Oral Poetry

On Being Welsh

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Cherry
A careful listener

On being Welsh in a land ruled by the English

I am the all-seeing eyes at the tip of Worm’s Head;
I am the teeth of the rocks at Rhossili;
I am the blackness in Pwll Ddu pool
when the sea-swells suck the stranger in and out,
sanding his bones.

Song pulled taut from a dark Welsh lung,
I am the memories of Silure and beast
mingled in a Gower Cave;
tamer of aurox,
hunter of deer,
caretaker of coracle,
fisher of salmon on the Abertawe tide,
I am the weaver of rhinoceros wool.

I am the minority,
persecuted for my faith,
for my language,
for my sex,
for the coal-dark of my thoughts.

I am the bard whose harp, strung like a bow,
will sing your death with music of arrows
from the wet Welsh woods.

I am the barb that sticks in your throat
from the dark worded ambush of my song.

Commentary:

Continuing with the audio experiments of the last couple of days, here is my voice recording of On Being Welsh. This poem can be found, along with several other Welsh poems, in Though Lovers Be Lost, available on Amazon.

Comments on the readings are very welcome. For my regular readers, if you have a favorite poem of mine that you would like to hear, just let me know and I will record it, specially for you!

I am indebted to my friend Jeremy Gilmer for this second reading of On Being Welsh. We will be collaborating on the creation of sound files and posting contrasting readings of various poems to see how different voices and rhythms change sound and meaning in poetry. Hopefully, this is the first in a longer series.

On Reading

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(Today’s photo: Cherry … she was a very obedient dog and always listened carefully. Sometimes she actually obeyed.)

On Reading

Yesterday, I posted an audio of me reading Monkey Presses Delete. I received some e-mails about this reading and realized that reading into the microphone, alone, without an audience, had crated a ‘new voice version’ of the poem. I thought about it overnight and came to the conclusion that my public readings are dictated by two things: (1) my own mood and (2) audience reception. Audience reception is, in itself, a double thing (a) how they perceive me before I even open my mouth (especially if I am an unknown quantity to them) and (b) how they perceive me as I use my performing and reading skills to manipulate them. And no, I am not a passive reader of my poetry, but a very aware and active one.

So, I rethought my relationship to Monkey Presses Delete, and re-recorded it this morning. The second reading is very different, as you will hear. Virtually the same poem, virtually the same poet, but a very, very different reading. I will be very interested to read and / or hear your comments on these two audio variations.

Monkey Presses Delete
(Take 2, Monday, 11 June 2018)

Monkey Presses Delete

Monkey Presses Delete

Monkey loves walking behind the gorillas.
He loves to see fear in faces,
tears in eyes as the gorillas smash
and grab and break down doors.

The gorillas break and enter:
and when they do,
monkey simply points
and the gorillas do their thing:
it’s that simple …

Monkey has a code word
that he took from his computer course.
“Delete!” he says with delight
and the gorillas delete
whatever he points to.

Monkey loves burning other people’s books.
He loves deleting parents in front of children,
and deleting children in front of their parents
can be just as exciting.

The delete button thrills monkey:
maneuvering the mouse
tightens his scrotum
and he feels a kick like a baby’s
at the bottom of his belly
as he carefully selects his victim
and “Delete!”

The gorillas go into action:
ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy
years of existence
deleted with a gesture
and the click of an index finger
pointed like a gun.

This poem is from my book Monkey Temple. It is available on Amazon.