Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction
Writer of Poetry, Screen Plays, Stage Plays & Fiction
Marooned for three years, Ben Gunn was
‘sore for Christian diet’. He dreamt of cheese,
toasted mostly.
Doctor Livesey always had about him
a piece of Parmesan in a snuffbox.
When he heard about the dreams he said,
‘Well, that’s for Ben Gunn!’
But we never find out if the ‘half mad maroon’ savours
the King of Cheeses. Maybe he eats it –
and wishes it were Cheddar.
Note: This poem is a slightly revised version of part of REVELATIONS,
The colour scheme, all of the fittings, even
the rectangular reproduction,
above the bed, of an abstracted landscape
that might be desert or water, sunrise
or dusk reflected in the wardrobe’s mirror
were exact replicas of all those
he had already seen in all the rooms
he had stayed in the centre of cities,
on the edge of towns, at all compass points.
There was always, however, one difference –
the view. Through the sealed, double-glazed window
he could see an empty office block
with one blind still drawn on the sixth floor.
Turning down the steep lane to the strand,
I felt that tightening of the legs and saw
the hedgerows of convolvulus and woodbine
descend serpentine to the wide, empty bay…
…it might be a couple of bars of music,
the way the light falls, a voice in the street,
some words in a book, whatever it might be
it becomes as real, as substantial
as a taste, a smell, a sound, something
that must be made, words that must be written…
In a one storey Gothic-kitsch building
with small steeples – where Abbey Road meets
Mill Street – attached to the Bridge End Hotel,
opposite the pelican crossing,
angled on the corner of Wharf Hill
that leads steeply up to the canal
and, over the narrow, hump-backed bridge,
left to Ysgol Dinas Brân and right
through the sheep fields and onto the hills
there is an eclectic bestiary:
the hare about to box, the barn owl roosting,
the erect meerkat,
‘It is no hero, no ideal, just the industrially reproduced body
of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe.’ Anthony Gormley
They are still standing and their slow carapace
of barnacles breathes. Small pools of eaten
razor clams and star fish lie at their feet – fry
dart amongst seaweed fronds and the dead.
An off shore breeze brings the calls of distant
sea birds close. The RNLI flag stiffens
and plastic kites,
January is like navigating
ice floes – then eventually heading east
for aromatic landfalls, or west
following the setting sun, or south
for the long haul like some latter day Cook,
journeying without guides into foreign parts.
The first port of call is in February.
Love fills the sails, the swell lifts the bow.
We met one July, married one August.
In May our daughter will be fifty one.
The bow lifts in the swell, the canvas fills with love.
INSPIRATION
'ANOTHER PLACE' REVISITED AT LOW WATER
IN CAMERA
'ANOTHER PLACE' REVISITED AT LOW WATER
THE TAXIDERMY