Poems

Beachcombers

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Kingsbrae 15.4
15 June 2017

Beachcombers

Low tide on the island,
the bay haloed with silence.
Wading in the distance,
tourists and school kids,
shapes wading in shallows.

Soft footprints, my past,
through a seascape of echoes:
sand at the Slipway
and
rocks at Pwll Ddu.

Another sea now,
and a similar shoreline;
same light in the sky
as, barefoot, the bathers
still hop and still stumble
over sharp pebbles.

Time walks backwards
and fills me with sorrow.
Ghosts of my mother,
my father, lost brothers.

Clouds cover the sun:
so sudden the tear-tang,
salty on tongue

 

 

Eyeless in Kingsbrae

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Kingsbrae 15.3
15 June 2017

Eyeless in Kingsbrae

There’s warmth in a color,
and heat’s visible to the touch.
Shocking pink has a different
feel beneath the fingers,
and it has no name that you
and I, sighted, would ever know.

They push me, blindfolded,
around the garden. Gravel’s
crunch beneath the wheels
sharpens my inability to know,
to be sure of shadows and shapes
that are no longer there.

The ones who push me talk
and tell but cannot show.
How could they hold a rain
-bow before my eyes or
explain those lights that
crisp and crackle in the sky,
a visible Niagara Falls
with fairy lights
dancing up and down?

And those glorious choirs,
angel voices rising, falling,
grasping my eye-lashes,
trying to pry my eye-lids open.

Oh song of songs, and the singer
deaf to his own sublimity.
Oh dealer of false cards,
fingerless pianist, and dancer
shuffling on amputated stumps.

Y Ddraig

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Kingsbrae 15.2
15 June 2017

Y Ddraig

“Here there be dragons!”
The old maps used to say.
A sea-serpent decorated those maps,
a kraken, perhaps, or another monster
drawn from the depths of the unconscious.

In Wales there used to be dragons.
Old massive bones rose to the surface,
long ago, and there were skulls
and other artefacts lurking in the coal seams
that snaked through dark mines.

The fear of dragons is still within us.
We know they can fly in from nowhere,
setting fire to the crops, burning the houses,
killing people in an unequal battle in which
one party can fly while the other
can only run and hide,
or else burn publicly in the open streets,
Guy Fawkes figures in their multiple bonfires,
flaring in those deadly white phosphor flames.

Bonfires and bone-fires:
I have also seen the Cancer Dragon
growing within the human body
and burning the poor patient alive,
from the inside out.

Y Ddraig Coch:
the Red Dragon of Wales:
long may he stay on our flag
and rule the skies from his flagpole.
Those who wish for the dragon’s return
yearn indeed for sadder, madder, darker days.

Comment: Another ‘raw’ poem, but one that I have been thinking about for some time. It was driven from the back to the front of my mind by Carlos’s photo of the dragon in Kingsbrae Gardens. Carlos is my photographer and travels far and wide, taking photos that he then shares with me. I am very grateful to him for this sharing. I usually work my photos on the IMac, but here I am working with a PC that I am only just beginning to understand. There are so many new things happening that it is difficult to keep pace with them all. Oh yes, and this poem is an allegory [a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another, definition from dictionary. com], but I am not sure that I know what the hidden meaning actually is.

Kingsbrae Creations

Chaos

 

 

Kingsbrae 14.4
14 June 2017

Kingsbrae Creations

Carlos Carty has recorded me as I sat reading some of my poems out loud. He has also put some of them to music. I think of it as mood music, because he captures meaning from tone and voice and then adds a music he has created to match the emotions expressed in the poem. We have recorded six poems so far and I list them below. Just clink on the links and turn your volume up. Carlos and I hope you enjoy these Kingsbrae Creations, one of the many results of our collaboration here at Kingsbrae and KIRA. Here are the poems, click on their titles to access to voice readings and musical accompaniment.

Giving Back

Word Blooms

Scent & Touch

Small Corner

Yellow Bird

Love

 

Peace

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Kingsbrae 14.3
14 June 2017

Peace

Everywhere I go, distractions.
I-phones bleep, fingers touch
screens, instant news breaks
sound waves on an endless
shore, noise, more noise, car
radios, heavy metal, hard rock.

I must flee now to the gardens.
I must seek out the robin’s song,
find the liquid notes of the water
thrush, search for the oriole’s
magic voice, the cardinal’s
colorful chorus. Not for me the
cheap tweet of the twitter-verse:
better by far the soulful summer
sounds of the natural universe.

 

Wordless Wednesday

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Kingsbrae 14.2
14 June 2017

Wordless Wednesday

All sound has run dry in my
song-sparrow throat.
Words and music no longer flow.
They need eaux de vie,
the waters of life.

Water from a bucket, perhaps,
though I cannot stoop to fill,
nor carry it, without spilling.

A hosepipe, then, though I need
to bend to make the connections
and turn the tap on, and alas,
I am too old and stiff to bend.

Rain, perhaps, though today
it must fall from a cloudless sky.
Who could pray for rain on a day
like today, with sun warming earth
and flowers and my old bones
basking, wordless in the warmth.

I long for the word drought to end.
Silent I shall sit and wait for the word
-well to fill itself with those spiritual
waters flowering and flowing deep within.

 

 

 

Icarus

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Kingsbrae 13.4
13 June 2017

Icarus

Such a miracle,
those first steps
of the sea-bird’s flight,
lurching his launch
over troubled water.

That first step heavy,
the second lighter,
and the third
scarcely
a paint brush
pocking the waves.

Deep within me,
I sense the need
to fly, to soar, to rise
high in the sky
and seek the sun.

I don’t care
if the sun’s heat
melts the wax
that binds my wings
and sends me
tumbling down,
a shooting star
falling
from the firmament.

A second sun,
I’ll be,
stunning in my sunset,
burning a glorious
path to death in my decline.

Myth Magic

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Kingsbrae 13.3
13 June 2017

Myth Magic

This old world, born again,
renewing itself before my eyes.
My hands reach out to touch it
and I feel it grow beneath my fingers,
so soft, so sensitive,
and my memories as wild
as the delicate deer that tumble
and run to enter the gardens
and plunder red roses
from the holy of holies.

Some days, the warm earth
trembles as those old gods walk again,
Orpheus, Pan, Diana by moonlight,
Narcissus perishing by the pond.

 In our Secret Garden,
Robin song still haunts and enchants me.
Echo calls back from a not-so-distant past
and her voice lingers among birdsong,
soft and long.

Aurora Borealis

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Kingsbrae 13.2
13 June 2017

Aurora Borealis

Some nights,
when you close your eyes
and open your ears and mind,
the miracle happens.

The sky breaks apart,
explodes in color,
and all the hard slabs
in your little child’s
paint box
become liquid assets,
covering the sky
from top to bottom
in a curtain of chroma
that saturates the mind
with its trickle
-down luminosity.

Pity the poor stars
on nights like these,
their beauty, like
love’s labors,
lost, as we drift,
our senses set free
in this amniotic,
shapeless sea:
bound by music,
song and light.

Seagull

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Kingsbrae 12.4
12 June 2017

Seagull

Seagull on the wind
wing tip tilted
for maximum lift

Wheeling up and away
the gull-wing sway of him
climbing his celestial staircase
in a rush of blue air

Light his flight steps
danced to wind music
played over beach and wave

Watch him wave good-bye
with a waggle of his wings
and a well-judged flick
his sea gull tail painting
neat brush strokes

Comment: Looking through my notebook, I saw the original of this poem, scribbled while I sat in the car, waiting for my friend. I re-read it and admired its simplicity. So I copied it here. The earlier poem I wrote, with the same title, Seagull, is more worked and much more elaborate. You can find it here. I would be interested to know which of the two versions you prefer. A second question: can they both stand as separate poems, even though they overlap in their inspiration and imagery? Let me know what you think.