Poets in motion.


They closed the metal turning machine down,
the stampers,
no need anymore the hamper to Wales,
on the Vincent Velocette,
in a bullet sidecar.

Still wearing the leather smock,
you wore in France with a rifle,
the fortnight away in a little beach home,
with local slate on the roof in Porthdinllaen,
gas lamps and an elsan can.

You would follow Tide,
to where its contents went back to the sea,
oh to be bucket and spade free.

The air not full of petrol
and the lady who said to my mother,
"the sun shines on the righteous" in Welsh,
when she smiled a cloud blushed with rain.

The sound of maroons over the cliffs,
that would leave the post late that day
and a sailing visitor grateful for boats that bring life,
in the days when I could shoot near par,
on Nefyn golf course.

Finding lost balls near the small, windy wild flowers,
that I knew from my PG tips cards
and a cold coca cola at the Ty Coch Inn,
in a glass bottle with a straw,
was as near as it got to heaven,
on a sunny day.

Murdoch is getting a good kicking,
for fiddling in the bogs,
"you are mortal" the old beggar women said,
as a thousand victims,
used the news of the screws for chip paper.

The rain in Span falls mainly on the plain,
sheer dreich through the deep sleep night,
the flying crisps of caffi Porthdinllaen
and the 4x4's full of bored kids,
all the black arts to come,
ask your mum.

There was an old man with a stick,
who went at a hell of a lick,
he had a wheel on the end,
as he shot round the bend,
so they called him dashing Dick.

Listening to smug radio 4 in the car,
full of their own self importance and less interesting,
than the sound of the wind,
through the telegraph wires.

Watching the sparrows nesting,
in the wind swept hedge,
chatting and cheeping as families do,
the swallows as swift as they should be.

Back in the Sun Inn,
whatever happened to crisps,
curly cheese sandwiches,
roaring coal fires
and a gaffer as silent as the grave,
shaving a quarter inch of every slow pulled pint.

Sun King of the glutinous meat pie and the oven chip
and you wonder why anywhere else would do,
just getting through,
makes you want to take up herbs again
and score of a Rasta with a sharp blade,
in the Villa Cross,
it closed down after the rioting.


Lisa told God she's on holiday,
we've got a photo of the baby,
its nose so near the fire it would singe,
or so the other table said.

A wet weekend in a tent in Wales,
it doesn't get better.

~