AN IDYLL (script for an animated film 1970s)
creepers slowly climbing the old house's side. like the gnarled fingers of an aged human, wrinkled and sly. The still Grecian...
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Cold white crisply winter
cold white crisply winter of an early snowfall, foot-deep and still snowing; flakes puffing spiral onto the settling whiteness of a...
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I stood aside.
I stood aside to let the wood flow out. Along legged girl in jeans walked past me, leaves wove in her hair, brown curved beech leaves...
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Second love.
But she drowned in the whirlpool of my own dark river And she cries in the watervoice a last farewell. In her hands are the days of an...
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FIRST SPRING DAWN . a song lyric about Dinas Head Pembs.
Dull grey through a thorn hedge, Misty dawn along a cliff’s edge – The quick foot kicks the peg. Ape-tailed bracken in a small world,...
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Canal cottage, Kinoulton, Notts. 1960.
Although – these days are lovable, when the water breaks through the darkness, the dribbling flush over the wood, clear and fine, and up...
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The long thin shadow. Another song of witches (song lyrics)
Then sing another song to me The dog’s tail pulls as the rushlight glows The lord of the blind can always see And the head rolls on to...
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Cotswold edge – a memory (1958)
Along the road there is a village, where a crosslegged girl plays snobs in the dust; a woman walks in the dust carrying cats, and behind...
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Two seasonal sonnets (written 9 March 1956 and 12 April 1956).Two of the first poems I wrote, age 16
SPRING Now the sprung grass shoots pointed Writhing apple scything jointed Blades becoming lay-washed; Now high above scree-scooping cwms...
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The name for Spring, a joyous supplication
The name for Spring, a joyous supplication, your hands raised in the real air, Under your feet the pavement speaks with heat And a new...
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Copper and gold. Autumn by the river Trent at Barton ferry (1957)
cottongrass mist; and November. copper and faded memories. whileaway hill rests in misty silence. spindrift creeps and a slight cold wind...
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On the bus (1958)
holes rubbed in the cold glass showing rain ripping the surface the slash of dripping tyres high against the diesel’s throb suddenly,...
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TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN . . (Song lyric 1970s)
To whom it may concern I leave my life to you And seeing no-one else with you I leave my sorrows too That you may weep and laugh and...
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THE THREE CORNERED CIRCLE (Song lyrics 1970s)
The old man sits underneath the bridge Watching the barges pass Spitting the juce from a lifetime’s pipe Into the muddy grass He thinks...
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Bonfire Night. November 5 1958.
I remember walking up the hill in search of sticks for bonfire night, time and time before the day, lugging great branches sweeping down...
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You could never . . .
‘You could never live with God’ she said, puffing a long clay pipe and blew a bubble that shimmered with a distorted rainbow window She...
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AN EYEFUL OF TRIFLE
An eyeful of trifle will stifle the organ’s natural ability to discern the difference between a cake a rake and a snake thus spake King...
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(but it rides time like riding a river)
the fen lies dry now, no more I hear the startle bittern in the evening light, or old will above the rushes, flitting high and yellow,...
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IN A STINKING SHIRTGLUT
in a stinking shirtglut and a donkeyboot bed life churns digesting its ninelived stomachs athrough and the piece of each day is a newborn...
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HOMAGE TO GOYA;the beautiful gesture; the long deaf journey
He floats among the citadels, over the towering rock and secret in the earthen distance; disappearing through his mystic inward gloom to...
70
cascade, you lovely garden
cascade, you lovely garden bloom, spray, flower and fall —fume, red rose — dream, develop, droop and die down falling in your lovely...
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BITTER MONDAY (Armageddon)
on Bitter Monday the bomb fell and the rain wept for the sheltering dead; on Crying Tuesday the people turned to ashes, the rain brought...
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I’ve never found it.
Search the galaxies of your whirling mind but you won’t find it; Stick pins in pictures on faded walls, In soursmelling kitchens or...
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I am a stranger..
Anybody want a working man? Anybody want a young farmhand? I am a stranger in this land. I will work a seven day week For just my board...
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Fifth love.
So they say he walks in loneliness, Hello is his goodbye. Watch him in the silent dark, Never know the reason why; Wipe the tears away...
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SOUL OF A FOREST
there is a green light in the forest that grows in the shafted sun a timeless green, more green than the greenest grass, in a wood where...
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The hard winter on Mynydd Melin farm 1963
Most times it’s a hard day, but now and then you get a little chance to sit down on a bale of hay in the cowshed and listen to the great...
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TINSMITH’S SHOP RNAD TRECWN PEMBS. November 1964. Verbatim.
Who’s this bloke then – Tom?’ ‘Oh, he’s from Newport, comes here – Oh! I know – I THOUGHT he’s the one – he’s off on the sick now – old...
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BURREN. A poem about the strange limestone pavement in the west of Ireland.
The ancient light keels off the Burren, fading in the rock-cut crosses on the terraced mountain, crackling with energy sucked up from the...
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THE BIRD 1958.
Neighbour grinned from this top window with fat Missis behind him, provoking. Neighbour’s hair was going where fat Missis had made it go,...
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CLOCKING OFF – RNAD TRECWN. 1964.
Tom’s snap tin. Nov10by Ian (Spike) Woods We were clocking off at 4.30pm down at the clocking booth (No 1), rushing like bloody hell to...
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the whispering change – Spring 1958.
the whispering change coming through the wind is a leaping hare across a ploughed field, nature’s harmonics rippling along the sky cast...
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Untitled – 19.6.72
‘This may be the last time you will ever see me’ Said the invisible man to his invisible friends, And he donned a hairy tweed overcoat,...
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Sennybridge, Powys, August 2013.
Wed. 14 August, 7.30pm. Llwynstyffilin Farm. Between the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains, this campsite nestles into low hills...
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CHORUS OF THE DAWN. Second part.
perhaps the sun rose up upon a different day, upon a long night through hills and haybarns, toiling along moonlit roads by trees, even...
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the chorus of the dawn – different dawns, different places.Part one.
let us begin high in the high moor . . . with a fine mist blowing across the incline of the curlew’s wings let us begin to drink in the...
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Rivers of sin.
In this world of fortune there’s a hiding place, No-one knows the hiding place but me. I can walk among the rich and happy men, Even put...
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Not the same.
A long long time has gone And here I’m home again. It seems she’s moved along: But the place is still the same. I walked among the trees...
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Second love.
But she drowned in the whirlpool of my own dark river And she cries in the watervoice a last farewell. In her hands are the days of an...
30
THE NAMELESS MAN.
strike the match the flame is death the wind is march in the chattering breath and the flickering light spreads on the heath and...
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The Blizzard Beast.
The blizzard beast is a winter beast That lives in the caves of cold: It walks in the snow where the cold winds blow And it occupies a...
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The green meadows of the sea. A ballad.
Gwirgeisydd stood at Ramsey’s isle, the church grass in his hand, And placing it on Saint David’s shore, he did upon it stand; And gazing...
270
October Morning 1967. Aberfan.
Out in the valley of sickening sadness Singing is gone on a wailing cry; Under the weight of a nation’s madness A hundred and sixteen...
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April Dulcimer. 1967.
In a garden of roses I looked for her And I heard her cry as I caught her eye; And she called my name through her long brown hair, But...
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Sound of Oranges. 11 Sept. 1967.
Lights in rain, drops of fire, stars in sparkled rims of gold Etched in copper-tinged and coloured webs of leaves; Sobbing crystals...
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