Wales (Remove filter)
Six Nations Time
Six Nations wake from slumber
As winter turns to Spring
For tribal warfare on the pitch
It’s a Celts and Saxons thing
They’ll be singing hymns and arias
From the Tiber to the Tay
And the week feels that much longer
As we wait for Saturday
And the squads are called together
From places far and wide
There will be sunshine and foul weather
There will be shir...
Sunday 21st January 2024 12:42 pm
Uchtryd's Summer Place
In Mariamné's time
What trees would have grown so tall
What was there beyond the garden wall?
When she walked beyond the garden gate
Did she see the river's sudden spate
And did the rustle of a summer breeze
Mask the red kite's call above those trees
And did she hear the Spring birds' calls
Above the echo of Ystwyth's falls
Did she stroll her father's ways
And let the...
Tuesday 4th June 2019 2:39 pm
Ystrad Fflur: Dusk
Who will ever tell or know
the unheard silent echoes
from passing lives laid low:
those ghosts of chanted psalms
once melodious in their praise
lie buried beneath the turf
within walls they helped to raise;
and who can see the cowled monks
whose ghostly whispered prayers
whose canticle or hymn
whispers through the evening's airs -
through the great stone entrance a...
Thursday 18th April 2019 7:51 pm
Evening Light
An almost mystic silence
descends on the lambent, lamb bent,
lamb bobbing fields
as the West sinking sun
leaves an early evening light,
the day has almost passed:
the bright pale green of the new larch buds
the rusty pink brown of the budding almond
the gold of a burgeoning dog wood
are set against
the solid darkness of a solitary fir tree
the soft clouds in a...
Friday 12th April 2019 1:40 pm
JUST ABOUT
JUST ABOUT
After the performance
As grease paint
Is wiped off,
You can just about
Smile into the mirror.
When your costume
Falls to the floor
Uncared for,
You can just about
Step out of it.
And later outside
A closed theatre
In the cool night air,
You can just about
Get over it.
(c) David Subacchi
From his collection 'Wh...
Thursday 7th February 2019 5:33 pm
NOT REALLY A STRANGER
NOT REALLY A STRANGER
I don't know what the right term is
For this kind of tide
It is high but not stormy
Grey flecked with white
Slightly misty, bad tempered
I get the feeling it would like
To burst through the walls
And drown me quietly
I stare through the windows
Of a seafront bistro
Designed to show the bay
At its best to visitors
But the waves ...
Monday 3rd December 2018 6:26 pm
A MAN HOLDING HIS HORSE
A MAN HOLDING HIS HORSE
Poor Dai never got the hang of it,
At school in our first lesson
On art appreciation
We studied
'A Man Holding His Horse'
By George Stubbs.
The teacher issued us
With notebooks
In which to record
Feelings and impressions
Arising from the painting.
Dai wrote...
Wednesday 24th October 2018 10:06 pm
Late September Morn
I, dreamlost,
wake
to golden leaves of beech
sunlit
from my bed
as airdew clouds over the hedge
rise and vanish
as the eastern horizon above the valley
is lost, sunk
beneath dawndrifts of mist
not yet warmed to fade
beneath the clear blue sky;
the uncut grass of the dew-wet lawn,
droplet bent:
cool promise as
I, barefooted,
explore
the cusp of the...
Friday 28th September 2018 7:56 pm
Sky
5th September 2018
Today
on the drive home
the transcendent wonder
of the clear ice blue rimmed with golden pink
and the blackness of trees
horizon silhouettes
and bats
Thursday 6th September 2018 9:28 am
The Invitation
a sonnet
That thou may'st happly spend your day
Fair maid amongst the northern hills
With books and study that will oft defray
Your time and thought in winter's chills;
That there is pleasure 'mongst your shelves
Oh lady in your cottage home
Tis proven by each and everyone who delves
In dusty library vaults to hunt a tome;
That thy bookish studies are good I swear
...Monday 3rd September 2018 9:33 am
Rain
16th July 2018
In places the grass is brown and dry
The garden is a desert of cracked peat
Plants dead and trees about to die
Only my sunflower loves the heat
But this is Wales, yet
nearly all of my bees
have never known these
raindrops
until
today
Monday 16th July 2018 3:22 pm
The Bench
I sit outside the door
on a slate bench
my back against the cottage wall
in the evening sun
listening to a blackbird sing
the most astonishing sweet notes
In front of me
there is elderflower
honeysuckle
buttercups spangle the uncut grass
and the old larch looms in its corner
beyond the ancient stones of Hafod
which mark my plot
The sun has not long returned
...Sunday 24th June 2018 9:22 am
Country file
Lets open up the country file
Lets find a place to go
Get up close to nature
Weather sun or rain or snow
Valley, lake or mountain
There is beauty all around
Yorkshire dale or Lake District
The jewels in Britain’s crown.
Lets get up close to nature
Lets go and explore
On foot or bike or horse back
In land or by the shore
England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales
There...
Saturday 26th May 2018 5:19 pm
All the Years [revision]
In my mind
buried deep
a golden grain
of Welsh
beach
In my mind
our impressions
in the hot sand
where we
lay
It is there
buried deep
that single second
that moment
in which our
minds
...
Friday 4th May 2018 4:19 pm
All the Years
In my mind
buried deep
a golden grain
of Welsh
beach
In my mind
shallow dips
in the hot sand
where we
lay
It is there
buried deep
that single second
that moment
in which our
minds
...
Friday 4th May 2018 11:46 am
Pastoral
For Gwen, Anne and Eryl
In that happy heady grass-green Spring of my years
A time of lambent lamb slow lamb full days around a whited cottage
Lent us space and ease beneath the sun long sky
Golden glorious hours together in a single thought
With close chicken scrape and distant herd
When the swallows dipped to the fly buzz
When the kite climbed to a gliding speck
...
Thursday 22nd February 2018 12:30 pm
Mostly Welsh
I grew up in Wales
Around the Swansea docks
I walked beneath huge cargo ships
Held up with props and blocks
I was made in Wales
Around the southern ports
I watched the big ships dock
My family guessed my thoughts
I was mined in Wales
Near valleys black with slag
And closing pits and picket lines
With many a mine lodge flag
I was forged in Wales
...Tuesday 20th February 2018 1:49 pm
The Man on the Mountain
In the inky winter darkness
A rough track from the lane
Leads upward onto the mountain:
A small glimmer hints at life
and we wonder where we are being led.
Out of the blackness, a dark shape shows in the slight mist
The lights in a window flicker dimly yellow
and the smell of peat smoke drifts down in the still ai...
Saturday 3rd February 2018 1:46 pm
Gower
The sand was always hot
beside the white dunes and the coarse grass
The sea was always blue
between the black rocks and the horizon haze
The beach was always ours
between the seagull shout and the distant crowd
We were always alone
between the far world and our near union
We swa...
Monday 29th January 2018 11:59 am
Above the Valley
As we pass through this Autumn realm,
See the valley bound wraiths of mist
Withdrawing like a tide from the willow
Islands of the marshland
With their starkly black boughed trees
Damply dripping with the mist's remains,
Chill air swirls in the rising breeze, and
Black starlings line the wires beyond a barn
But the red kite in his higher flight
Is lost to sight
...
Wednesday 1st November 2017 2:35 pm
The Traveller
Alf Smith was his name, though, we should remember him
As more than the labourer on a small Welsh farm
Who milked the cows and tended every farmer whim;
Twice daily fitting clusters onto teats and pouring milk to churns,
Taken for collection to stand beside the lane between the ferns.
Twice daily, too, he cleaned the shed with hose and broom
And waited to hear what chores would f...
Saturday 28th October 2017 5:31 pm
I, Ffynnon Drewi of Mynydd Bach
From the mountain
I pour forth
I give you my waters
to drink
and the many words
of my waters
to hear.
My waters have seen
the gathering
on the hill
above the lake
My waters have heard
the prayers
on the grass bank
My waters have known
the worship
in t...
Friday 29th September 2017 12:24 pm
RETROSPECTIVE
i
Innocent
he met a force
Untried
it held him
... and wonder drained the world of substance
re-arranged the pages of his book to give more radiant a reading.
The light of new possibilities
pressed down on time.
The girl sang to him "You can hear the boats go by". He
l...
Saturday 16th September 2017 6:06 pm
Cottage Garden
Much more than half my life ago
Some chance led us to this place;
Now, my heart is caught and held
By the peace of its earth and space.
Some while past, when first she left me
I could not make my soul adjust
But cached it safe within the plot
Beside her memory and her mortal dust.
And as the family aged and spread
My lonely tenancy grew content
Past spectres...
Wednesday 23rd August 2017 10:14 am
Wilderness 2001, 2021
You see
a land wraithed in smoke and the stink of death
You feel
man's determination dulled by desperation and
the hollow, guilty hope that the creeping fate might end
at a neighbour's door.
You cannot farm in the present
At least not in Wales.
The hills were silent memorials to herds brought low,
Uncropped: a tragedy of gr...
Friday 28th July 2017 3:00 pm
Druid Lane
We came upon
A mystic way leading nowhere but the hills.
Floored in leaves, tree roofed, bank-bound
Untrodden but by wanderers for centuries past.
What lay beyond, worthy of such industry?
Perhaps a long forgotten hearth tenured by shepherd or crone.
Or did this tended track pass on to a hilltop way:
Miles now lost to grass and sheep,
A one-time druidic path to some time-er...
Thursday 15th June 2017 4:30 pm
Bluebells
When you can't see the bluebells
There's cleary something wrong
Possibly something terribly wrong
If you miss the bluebells
Your life has passed you by
My favourite flower, my favourite time
Normally waited for, longed for, at winters end
This year only spotted as they hung their heads towards their demise
That too, almost missed
Why so, too much on, tunnelled vision ...
Saturday 20th May 2017 6:49 pm
My Aunt from Wales
Oh my Mair what a day
As you lie peacefully
We gather to pray
No dry eyes here but that's OK
We're here to celebrate a great lady of old school grace
With tales down the ages from son to grandson
Tears built with happiness and heartfelt joy
From the person who's known you since just a small boy
Often thought of as I raced my own race
Snapshots of memories of childhood a...
Friday 19th May 2017 7:50 am
Cariad
Cariad
A word of the heart
Born deep in the being,
resonant with the land's love
Cariad
A word for the soul
Harmonic with soft timbre,
warmed on heart's ember
Cariad
A word from the deep
Breathed only in love -
impossible to deny
Cariad
A word never of the brain
Soft spoke; heart's heat
ea...
Monday 15th May 2017 4:04 pm
Wales
Have you been to Wales I say
Really been to Wales
That mystic land of tales and song
On my doorstep my younger days
No boundaries to get there but a different land
Verdant colours and sounds so still
Sparkling, shifting, summer greens
Autumn hues to confound your eyes
Smells of earth so ancient it shifts your mind
Find your spot to drink it in
Sea, mountain, valley, ...
Saturday 13th May 2017 8:08 pm
Nant Lluest-Fach
Walking, I discover
Hills I never knew in thirty years of passing;
Valleys, deserted, hidden in folds and time:
Mair says once there was a community here
Self contained, sufficient unto itself
Walking, I find
Landscapes we could have seen before, perhaps shared
Their riches, dreamed their past, known their present:
I'm told these Druid hills sing history itself
Sing...
Wednesday 12th April 2017 2:00 pm
Penally Viagra
I went to Penally and,
caught down poems,
from the land, and the sea, and the sky,
A Viagra for the lack of words,
When words from life run dry.
Sunday 29th January 2017 8:59 am
Bags of Shite
Penally beach path
Black plastic dog shit bags,
Strewn with carless abandon
‘Gainst clear, blue sky
And cold, fresh breeze,
A black stain,
Tarnish on the Pembrooke,
beauty ways,
You inconsiderate
selfish, dog shit vandal,
lacking sense,
where sensitivity should engage your being,
Amongst such
elemental wonder.
Monday 23rd January 2017 5:15 pm
Before The Tide
Bright sunshine falls across grass fountains,
Sparkling against the dark green sod,
And dune crakes chorus their fishwife chatter,
Conversation with talking but no listening,
Sweet trill and chaff and coarse, guttural croak,
Pervades the furrowed dunes,
Whilst sea falls in wavelets upon the shore,
At pre-turn flat sea,
Beneath the dark faced island.
Friday 20th January 2017 5:35 pm
Angelsey for sale (2016)
Angelsey for sale,
yes please!
Only wish it could cater for all work and trade
- salary to survive.
Imagine buying some land
and letting go of the world.
Wondering now, why anyone would want to sell up
and leave such an isle of serenity,
except for the jet skis.
Perhaps time is hard and business is bust,
as nuclear power gives way to
Japanese contracts to decommis...
Saturday 20th August 2016 8:47 am
The Couple
They stand,
Hand-in-hand,
In their elder days,
absorbing view of sea, of sky, of sand,
of bird, of wave of weed,
Sky to the horizon,
Looking forward,
Peace, a shroud of the land,
surrounding them,
enshrining them,
At peace together in
their Elder Days.
Monday 23rd May 2016 10:09 pm
A VISITOR IN WALES
I need to be Welsh here
my englishness feels strange
and a kind of mystic guilt of it
hangs heavy, grounded like the rain
washing down from gutters
sleek on slate, self imposed.
I am not of,
not from, and
don't belong and yet
with respect I watch the hunched groups
sharing news, events, what matters
in a finely sifted context
somehow looking in.
I c...
Tuesday 1st March 2016 1:27 pm
Aberaeron (after the storm)
Surging urging, brown, dense molass,
Upheaving through harbour gap,
Foaming deluge broken, unspent,
Over angular boulder castlement,
And with weighty mass continuing on,
To swell and play,
Mongst boats,
In harbour,
Sheltering,
From the upwelling foray.
Sunday 7th February 2016 8:54 pm
HEART OF WALES
HEART OF WALES
Early morning leisure centre
Fresh from the pool
Hospital doctors huddle
Discussing surgical problems
And financial investments
A receptionist smiles
Refusing politely
To disclose the code
For free Wi-Fi. She says
It is for staff only
I buy a cup of tea
After ringing a brass bell
To summon service
Feel time pumping slowly
Through the heart of Wales.
Da...
Monday 8th June 2015 6:14 pm
A wintry landscape
The snow falls in opaque lashings
Over the Welsh hillside
Muddy brown lambs bleat sadly in the dawn-stricken valley
As the wind blows powder down relentlessly.
Straddling the immaculate mountain pass,
A hawk flaps serenely overhead.
Among lonely grey hoof prints on the white ground,
Frozen grass barely twitches in the cool breeze.
As silence and darkness descend,
The time has come to depa...
Wednesday 7th January 2015 3:26 pm
CASTLES
CASTLES
On wet afternoons
We pay to visit
The English castles
Grim towers of stone
Ditches of defence
Arrow slits above
Fortified gateways
Charities now care
For their maintenance
Count the children’s coins
Provide guided tours
Sell home-made chutney
We wonder around
Tugging Welsh forelocks
Before these ruins
...
Sunday 21st July 2013 9:51 pm
BARDI REVISITED
BARDI REVISITED
The road is better now
Climbing from Fornovo
Leaving behind the river
And the valley’s flatness
It’s surface is smoother
Than the winding track
That stirs my memory
At a certain point
The driver pulls over
Waiting for a colleague
To arrive on the down bus
After they exchange places
Our ascent continues
Towards B...
Sunday 23rd June 2013 4:56 pm
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