Sunday 30 August 2009

Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth, the seaside town in Wales, is more than a fishing village. Aberystwyth is a way of life. The very name Aberystwyth, the sound of it, is the touchstone for the exiled Welshman (or woman). Damn it, the place even has a promenade, a post office and a shop selling bara lawr (or laverbread).

Aberystwyth

abroad with fantasies and airport fictions
retro futurism and kitsch aesthetics
not to mention the homeland literati
poring over poetics
in bardic magazines
arriving monthly in the post
I tended to think I was out of touch
with something
that's claimed to lie in the phantasmagorical
stubbornly defying wisdom and logic
something that's not available on postal subscription
but is free on an everyday basis
to the few

they say it's found

in the whistling of the wind through the drystone wall
and in the rumble of the early morning milk train

this raindrenched evening found me squelching
under Cadwallader's dragon
limply hanging
from the promenade flagpole
with the local bardic outpourings
stuffed in my raincoat pockets

in an everyday kind of way
there was a sad politness
about it all

pilgrim-ing my pious wanderings
and Hiraeth
around the old ancestral beat

splashing around
in massage-comfort shoes

stumbling over that ancient folk-rock activist
outpouring her lucid deliriums
in the bar of the Red Dragon pub

so tell me cariad -
how's things in Aberystwyth?

solicited between sets / passing over the tongue loosener

frothy fragments
bursting forth
into my reconciliation zone

and suddenly it was all over

the bardic dreams
the airport-polished shoes


_____________
gw 2009, 2008

Friday 21 August 2009

From sweatmark to beer stain

The following poem came about in an unusual way. This morning, or was it yesterday, PiR visited George Szirtes' blog and found a link to the Rotterdam Poetry Festival and thence to some video of GS and others reading their work. One of these others was Matthew Sweeney who gave an entertaining anecdote and follow-up poem about a sweatmark he found on his shirt when he was in Romania one hot summer. He likened the dark shape to the outline of Ireland.

In 1945 the poet Paul Celan walked from Romania to Vienna, Austria. So there's the tentative connection. The point of the following Poet-in-Residence poem is to amplify the difference between recent so-called problems in, for example, Ireland (we may recall a recent event where a group of Romanians were abused and forced to seek refuge in a church to highlight the point) and the desperate situation in Europe at the end of WWII.

Not only in Ireland but in many other countries around the globe so-called complainants too often resort to brutal violence in the absence of reason, sense (common or otherwise) and foresight. It behoves us to remember that we all inhabit the same planet regardless of where and when various kings and men have drawn their lines in the sands of time and place.

an impression on reading Paul Celan

the beer stain on page 9
where it says
The SS had one essential job to fulfill - "Energisch durchgreifen, die Juden liquidieren," to energetically liquidate the Jews - as they did not trust the Romanians to do it thoroughly ...
resembles the poet's profile
the open mouth
the large eye
the dome skull
the broad shoulder

the beer stain
will leave a record
that will not be erased

unlike the poet's t-shirt
sweatmark

M. Sweeney's map of Ireland
his sweaty socks
his underpants
are in the laundry basket's depths
awaiting
mixed wash
colours
30 Celsius
final rinse
and short spin


-----
gw2009

Aeronwy Thomas (1943-2009) dancing in the sun

The poet Aeronwy Thomas, the daughter of Dylan Thomas, has passed away. I never met Aeronwy, although I was hoping to do so at the Laugharne Poetry Festival, but due to various reasons and circumstances I was unable to get there on time. In fact I arrived in Laugharne a month late. Nevertheless, I did visit the Boat House home of the late Dylan Thomas and his family and also the graveyard, or more correctly said: the hillside meadow with a few graves on it - and from there I followed the heron-priested estuary path over the cow-patched fields and back to the Boat House. I took Bed & Breakfast at one of the local pubs, bought some books at the Boat House shop, and had a lovely relaxing time before moving on to Tenby for the pub crowds and Prince Harry drank here! and the isolation of Skomer for the seabirds.

What Aeronwy Thomas and I have in common are that we are Welsh and that we share the same publisher; Martin Holroyd at Poetry Monthly Press. I have before me a copy of Aeronwy's collection Rooks and Poems and I recall an apt quote from the father, dad, Dylan Thomas about his daughter written in New Quay when she was barely 1 year old (Letters to Vernon Watkins) "Aeronwy doesn't walk, she climbs rocks!" and another written a year later (Selected Letters of Dylan Thomas) to Oscar Williams -"I have a shack at the edge of the cliff where my children hop like fleas in a box [...] my wife grumbles at me and them and the sea for all the mess we make, and I work among cries and clatters like a venomous beaver in a parrot house".


One or two quotes from Aeronwy Thomas's Rooks and Poems would seem to be appropriate to conclude this small tribute. It's always interesting, indeed fascinating, to know what other people, particularly poets, think and say about death - the subject, the raison d'etre so often explored by the diverse bardic and philosophical brains of this world. The following Aeronwy Thomas' quotes, as readers of her poetry would doubtless expect, neatly tidy-up some thoughts and conclusions for us.

I walk over the edge of my dream.
Backstage
my own face greets me
in the morning mirror.

(from Turning the Ghost)

the sands of time are running low
but my feet are still itching to run
to jete´e and twirl
my skirt hem may be untacked
but, look, I'm dancing in the sun.

(from Older)


-----
Details and a review of Aeronwy Thomas' recently published book Shadows and Shades - Selected Poems can be found at the Poetry Monthly link >>>

Monday 17 August 2009

Searching the Atlas

A is for Atlas

In the Atlas and the desert
the stars twinkle and shine.
An innocent childhood. A far journey.

Tonight you break camp.

They fold the tents
and we move ourselves on
as moths by moonlight.

The caravan in the dark silence
is a journey into eternity
and the night is long.

Ride.
Walk.
Shield your eyes.
Think your thoughts.

Through the sea of sand
we wander to the next oasis
where we make fire.
Bake bread.
Sing our poetry.
Beat our drums.

By night the wind shapes the rocks.
The sand.
In grains our thoughts. Whispers in dreams.

Light is the heart of the night
when you say:
We still have a long way to go...

______
gw 2009