I see open eyes and closed doors
as I see faces pass in the crowd,
all those secrets within,
all those wishes and dreams,
the dark sadness so often seen.
What would they say
if I asked them to stay
and give all their secrets away?
Would they lie or tell me the truth?
Do we sing from one page?
Unfulfilled?
Whatever their stage,
whatever their race,
whatever the date of their birth,
are their feelings so different from mine?
And where is god in all this?
Does god even exist?
In our breath, in water, in fire?
We all die, but are we divine?
What I hear is one voice and one choir.
choir
Goodbye Old House
It was a dark moonless night
when the clock struck noon
and the cat turned and looked at me twice.
She shot from the room
like a bursting balloon
waving her tail in the air.
(To be fair she had done it all week,
every night, but I hadn’t paid much attention.
I’m too tired out to much care).
The door-frames kept clicking,
the floorboards were creaking
and the clocks were all ticking too fast.
I followed the cat
(I’m adventurous like that)
and there, by the fire,
sat the family choir
smiling and telling their tales.
(I remembered their songs from before)
They were the old ones,
the aunts and the uncles,
who had lived long ago in the Valleys,
and no-one had told them
that they weren’t alive any more.
I wasn’t surprised.
Everyone dies, in their time,
But I knew this time wasn’t mine,
so I bowed myself out of the room
while they hummed a gentle old tune.
I knew beyond doubt
it was time I moved out
so I picked up the cat
and, smoothing her cares,
I tiptoed slowly downstairs.
We sat on the step
all night long, in the wet,
and I sang a new song in the rain.
I wished there had been a full moon
but when it’s time to move on…..
well, it’s time to move on, just the same.
There is no going back there again.
Old moon, new moon, half moon or sickle,
the removal van can’t come too soon for my liking.
No one should live in a sad mausoleum.
So I’m burning their boats, like a viking.
Behind the Bells
what is the back-end coding?
who sits at the screens and creates?
all is one plus one
minus the final sum
was there an original One
who caused that sudden explosion?
assuming that happened at all
all i see
in front of me
is a winding prodigious scroll
how the mighty ones roar
gnashing their bloodied teeth
far away in the distance
the apocalyptical choir
is humming a deep throated chord
that only a fool can make clear
life arising from ice
cast in original fire
such architecture
stalagtites strung on a breeze
scattered sounds on a wind
that swing in fragile strung chimes
strike a note
for whom the bell tolls
might be me
it’s a joke, it’s delicious, it’s fundamentally pure
oblivious wonderment
reflects in a windowless eye
A Welsh Voice
The mists, the mountains, cloud topped giants,
houses hung beneath the roads,
the mysteries of Cader Idris,
the bearded lake, Arthur’s stone,
a throne beside the glassy water
hollowed rock o’er grown with moss,
the leap of silvered salmon in the river,
the sheep, the lanes, the wayside markers
in the wall of wild flowers blooming,
by granite seat of ancient Bards,
where people gathered
hearing story roll from lips and memory.
All these things we saw together,
wandering in the wilderness of Wales
with my father, as a child.
The village streets where women gossiped,
the cobblestones and chimney pots
enchanted drifts of wood-smoked air
the clanging chime of book shop bell
as my father lead me to a gloomy room
walled with shelves.
Reaching up above my head
he handed me Dylan Thomas
a poet he had never read.
In bed that night a door swung open
with all the chimes of stream and meadow
louder than the bookshop bell
ringing out in word and image
words delicious in my mouth
the sounds, the shapes, the sensual pleasures
wrapped in beauty, thoughts profound,
laughter, love, the lowing cattle
driven home at eventide.
The orchards and the apple trees,
the night above that shines with stars.
The chapel choirs sang out across the valleys
voices raised in harmony and hymn,
the moaning echoes of the wind in grass
the sighing singing of the sea,
short lives lived
parading slowly to the grave.
The Dreaming Path 