cymer

Posted on by celfypridd

cymer, a confluence of two rivers.   if  one ran different, if each thought  were deeper.   tide pools,   north and south, the moon fills and the current stops a while.   our  river …

Source: cymer

Memories of Vigils

Posted on by celfypridd

 

Listening to Rachmaninov’s Vespers at Christmas

brought you back into my thoughts from those days

when you were fifteen and expecting your first child.

 

And you were too frightened to fall asleep

so I sat up with you and whiled away the night hours,

playing cards and telling you those old stories.

 

Night after night from December through to March

of what it was like to grow up in the village as a child

and as we talked  the boys would slide into your room

 

Instead of prowling the streets and alleys like wolves

blowing their heads off with petrol, gas and glue

and they listened too and laughed as I told you

 

Of places I’d been to and those Manhattans night views,

of exploring the walkways and hidden stairs and floors

explorations of Grand Central Station in the early hours

 

Of that quiet time before dawn when the night crew

sat around yawning or folded asleep at their desks.

The crazy stories of the village and old Digger Young

 

and his fight to get away from the awakening dead

And the boys soon fell asleep on the floor but you

sat up wanting more of those childhood stories .

 

More of the kind that made you laugh you said.

And you told me your stories too, of North Wales

and the homes and what you had been through.

 

And you cried now and then. And asked do you

believe me? Do you believe what I’ve said they did?

And I told you I did. I believed you. You cried again.

 

And then you said quietly I think I can sleep now.

And then one night you looked at me and said

I must be bad for those men to treat me like that

 

In the way that they did. And you asked me

“Do you think I’m bad? I mean really bad?”

Is there a sign on my head that says about me

 

Anyone can do whatever they want with me.

I told you that there are bad men and yes

they do bad things and they did that to you.

 

But what they did didn’t make you bad at all

it says more about them than it says about you.

And then you told your story over and over again

 

to the social workers, their managers and the police.

And they decided you and the rest were just lying

and through the nights that followed I listened

 

to your anger and the pain of feeling betrayed again

and again and again and again and again and again.

Years later you wrote a letter saying you remembered.

Journeying

Posted on by celfypridd

Journeying.

 

We talked into the early hours

and as it often does time lapsed

and at times like this and these

with such warriors of the first degree

words, rhymes and craft merge

and in the darkness we looked out

on that familiar ancient town

and knew  it’s other name Caer Eden

and I told you of the Gododdin

and of Caertreth and of the fallen.

From a height on the Royal Mile

you told me that you’d watched

my eyes and you’d began to realise

that I didn’t blink and I’ve thought

about that since and found

that I blinked whenever I thought

about it and when I considered you.

We sat in the old café drinking tea

such a sad demise for a braachi

the coffee baristas from Baardi

has gone and what has been left

an exhibit polished and shined

just like your words of Caroline

that sing song way you have

of bending the blue note

the way of poets and players

of the blues and duende too.

I followed Garcia Lorca

in New Jersey and understood

the horror of Rahway

but that was then and this is now.

and I am proud to know you.