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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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 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...

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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 ...

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    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...

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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...

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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...

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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

        ...

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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

           ...

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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

     ...

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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

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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...

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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...

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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

       ...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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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...

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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...

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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, ...

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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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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...

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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

...

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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...

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