Don't think I'm cryin Aberfan

  

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Aspiration

I know down where you go

When people just don’t do their job

To wake in times of weeping

Where your heart is on the curve

Yet still there must be some

Thing

Between sleeping and the grave

Some wilder aspiration for the truth

The Circling of Silbury

From where the land   beneath the circling Sun God   rises

we see   at day   the circle of The God of Air

In anger  clouds race round the sky where at the fall of night

a force of light more dark than day sets The Sun to rest

And in His measurement the God of Stars communes

to share his vastness with the varied Moon

She circles our watching heads   changing Her position with the seasons

sometimes close and round as The Sun in the day

sometimes pared away and distant   sometimes gone

These Gods - more steadfast and more powerful than we -

send fatted grain to swell the husk of spelt

At the closest brightness of The Moon -

and in The Light of Sun - we harvest

Each season follows on as Gods decree they should

But when the God of Air is angry in His circling

clouds send no rain and crops dry up and wither in The Sun

or too much rain - they rot along the stalk - and grain can never ripen

In the best of harvests   when spelt is brimming in the store

we climb the hill and raise our thanks to meet The Gods

giving generously of grain They gave to let us eat

And in the desperate times

when grain is poor and full of mould

we give the best to Them to strike a bargain for the years to come

and sadly we wait out the cold of winter

This rising of the land is not enough to keep us close

Along the plain   just where that rock juts forth

we plan to build a hill much higher

Its circling will be an echo of the seasons

Our tools - as good as any tools The Gods allow us -

continue striking every hour that we can see

We prepare the steps in circle upon circle to the top

As our lives and seasons change and fade away

we'll carry clay and stone to raise our offerings much closer

A centre mound of clay above the steps of rock will form a circle

Around this circle   in a circle   we will place the blocks of chalk

Along a ramp and rising   we will raise the blocks to meet The Gods

Each season   higher than the last we'll please The Gods with offerings

Feasting on the flattened summit

we'll celebrate the Goddess of the Earth

The Sun God and The Goddess of The Moon

The Gods of Sky and Air  The Goddess of The Water

On Their alter made of clay beneath the arch of circled boughs

we'll place our offerings of gratitude for harvest

call our invocations to The Gods wherever they may be around us

celebrate the harvest and the circling of time

1997 CPR

Amazon

 Where Wai-wai warriors wear

beads and feathers in their hair

hanging in a single pig-tail

down their arching back

Pudding-bowl Xavantes serve the mass

Escaping basilisks run like little men

upright in their fleeing to the water

Giant anacondas loop

Flower-kissers flying backwards

sip the nectar from a fringe of petal

Fish swim high along the forest floor

when rainy season floods about

Out of time the condors fly forever

Steamers ply along the river

buoyant long beyond the rubber boom

Where the Negro meets the Amazon

dolphins play in clear tea water

Rafts of cattle float above the ox-bow

until the land comes flooding back

driving piraruca fish away

Vulture kings inspect

beyond their orange feature

Macaws hang down a line liana

like bright-washed jewels

screeching blue and red and green

Fiery orange cock-of-the-rock patrol

helmeted as Roman soldiers

Toucans bill and couple in the canopy

Nomadic hunters sporting lip-discs

slash and scar their naked bodies

into beauty

Kamayura artists decorate with paste

crushed from urucu seed and kneaded

bodies needing vivid patterns set in red

Jivaro still hide shrunken heads

of enemies

to keep possession power

Kayapo brandish war cudgels

wooden like their spears dancing

to claim the help of forest spirits

Orchid flowers in waxy languor

lavender and mottled red

with red and yellow throats

linger on a line of stem

groups of brightness here and there

high above the forest floor

Heliconias beaked like parrots or macaws

dangle long their redness and their yellow

Sloths hang beneath a branch

considering slowly if moving is an option

On the Orinoco shanty towns

stilt above the water

sheltering behind canoes

painted startling forest colours

Mud skippers hop around the mangroves

where scarlet ibis gather flapping into air

Silent ghostly giant egret wait for fish

Crocodiles smile smiles of smugness

Manatees float gentle in the water

A goldminer taller than his mule rides

into El Callao

gold hung across the saddle

  

Butterflies drink liquid from the eyes

of yellow spotted side neck turtles

Black piranha dagger teeth at vegetation

Vampire bats poised pig-nosed above

wounds they open

fan gentle wings in frenzy

White Uakari monkeys

apoplectic in the gloom

rest on branches in the shade

like Englishmen in clubs  snoozing

Naked in the river shallows children play

cooling where the water rushes

Jaguar women  wearing whisker-spines

stare beneath black fringes

at human meat

Mayoruna people used to eat

A shaman calls the spirits

to drive the sickness out

as women  bunching herbs near breathing

practice what the shaman claims

Swarming butterflies  twin petals fly

flocking in to fruit  Armadillos work

burrowing  and floating in the water

Where once a wilderness

brought only life

and death to generations of the tribes

where feathers were the wealth

which people took

values forsaken

in a headlong rush to promise

progress into silent forest

Slash and clear to take the best

leaving all the rest as debris

Butterflies and hyacinth macaws

trees to choose the best canoe from

strangler figs without a palm to climb

Herbs and tortoises all die

Cultures vanish into Coca-cola

Anacondas wither in the sun

Arrow-poison frogs are lost

and tiny monkeys taught to die

to leave the human breast alone

For this the priest returns in white

dons his red and spreads his Master's wing

The banker brings his box to fill

The woodsman brings his saw

The doctor brings The Western Way

The Amazon brings its self

25 July 1996 CPR

WWF is Original site of this picture. Please protect our wildlife.

The Watchful Condor

 A darker spec

High above their heads

A condor wheels

And watches their destruction

Where land and water run

Muddy channels each to one

Loggers slash and burn

Miners take the land

Growing grounds are gone

Which by their nature kept

All the jungle live

Trees upon the land

Living ways slide back

Insect – fish and bird

Tree and undergrowth

Animals – the land

Losing endless time

People leave their home

Slowly understand

They’re losing the land

Monkey trees chopped down

Anacondas writhe

Nowhere left for snakes

Shade is gone from land

  

Caterpillars left

With no leaves to eat

Butterflies die off

Nectarless - the land

Stone Age tribes move back

Back against the rock

Jungle grounds hacked out

They’re losing the land

Still the darker spec

High above their heads

A Condor wheels

And watches their destruction

Far across the world

Children such as you

Hear about the loss

Shout about the loss

Learn to stop the loss

And will reclaim the land

?
03 September 2010 CPR



Please protect our wildlife. Click for original site of this picture.

Please protect our wildlife. Click this link for original source of this picture.

Traducing the Art

I don't want to be part of their fashion

to write in a way that will fit

sit tight and pretend

endless learnedness I don't possess

less a part of an Art than a cypher

burdened down with their falsity

tedious tearing destroying the magic of words

-

Birds in the air drawn in flock and in group

swooping the treeline in vistas

dazzling eyesight and teasing the intellect

decked in a fringilous feathery finery

reeling and roaming or romping a tree

renewing the Art with original act

fracturing ego and following flow - racing around as the birds

words fitting spaces

quizzical quirkiness clapped on the back

Cracking a joke with a horse-fly remembered

curdling whoops from a flat-fish

Mission: demanding the right to explore

borders of poesy flourishing flowers

purrs from the catmint

Wintering seeds that were crossed

fostering hope of a flower enormous

mustering perfume to shock and amaze

raising its petals in colour de Triomphe to show

No rhyme must be partner to fashion

spun words can tangentially spread

sedition is part of the Art of a thought

brought to spangle the world with idea

aware of its craftsmanship - wary the same

famous craft is a fashion that stays

brazenly copied - and not very well

spelling out rhyme that won't scan

pandering Shakespeare Byron or Pope

hopelessly driving in boredom away

they who would listen

Sundering ties with the rest of the world

hurled into videos football and money

heedless of poems they don't understand

handing a poet just one final question..

Wondering - when there's no monetary gain

vain as a poet may be

dreaming - as all poets dream - of his fame

maiming his words to appease their strange fashion

running away from original sight

blighting the Art down to cop-out and lie

Why?

6.4.96.CPR

This poem was written as a 'proving poem' in a style and rhyme to protest at those with the tape measures and the rules - but with a dearth of imagination. It is meant to be performed, in a bright lively voice. The line stops are also voice stops

King 1 - Queen 2

12.5.96.


Wath - Queen of Villages - reigned
in her flower garden
her turnip grubbing fields
her pig pens and her byres
subjects tugging forelocks
native speech a country slide
years before the pits
-
When Wigan coalpits died
the King - black in workings underground
emerged in Wath to drag her subjects down
drawing men across the border
sinking them in daylight - or forever
in his pit Blueing them beneath

Sending hunker-squatters back to meet the Queen
pandas taken from her service
surfacing - to let her scrub their backs
remove the black

Men with coal-rimmed eyes
like kohl-brushed houris
in nights slaking dusty stomachs
black-lined heads

Scars blue as Royal Service
internal woad gained by ritual crawling to their workings
The Face - smiling its shining black teeth
sometimes biting tropic-naked bodies
sometimes swallowing them
regurgitating
sometimes swallowing for ever

Wailing whistles in the winding gear
women washing away with tears
service to the King of Coal
tracing the blue on silent faces -
thighs - stilled for ever

Wailing winding-sheets around
Returning them to greet the Queen
resting in her gentle soil

Replaced by sons and sons of sons
The King - voracious in his appetite
whispered that no learning
need come between
infancy and subjugation
A place was kept - lined with money

Slowly danger lessened underground
Machines protected men
Above they wandered in the dark
spoil-heaps - black buildings
blackened bushes - soot-flecked washing
on the line from Wigan

Sulphur clouds as yellow as the sun they masked
Cooling towers producing clouds
reigning over sky-clouds
rolling over men-of-darkness
soaking their sons

The King was growing old
his grip slipping
Wars fought by frightened men
to keep their subjugation
failed
-
The Queen of Villages
rested by her isolation
reclaimed her subjects and her garden
threw green across mountains -
dragged black from underground -
closed cooling-towers and re-invented sky
washed her trees and bushes into blossom in the Spring
cleared the eyes and voices of her singing birds
returned her men from pandahood
moved inside their heads
blowing away the black

Cushioned them richly from poverty
but not from poverty of spirit
Taught hard lessons
Hopeless empty-handedness
Insinuating empty spaces
Acceptance of the need to learn
burning brightly in their pit-pale eyes
etching into sons let loose upon the world