A ravaged beauty -
long threatened tired life,
riding appreciated  


Friday’s  off-road cycle ride started late with a heart-choking chill head-wind blown rain - blurring my glassed vision, so I trusted into the triple lanes of colours slicing through the Vale of Neath.   Here a builder’s ladder jumped boomeranging off it's white van - attempting to decapitate me - behind me it’s miss was announced by squealing brakes and crunching impacts,  scaring alive splattered visions of a flat-end and being posted within a near drain.     Surviving today's devilled ribbon of the dangerous windscreen imprisoned - sitting with pub bound murderous cohorts - I found off-road safe solitude’s mountain bike path East to Coelbren - joining new, a fine yet unsigned cycle route curling around Mynydd y Drum, to open views of Cwm Tawe as I pass hunting twisting through woods a single Red Kite.   Then  gravities speed, circles barriers into Ystradgynlais top - a narrow ribboned descent, hemmed by cars and paved children to the rugby fields.

Senses travelogue -
previously un-experienced,
time spins slower

Here the trails old section points to Swansea - winding lost betwixt fields, paths, trees and roads to Cwmtawe Cycleway proper, there to pedal beside and across Afon Tawe with repeated special offers of  child saddled exhaust roaring  kamikazes, bicycle maiming broken glass, proudly owned attack dogs, branch hung ball-sacks of excrement, visions of the lost ripped-away steel gated stops, hacked-off wooden fences and never-there deceitful dreams of red doggy bins all disguised what passed for hidden beauty, which he called lovely ugly.    Backing-into Pontardawe to crawl away below the dark bridge, past a single inviting  pub - I accompany the Tawe and it's twin a decrepit polished canal through ***** alleys - until our hero stutters, gapes then tunnels under great noisious noxious ribbons of hurtling tired....

Pressured paced life -
impossible  commitments,
Living organic**

.

as soon as these blue speckled
socks go, that's it. A new bright black death.A solemn weir on a stark horizon.Give me a reason to wear color. My hueless affidavit
runs me into the Earth, where I sprout up
a pallid keb- brain orf'd, you could drag my etiolated ebon
body through the ovine fold or take me to the theater. When I was just a minor teg, I sheared my mim kip, I fuckinggave it to you outright. In this little
cote my wan mien nigrifying; my calamitous black, quaffed full of congou in demitasse, of souchong & saucers. My atrous wethered body albicantly degenerating in the atrous sun. I'm crusting over with wanness and you, you're fortifying in the cwm where I used to yaff and stray. Your ovivorous hunger,something I never knew, when first you came for my jecoral flesh, just another bot digging through my soft toison. Like Dall's Prometheus being sheared from the flock-you cut me away. In this drab and achromic world, you put the wanness in my flesh, the gid in my heart. Still.
Just these blue socks are left.

Dragged forth East out of Wales
land of song and tales even then.
The harp cherished more than the sword.
Oxen strained as his joy drew them on.
This effigy would change so much
healing and mending with its power.
Ancient oak, left to dwell,
kept deep in some unforgotten cwm,
revered still then stolen by
this mendicant friar blinded to his only fate.
What songs and spells it hid within
the silence of its brooding?
Feeling now the time had come
choosing a earnest man of Christ to
make its final play.
What form it had no book tells,
an Great Oxen in my mind
to draw the condemned souls back from hell.
Condemned as Forrest himself
poor fool.
Burned on his pagan effigy, at london's gates
his fate.
And the final victory for the tree.
Darvel Gatheren you might read,
this twisted form spoken now
still makes branches stir on windless days.
And trees smile, and thank the bishops
for the last sacrifice to the old British Gods,
made by the new order.

the mass, the clouds  lay heavy,

rain that came, that blinded

again.



blinded those that could not see

the love and idle artefacts, each one

a statement of nothing in particular.



phased those that drove the cwm

in site of home, that stopped, saw

nothing.



water that seeps, insidiously into mind,

spoils all things.



things that can be mended.



he said that most people throw broken plates away.

sbm.

the days of heaven gold

are coming to its end.

are we the children

of the fall, those of us

who dance in the leaves,

who fail in the cold or the

brashness of summer









read about the courage of others,

about the closing of doors,

against the rain and the wind

blowing.

read about the loss of brothers,

about the moving of house

escaping pain,and remember

these golden days of autumn.

going







read about the perfection

that never is, the quality that fades

in time, with crosses,

people’s minds.

read about the rain in the cwm,

that blinds and blinds,

and loses paths and footings





**





read about the days

in the old house

the days that are, and were,

and may come with dreams,

and fortitude.

read about it all, and i ask, why do you read here? here?

sbm.

the days of heaven gold

are coming to its end.

are we the children

of the fall, those of us

who dance in the leaves,

who fail in the cold or the

brashness of summer


read about the courage of others,

about the closing of doors,

against the rain and the wind

blowing.

read about the loss of brothers,

about the moving of house

escaping pain,and remember

these golden days of autumn.

going

read about the perfection

that never is, the quality that fades

in time, with crosses,

people’s minds.

read about the rain in the cwm,

that blinds and blinds,

and loses paths and footings

**
read about the days

in the old house

the days that are, and were,

and may come with dreams,

and fortitude.

read about it all, and i ask,
why do you read here?
here?

sbm

the days of heaven gold

are coming to its end.

are we the children

of the fall, those of us

who dance in the leaves,

who fail in the cold or the

brashness of summer



read about the courage of others,

about the closing of doors,

against the rain and the wind

blowing.

read about the loss of brothers,

about the moving of house

escaping pain,and remember

these golden days of autumn.

going



read about the perfection

that never is, the quality that fades

in time, with crosses,

people’s minds.

read about the rain in the cwm,

that blinds and blinds,

and loses paths and footings

**

read about the days

in the old house

the days that are, and were,

and may come with dreams,

and fortitude.

read about it all, and i ask,

why do you read

here?

( notes on roots)

grow deep in ground may hold us down



i noticed the same in paintings at exhibition           looking out

the grave yard noticed a touch of colour                by the white



red that seeps insidiously into mind

spoils all things



things that can be mended



he said that most people throw broken plates away



the mass                                      the clouds lay heavy

rain came that blinded

again



blinded those that could not see

the love and idle artefacts each one

a statement of nothing in particular



phased those that drove the cwm

in site of home

that stopped saw nothing



water that seeps insidiously into mind

spoils all things

things that can be mended

he said that most people throw broken plates away

( mid april 2020)

.day 31.

later here as i chatted to a friend
who commented that i am up early

reminded him therefore he is early
too to respond

the stone walls are everywhere, old crumbling
some rebuilt recently
one down the lane
i watched him a while

found some old bits of stuff
in the debris, plates and metal bits
and kept them

he pointed at my broken wall, slumping
said he can fix it if it goes and
i thought that i shall probably be gone
by then too
and save the expense

so the walls line my walk all the way
and back, in the distance follow up
over the hills, the mountains

in the cwm are made of slate off cuts
differing colours pertaining to the
region

like old grey teeth edging the path,
the field fastened by wire

do you know them james
do you have them there

we have slate quarries up the road,
down the road, some not working
no more

yesterday the police were called
to gloddfa ganol, to people
misbehaving in the lockdown

i place markers on the wall
i wonder if folk notice james

it does not matter though
as i notice

he said to be careful that these things
we do never become a chore for
us

i realise now it is my issue
not theirs

there is a lad on a bike rides
these lanes most days
eats pancakes after

he says he can gain 5 pounds
in one day

really, oh really

monday ( holiday)
if i stay quiet i can hear a lot of things

imagine a lot of things



1111