words.”

Yet, when the winds blew wrong
my words changed to smoke that stained
or flames that blistered and scarred.

My tongue twisted and forked until lies
lay heavy in my mouth and my words
were weighed down with hooks, and sinkers.

My life became a night-mare ridden full‑tilt
at a windmill with a great wooden sail.
On certain nights, when the sky was sprinkled

with seeds of living gold, I rose upwards
to the moon and my words become stars;
on lesser nights, I lay broken in the gutter.

Mannequins

 

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Mannequins
McAdam Railway Station #12

“He startles the unaware, that man by
the door, in uniform, with his youthful
looks and old-fashioned peaked cap,

fingers poised by his silver watch chain
ready to pull out his Waltham pocket watch
and check the time against the master-clock.

Two ladies wait in the waiting room.
One wears winter robes of red and black
while the other wears velvety green. Both

are motionless, one seated, one standing. Yet
if you watch them from a corner of one eye,
you will see shadowy gestures as their lips move.

Overnight they have changed into summer
clothes, gauzy, almost see-through, flowery
patterns, light-weight wedding boots, laced,

restful, cool, thin-soled. ‘Are you for real?’
I ask the standing one, for a joke. When she
nods and winks, a chill settles over the room.”

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Shunting

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Shunting
McAdam Railway Station # 7

So many memories
cling like hobos
to freight trains.

Tracks as always,
sleepers, steel rails
an optical illusion,

joining in the distance
where the miles
between now and then

knit themselves together
and we are young once more,
riding the rails,

dreaming of towns
beyond this town,
dreaming of the future,
not the past.

Comment: This is one of my own memories. We lived by the railway yards in Swansea and again in Cardiff. The trains were a regular part of my dreams. I lay awake one night waiting for the 3:20 to London, but it never came. I couldn’t sleep, waiting for that train. Next day I learned that there had been a railway accident. When I returned to boarding school after the holidays, I would lie awake at night waiting for trains that never arrived. We had a track close to the school, but we called it the Beetle Crusher because it was old and rusty and used so rarely that the beetles, who never knew when it was coming, would get crushed when it arrived. I have written a book about that train and that school, but I have yet to publish it. When I was very young and we travelled to London on the Great Western Railway (GWR) train from Swansea High Street, we had to go up to the engine driver and say ‘hello’. And then we had to thank the engine before we set off. Iron, steam, coal, inanimate to many perhaps, but live living animated beings young children who sat, like our ancestors in Gower caves, and watched the pictures the sea-coal flames painted in the fire.

A Three Year Old Girl

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A Three-Year Old Girl
McAdam Railway Station #3

“I often see her, walking around,
standing in a doorway,
looking into a room.

She’s very curious
but never says a word.
Doesn’t ask questions.

She’s not scary at all,
like some of the others.

There are rooms here
where people won’t go
if they’re alone.

But they mean no harm,
these broken ghosts.

They’re lost, nowhere
else to go, I guess.
Just missed the last train”

Comment: Another story from Elsie, who says she often sees this young child in one room or another. The station is indeed filled with many memories and you can feel warm and cold presences throughout the building. Some rooms are filled with foreboding, while others are warm and comforting. Many old buildings have these qualities as do the old iron age walled camps scattered around the south of England. Maiden Castle and Badbury Rings spring to mind, as do Westbury White Horse, Corfe Castle and parts of Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour. Do I believe in ghosts? I echo the words of my mentor and fellow-countryman, Dylan Thomas: “I’d be a fool if I didn’t.”