In this week's 'Western Mail', under the heading 'Access For All' Merthyr's absentee AM ( he lives in Penarth and sends his children to school there) and Heritage Minister Huw Lewis outlines his views on the state of the arts in Wales.
   Echoing fellow Labourite Prof. Dai Smith, Chair of the Welsh Arts Council,
he uses the National Theatre and ,in particular, their production of 'The Passion', as a symbol of this inclusivity.
   Lewis has seldom championed the arts in Merthyr Tudful and his only real contribution was the advocacy of the Theatre Royal as a venue as opposed to the Soar Chapel, which actually became one!
   Outside Merthyr, he has taken scant interest in the fight to save the Dylan Thomas Centre as Cymru's only regular literature venue, or, equally significantly, to save Gwent Theatre and other theatre in education groups such as Theatr Powys and Spectacle from the Arts Council's axe.
   When I confronted Prof. Smith about this destruction of theatre in education, he merely pointed out that he would sooner have a National Theatre any day ; as though the choice were inevitable.
   Now, I would sooner have both and the money to come from finance wasted on the monarchy and armed forces, or even spending less on elitist opera. However, given the choice, I would claim that theatre in education makes art far more accessible, especially to the very young people Huw Lewis claims to prioritise.
   Certainly, as Lewis implies, productions like 'The Passion' gave the people of Port Talbot a genuine sense of involvement and focus for a few days.
   However, this was temporary and could even be compared to Michael Heseltine's infamous Garden Festivals. One such was  created at Ebbw Vale, of course, and its lasting legacy is an estate of new houses and a retail park!
   Compared to groups like Gwent Theatre, who developed impressively over years of hard work, the approach of the National Theatre is akin to an arts invasion force made up of local boys made good (Michael Sheen), huge rock bands willing to mutilate their own songs for the overall concept (The Manics with 'Design For Life') and the predicatably safe Owen Sheers to devise a script which often sounded laughably absurd.
   Gwent Theatre and their ilk, however, represented a commitment to schools and communities over a long period and if Lewis argues that the arts needs 'access for all', then he should be planning a scheme to resurrect theatre in education, only this time on a Wales-wide basis.
   The National Theatre may be commendably experimental in form, but it is also  extremely conventional in content. It would have been more daring to have used a version of 'The Passion' story which made analogies between Dic Penderyn and Christ, both martyrs of course.
   I doubt very much that Lewis knows what's happening in the arts. It's all very well saying that Treorci is more important than the Millennium Centre, but venues like the Parc and Dare rely almost entirely on outside acts to bring the revenue in.
   His idea of the arts is to bring opera to a converted chapel, while what is needed is a more community-based and dynamic policy.
   Now, not only do we need theatre in education groups throughout Cymru, but residencies at these, whereby dramatists can work with local groups , doing workshops and putting on productions. This happened very successfully in the past, with playwrights like Charles Way and Greg Cullen at Gwent and Powys respectively.
   I've concentrated on drama simply because that was Lewis's focus, but in literature much greater access should be encouraged through a series of Young People's Litfests, such as the one organised in Merthyr last year, when many schools took part in a day of workshops and readings.
   Lewis's twin interests in opera and Shakespeare merely illustrate his elitist view of the arts.
   What will the next National Theatre project be? 'Macbeth' in Merthyr written in Valleys dialect? Well, second thoughts, that might be........
   Interestingly, he states - ' But we want organisations to know we are standing by them during this very difficult period.'
   So why didn't he intervene to save the likes of Gwent Theatre and the Dylan Thomas Centre?
   His claim about 'access for all' is pure spin : it has no substance without
clear policies which will have a lasting affect.
   As in the past, Labour's philosophy is one of giving the people what is good for them, not involving people to devise their own creations. This top-down, Stalinist mentality has barely changed since the days of Bethesda Arts Centre in Merthyr, when they refused to support it and turned it into a Job Club.
   The arts are happening now despite, rather than because of the Minister's encouragement, yet groups and individuals are feeling the impact of the Cuts and receiving negligible backing. He's full is talk, but has failed to act.

   I offer the following poem to show there's more to Valleys' culture than opera in church halls........yes, there's KFC!



                              EWMAN  ADVERT

I woz standin at-a bus stop
right by-a KFC
bastin an bakin in-a smell
of chicken fat an chip oil,
waitin f’r a number 9 t Irwin.

The low mornin sun
woz shinin straight at me,
my jacket starts cracklin,
it wuz ot as an oven,
my arms like two drumsticks.

When-a bus come
I couldn wave it down,
I woz totelee paralyzed!
A sign cross my t-shirt read –
‘Colonel Sanders Needs You’
like an army recrewtment poster.

I tried t speak t passin people
an on’y come out with en noises;
theyer dog saluted is leg
an pisses all over my jeans.

The reek ad got inta my bones,
my nose a parson’s,
my skin nothin but breadcrumbs.

‘Ee looks delicious! I’d love t eat im!’
some kids shout, poking
an proddin t make me cluck.

Then, sudden as it ud appened,
the wind changes direction,
clouds cover up-a sun
an rain dampens down the stinkin air.

A free man agen, I forget Irwin
an wing back up the ill
like some petrified chicken
about t ave its throat slit
an its guts bagged in plastic.

 

   Ers dwy a hanner o flynyddoedd dw i’n wedi bod yn mynd i ddosbarth Cymraeg yn y YMCA Hirwaun.

   Mae’r athrawes Sue Jenkins yn gyfeillgar ac amyneddgar iawn. Mae Sue yn dod o Hirwaun ac yn siarad llawer  am ei theulu yn y dosbarth.

  Mae’r rhan fwyaf o bobol yna yn dod o Aberpennar ac fi yw’r unig dyn!

   Yn y dechrau, roedden ni’n astudio lefel Sylfaen, ond nawr dyn ni’n astudio lefel Canolradd 2 ; hefyd, rydyn ni’n darllen y llyfr ‘Tocyn Lwcus’ gan Bob Eynon bob wythnos. Mae’r storiau yn eitha da, ond tipyn teimladol yn fy marn i.

   Dw i’n wrth fy modd yn darllen llyfrau Cymraeg, yn arbennig barddoniaeth  ac y storiau gan Lois Arnold. Fy hoff lyfr ydy ‘E-Ffrindiau’ gan Lois Arnold ac ar hyn o bryd dw i’n mwynhau  y nofel ‘Pwy Sy’n Cofio Sion?’ gan Mair Evans.

   Bydd rhai o bobol yn y dosbarth yn sefyll yr arholiad o ddiwedd y cwrs ond nid fi, oherwydd dw i eisiau canolbwyntio ar rhwybeth arall.

   Fy uchelgais i ydy ysgrifennu llawer o farddoniaeth diddorol yn Gymraeg .Llynedd  helpodd Sue fi wrth ysgrifennu cerdd ar gyfer  y gadair yn  Eisteddfod y Ddysgwyr, Rhondda-Cynon-Taf.  Enw fy ngherdd oedd ‘Croesi’ ond, yn anffodus, doeddwn i ddim yn ennill.

   Sut bynnag, roedd y cerdd wedi cael ei gyhoeddi yn y cylchgrawn ‘Lingo’ ac roeddwn i’n  gyffrous.

   Gobeithio bodmwy o hyder gyda fi nawr i siarad a ysgrifennu Cymraeg, ac diolch o galon i Sue am ei gwersi frwdfrydig.

   Ysgrifennais i ‘r cerdd syml hon am fy mamgu ; teisen crwn oedd fy hoff teisen erioed!

                                               TEISEN  CRWN

Teisen Mamgu,
teisen teulu,
ond ble mae’r rysait nawr.......
ydy e wedi diflannu?

Edrych fel olwyn,
arogl fel rhosyn,
blas fel menyn,
llawn o afalau,
teisen teulu,
teisen Mamgu.

Brown fel y tir,

dw i’n cofio ‘n glir

fy Mamgu yn brysur

gyda blawd a siwgar.

Eisiau cofio y swyn unwaith eto,

y hud yn ei dwylo,

ei  gariad wrth bobi,

teisen teulu,

teisen Mamgu.

   This week I decided to re-join Plaid Cymru. As someone highly critical of reformist politics and who believes that ultimately only a revolution (albeit a peaceful one) can truly alter our bankrupt system, this was a major step.
   I joined previously in the mid-80s after the demise of the Welsh Socialist Republicans and before the formation of Cymru Goch and , then again, more recently in support of my daughter Bethan's bid to be reselected as an A.M. Her politics, like those of Jonathan Edwards MP, Lindsay Whittle and Adam Price , are very similar to my own.
   This time I am taking an equally pragmatic approach and joining to vote for Leanne Wood in the impending leadership battle and also to help with her campaign. I have been told that there has been a 10% rise in membership in recent months and I sincerely hope that is a desire to back Leanne , rather than stop Lord Elis-Thomas, the George Thomas of Plaid Cymru, who doesn't support independence and is constantly sycophantic towards the monarchy.
   Leanne Wood's politics are remarkably similar to my own. She is indefatigably internationalist in outlook, believing as I do , that each country must struggle to create their own individual form of socialism according to their history and culture.
   She believes in a decentralised socialism which Plaid have actually espoused since the 80s, but never actually carried out or indeed advocated strongly. The importance of cooperatives is fundamental to this and so too is the land bank she has suggested in her excellent 'Greenprint for the Valleys'.
   Leanne Wood is a politician for the future and her ideals are not steeped in that Stalinist obsession of so-called Old Labour, with their certainty that their party knew what the people wanted and duly imposed it on them.
   What Ms. Wood proposes is much closer to the 'Extreme democracy' outlined so prophetically by Cymru Goch's Tim Richards in the 1980s and 1990s; the non-hierarchical organisation of industries and services, whereby management is totally accountable and subject to recall if it doesn't represent the workers.
   Wood's vision for the Valleys in her 'Greenprint' could easily be applied to the whole of Cymru. It is for a sustainable future based on non-fossil fuel energy and we certainly have ample resources in Wales to make this realistic , in terms of hydro-electric power especially.
   Her consistently socialistic outlook means that Wood does not see independence as achievable in isolation. Independence is an mere illusion without the people of Cymru taking control of their economic destiny, with ownership of water, wind power and railways just a starting-point. How can we achieve independence when multi-national companies retain a grip on the economy, pulling out and leaving whole communities to suffer? Moreover, being exploited by Welsh capitalists means no greater freedom for our people.
   As my friend and comrade Tim Richards once stated 'Nationalism is a position and not an ideology'. Therefore, to attain genuine independence our future cannot be determined by shareholders, bankers, or the IMF. Ireland is surely the classic example of a country which has achieved only 'pseudo- independence': not just because of the partition of the six counties against the expressed will of the majority in Ireland, but because of its adherence to neo-liberal solutions, meaning that it has been prey to the vagaries of capitalism whoever has been in power.
   The other condition for genuine independence must be a republic. How can Cymru possibly claim to be its own country, whilst still bearing allegiance to the English Crown, which is indeliably associated with past wars, the Empire and the continuation of the class system?
   Ms. Wood is the only candidate for Plaid's leadership who has been consistently republican in her stance. She was once ejected from the Senedd for referring to E. Windsor as 'Mrs Windsor' and, with Bethan Jenkins and Lindsey Whittle refused to attend the Assembly when she visited last year.
   Leanne Wood has the determination and idealism to keep to her beliefs despite antipathy from the lickspittle media and, indeed, she has developed her ideas over the years to meet the changing situation.
   She has always backed the trade unions in their struggles against the recalcitrant ConDem Government while many other politicians, from both Plaid and Labour , have either been ambiguous in their support or downright condemnatory.
   I believe she represents an exciting future for Plaid Cymru and , like myself, she is a Welsh learner, who feels passionately about the language and the need for equal status in all areas, both public and private.
   In the end, I do not believe that one politician can make a huge difference and perhaps Leanne Wood would agree on this. It is surely about empowering the people and giving them confidence through meaningful jobs and daily participation in the running of the system at all levels.
   Coming from the Rhondda, she will know that there are many people outside the trade union movement and totally disillusioned with all politics, who must be given hope. Every day this Government are creating more and more of such people: graduates who can't get work, skilled workers made redundant and, above all, youngsters who don't even see a glimmer.
   George Monbiot has backed Leanne, calling her 'the Welsh Caroline Lucas'. Yet , she is very much her own person and not an imitation and if she were to become leader of Plaid Cymru then Prof. Gwyn Alf Williams's vision of the party as a real force for change will begin to take shape. 





                              People  Are  Falling


Every week people are falling
in this place of heavy history ;
not wooden sticks nor metal walkers
can help as they crumble down.

Every week others are calling
at some kind of emergency,
by cafes where smokers sit outside
blowing into a bitter breeze.

Every time they’re taken away
you wonder if they’ll ever return
to this town of chimney-trees
and smashed-glass empty factories.

Every fall’s another reminder
of how we once thought proud :
the pick and the furnace fire,
steam that turned the wheels around.

Every pavement’s seen a casualty
yet no-one acknowledges the war :
the rich are living like Generals,
the fallen are troops of the poor.

   In last Saturday's 'Western Mail' there was a photographic supplement entitled 'Pictures from the Past - part 3'. One shows the children's paddling pool at the seafront, Aberystwyth, in 1957 and I'm convinced I'm in it.   It must be a real sign of aging that I'm featured in such nostalgia, but four years old it looks like me, on the edge of the pool and gazing down to the beach (which is probably where I want to be).
   In the foreground I can only see the back of a woman who could well be my grandmother, or' Nanny' as we would call her. That made sense : no sign of my parents!
   If their marriage was collapsing, I wasn't particularly aware of it then. In retrospect, I can deliberate about the fact they never embraced, never seemed to kiss even and , most strangely, that there were two 'uncles' who bought us presents.
   One of those 'uncles' lived just down the road and the other in Swansea and my mother would take shopping trips to that city and return with a jar of sweets, a rarity.
   It also seems astonishing now that my father never became aware of this, or perhaps he did and we didn't know the resulting tensions and frustrations.
   It's not as if there were constant arguments in the house. My mother was an expert at 'putting on a show'. Once prominent in local AmDramatics, she used all her acting skills in personal situations and showed few emotions. This was the case even when my father stripped to his underpants and leapt onto the kitchen table, spitting and fuming abuse.
   When I was very young it was my dad who cared more for me and it was he who came to my bedside when I couldn't sleep and cried out, gently smoothing my head.
   With my mother, we three children grew up believing we were 'responsibilities' rather than loved ones. It didn't surprise me when, years later, I discovered that I was a mistake, the product of a burst condom.
   Perhaps, even as a sperm, I was a determined and rebellious little sod!
   When we moved to England with my father's job as an agricultural officer, my mother soon found a way to raise money by taking in a lodger.
   She interviewed all the candidates assiduously and I think she had a set of criteria which few could possibly meet. Eventually, she chose the one who, a decade after, would become my step-father.
   After losing his post in the Civil Service for panning out his boss, my mother encouraged my father to re-train as a librarian. He went away to college, leaving my mother to dote on the lodger, who became the resident 'uncle'.
   Their separation was sudden and a shock to my father, who was suddenly stuck in a bedsit in the city at the beginning of a new career.
   To my mother, on the other hand, it was a long time coming. Both of them were totally self-obsessed, but my father's mental illness and his treatment of my sister had made him impossible to live with.
   Their separation was a great relief to me. I had no desire to see my father, who had long since stopped playing a part in my life ( though I had to visit him once a week by law). Whenever I stayed with him I was constantly wary of his explosive nature.
   My mother carried on seeing that lodger surreptiously, while my father had a few affairs which weren't serious.
    Despite my relief, I was still affected by the disturbances in my life and by the way my mother sought to use me as a spy,to collect data on my father's liaisons. He saw her as 'poisoning my mind'.
   I believe he held out some hope she would return and , amazingly, never seemed to suspect the lodger. I recall one time we walked by the River Cam and he implored me to ask her, on his behalf, to come back to him.
   At school, I changed from being a studious pupil to a very stroppy one and I'm surprised I learnt anything in my first years at Grammar. One teacher, our football trainer who had known my brother, did offer to help. I appreciated it, but couldn't talk to him.
   As I grew older I formed an unofficial club with other boys in school of those with divorced or separated parents and parents staying together 'for the children's sake'. We would debate the issues and that certainly helped at a time when divorce wasn't so common.
   Like my siblings, I soon discovered the need for an alternative family. Without my girlfriend's family in their council house in Cambridgeshire, I think I'd have turned out a complete delinquent. I was taken in as a second son.
   Of course , I thought she was utterly gorgeous : even played footie, loved the Small Faces, read Barstow and Braine ( though she was Sec. Mod to my Grammar) and , above all, could out-snog all the village girls. Her family became my surrogate one and I soon learnt to talk in their burry, rolling accents.
   Divorce was a messy business then and despite my mother being the one who'd left and was having an affair, it was my father who had to undergo the humiliation of private detectives interrupting one of his casual meetings, to capture the evidence.
   It's only with time that I have become aware how deluded and also manipulated my father was in that predicament. My mother should probably have left him before I was born, but then I wouldn't be here staring at that photo in the newspaper and wondering what was going through my little head.

   The poem below is about a very good friend whose relationship has finally ended, though they have been separated for years. She has moved to the next valley, but it might as well be another planet.  


                                      I'M  A  DEAD MAN!

She've left
she've gone
to er I'm a dead man

we lived close by,
teatimes together
an now Aberdare

might jest as well
be Australia
f'r all she cares

I paint, do collages
end up changin them black,
end up burnin them up

all them yers
f'r what?
no kids 

carn even play
my mewsic no more,
I sol the television

tha Clinic turned er
against me an I even
paid f'r er t be there

too many voices
when she shoulda slept,
it woz er father fucked er up

now I'm left t regret
I couldn be er child an usband :
I'll ave a fewnral for myself

I'll drink till my ead's a canvas
stretched an ready f'r-a brush :
but my ands shake.....nothin comes.

   Years ago, every Boxing Day, huntsmen and women would gather outside the local pub in all their finery to drink the finest liquor, before riding off on a hunt over the Waun at the back of my house.
   There were few villagers present and this hunt has now gone, with nobody mourning its passing.
   I have lived in the countryside (though close to the urban environment in Merthyr) for most of my life : the village of Penparcau near Aberystwyth, in Horseheath then Whittlesford in Cambridgeshire and for the last 32 years in Heolgerrig.
   When we hear shooting disturbing the peace on a Sunday, it is Clay Pigeon shooters at the farm over by the forestry. I'd far sooner the clay variety and any real birds, despite the noise pollution!
   My own experience of rural life has been largely contrary to the picture created by Labour MP Kate Hoey , the chair of the Countryside Alliance and her predominantly right-wing supporters. It bears out a recent survey that 70% of people  in the country are not supportive of fox-hunting.
   In Penparcau, there was certainly some fishing going on, but most of the poaching was from fruit trees! Poached pears maybe! In Horseheath, the only form of hunting I encountered was 'rabbiting' , where local lads would follow combine harvesters with sticks and attempt to club to death any rabbits who ran into the open. I joined them one day and and saw more wasps killed than rabbits!
   Now in Heolgerrig the hunt has gone and foxes can run free. I have rarely spotted them, but when I have I've been awe-struck by their unique movement and flash of ruddy-brown; following their instincts for hunting over the rough terrain.
   It's their world, but it's our choice. And we can choose between destroying beauty or valuing it.
   In all the years I've taught I have seldom come across pupils who have taken part in hunts. One girl, however , was very enthusiastic and described vividly to the class how she was 'blooded' in an initiation ceremony, where the fox's brush was smeared across her face after it had been cut off. The class were horrified!
   Of course, there are serious problems with the legislation passed under the last Labour Government. There are far too many loopholes which the hunters can readily exploit. If Labour had been truly committed to banning fox-hunting then it would have been party policy and not a free vote where the likes of Hoey can rebel.
   What is required is an act outlawing all fox-hunting, in the same way that other brutal so-called 'blood sports' such as badger baiting have been criminalised .
   On Boxing Day there were 270 hunts with 91 foxes slaughtered. Most hunts operated legally, but some did not. Did the police try to enforce the law on this? No, they did not!
   People can be jailed for first offences after the riots merely for posting messages on Facebook or receiving stolen goods, but there is no way the police are going to take on the forces of the Establishment who regularly snub the law in this way.
   Cameron has pledged his desire to repeal the act and for there to be a free vote. He uses the complexity of the law as a pretext.
   Hoey's Countryside Alliance talks about 'pride for rural communities' yet this is fundamentally a class question. The majority of hunts are organised for the wealthy by the wealthy; a load of posh toffs showing off, just as the Royal Family do with their tradition of hunting.
   Mrs Windsor may be the patron of the RSPCA, but that doesn't stop her family from shooting birds  at their Sandringham estate on Boxing Day. What a shame Philip Windsor couldn't join them!
   If I were to do a leftie version of Jeremy Clarkson, I'd say we should be hunting them down and not the innocent animals they kill for no other reason than their so-called 'fun'.
   If the right-wing Countryside Alliance actually cared about rural matters, then it would address the real problems : the terrible transport services, the poverty, closure of shops and post offices and depopulation of the young especially.
   In Cymru, this still has many consequences, as young people leave the countryside for work and affordable housing. The Welsh language dies in these areas as a generation moves away.
   In my own village there is the constant threat of opencast mining and the fact that the whole of the Waun could be decimated by the greed for cheap power-station coal.
   Those foxes, like so many other wild animals, are a vital contact with the land and whenever we catch glimpses of them it's an insight into a wild world ( think I'm quoting Cat Stevens!) which exists so close to our houses.
   Long may that world thrive. Most villagers look out on the Waun or walk over its long grass and reed-clumps and do not want it invaded by hunters on horses, armies of the rich who think the land belongs to them.

   The following poem is about the sighting of a fox when I was teaching at Radyr Comp. near Cardiff. Amazingly, I was sitting reading Chaucer's 'Pardoner's Tale' ( in which a fox plays an important part) when I spotted him.


                              Fox in the School

Out of the staff room window
I see a fox stealthing
along the drive to the school entrance.

I am reading Chaucer
and so wonder, is he ‘daun Russell’,
a figment of my studying?

But he (or she) is so wintery,
so city-brushed with grey,
so unlike any choleric dream,
that I know he’s real
and heading for Reception
as if for an appointment.

I fancy him the guardian
of one of our slyest customers,
but then dismiss the stereotype.

He seems to sense my spying
and runs away, low and fearful
towards a gap in the fence.

I resume my reading, knowing
that fox will not be out-witted,
avoiding, as he did, any crowing man.

   I think I almost discovered the Higgs boson subatomic particles which the Smiley One is busy searching for in Switzerland with the Large Hadron Collider.  
   Almost. Like him. A single peak. Not enough evidence however.
   It wasn't during my 21st birthday celebrations in Aberystwyth, when I hitched a ride on a stolen tipper truck after falling in a ditch and sped dow Bronglais Hill.
   No, it was the Zen experience described in the poem following this, because there is something strangely akin to Zen Buddhism about the search for the so-called 'god particle'.
   At Aber Uni, in my third year and whilst still a trainee anarchist, reading 'Black Flag' and dreaming of fighting Franco (still in power in Spain), I immersed myself in Zen. Much of my poetry dealt with it, only to the extent that any mind-matter can approach something outside all reasoning.
   At one stage, I was so involved that I seriously considered not doing my final exams at all! Even my mother, famously indifferent to the plight of her offspring, advised me against this.
   It was undoubtedly a reaction to too much analysis and not enough creativity. The more I delved into literature, the less I knew and like Steinbeck in the 'Sea of Cortez', I wanted to find a vital link between everything in the universe. I was nothing if not ambitious!
   It appeared that whilst outwardly demonstrating the world as 'a grain of sand' and pointing to an existentialist absurdity of all human struggle in the face of mortality, ultimately it didn't depend on emptiness, but an energy which filled the void.
   The quest for the Higgs boson and that energy field which could have formed the universe - running through all matter - is remarkably similar to the aims of Zen.
   The one major difference is that through Zen you can plug into this energy, a spiritual force : by meditation you can reach outside the confines of the human mind and all its theories.
   It is an important difference, of course, but one which excites me ( giving me a smile like Prof. Cox ). Could our knowledge ever actually pinpoint this invisible energy field in the way that Zen can, in a single moment of enlightenment (the 'Mu' of the poem below)?
    As an atheist intrigued by spiritual journeys, I would still veer towards the sheer thrill of scientific discovery, but that we must never believe we can capture the Ultimate Truth.
   Religions believe they possess this Truth and Zen is no different, though it defies any book to do so. I think it's more humble to accept that we are in a constant state of doubt (does that make me an agnostic?).
   Christmas brings to the fore this tension between spiritual significance and materialism. Like Gruff Rhys of the Super Furries, who has just released an 'Atheist Xmas' ep, I would say that Christmas has long ceased to have much spiritual significance.
   While I do enjoy it as a time of family and of food and drink, even that is tempered by my vegetarian reaction to all those turkeys slaughtered needlessly.
   I have definitely been a pain this year, saying things like - 'If I were a Christian, I'd have nothing to do with it! The commercialism has destroyed the message.' It's nothing new, but every year the shopping frenzy seems to get more fraught.
   And on a wider scale, I can't help but thinking of those who are poor and who will get into terrible debt trying to buy what they have always bought, at a time of such deep recession.
   If I were to pursue a spiritual life then Zen would be the way. My friend Alwyn, the subject of my poem in 'Moor Music' called 'Peacetime Yossarian'
always claimed to be a Zen Buddhist, but then would get pissed on Belgian beer and go to sleep up a tree!
   I'm not sure I could deny myself those pleasures which would be necessary to live that religion properly, because surely the meaning of Buddhism is that the inner and outer lives must tally.
   The LHC may never prove the existence of an energy field which has filled a vacuum, the very source of our being, and the Higgs boson may only be a signpost towards it.
   We will never know everything and praise be for that!


                                  SEARCHING  FOR  ZEN

I read 'Zen Flesh, Zen Bones'.
I liked those stories, like the one
about the thief caught stealing from the monk,
when the monk declared - 'You forgot to take the moon!'

At least, that's how I remember it.
I didn't own a lot,
but would've fought anyone
to keep my record collection.

I didn't like the way those monks
beat their pupils into enlightenment:
the opposite of meditation defying all logic.

Those puzzles turned themselves inside out ,
ended up insisting - 'We are only words
after all, part of the illusion.'
But there I was, reading about Zen
to find out its meaning!

The moment of truth came
when I decided to consult Al Green
who was resident Zen guru
in the Old Union Lounge,
smoked what he called 'herbal tobacco',
drew cartoons of Diogenes
for our underground magazine.

'Al?' I asked ( at his feet, like a disciple,
thinking about Bodhidharma and his long trek),
'Al.........what is the essence of Zen?'
Long pause. Stroking of moustache and beard.
Puffing out of perfumed smoke.

'Mu!' he went, like a soft-lowing cow.
Only that. No-thing. Beyond............

   'The birds are the keepers of our secrets' sings Guy Garvey on Elbow's latest album 'Build A Rocket Boys'.   I've read many poems about birds which have had a profound effect on me, many by Ted Hughes and R.S.Thomas, but there are few songs about our avian friends which do likewise.
   Elbow's is certainly one, with its changing perspectives and two very different versions : I actually prefer the reprise sung by one John Moseley, as it's so unusual to hear such an aging voice on a rock song and one which fits so well with the reflective subject-matter.
   Few songs about birds have stayed with me, though 'Blackbird' by The Beatles is an exception. Walking home late at night last week I heard a blackbird singing mellifluously. Immediately, that song sprang to mind and filled my head for the long trek uphill, with its remarkable words about the healing qualities of the birdsong.
   Unlike my brother , I am no twitcher. While he travels the world in search of rare and interesting birds ( recently, a kiwi in the wild in New Zealand) and can identify any by song or call, I am an amateur watcher.
   However, they have played a constant and vital role in my poetry, from my early 'Martins' right up to 'Birds On High Wires' (most certainly finches) from my latest book 'Moor Music'.
   They also play an important role in Welsh 'idiomau' and the work I've written in conjunction with Merthyr artist Gus Payne is full of them. Just one example is 'Gwyn y gwel y fran ei chyw' ( 'the hen crow sees her chick as white'), where Gus's painting shows monkeys taking over a house, my prose-poem describes a mother who, like a 'hen bird' can see no wrong in her delinquent son, even when he ends up in prison!
   Birds have told so much about the changing nature of this country; revelators rather than 'keepers of secrets'. Kingfishers have returned to our once blackened rivers, but  sadly I've not witnessed them. However, I have regularly seen the still and elegant herons and the cormorants at Radyr Weir, messengers of the water clarity and the proliferation of fish there.
   I'm always thrilled and astonished to  notice red kites flying so close to major roads as you cross Cymru. This threatened breed seems symbolic of our nation itself, which has been saved from the brink of extinction, both politically and culturally.
   And now, as early as five in the evening, when the sky's less cloudy and under a clearer moon, I often hear owls making their 'gwdihw' sound
( Welsh-speaking owls, of course!). Their calls reminding of the wild hunting-grounds of the Waun, how precious it is and how it must never be destroyed for  an opencast mine.
   Sometimes there are rare visitors, like Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, feeding at our garden oak for a moment. We have had homing pigeons who have used the garage roof as a stopover hotel and even one tamed jackdaw who would talk to you and land on your arm. I enjoy watching our regulars, like the pair of nuthatches who eat peanuts upside down like a couple of Antipodean headbangers!
   On my travels I've always been on look-out for birds.
   Everywhere in Japan there were black kites and in Hiroshima I saw footage of the scenes after the  atom bomb was dropped. Above the devastation I could make out those same kites, circling like vultures.
   I have had a few scrapes with birds as well in my time, but mostly from a distance. I've been shat on by a seagull in Scotland, rook in Ireland and a pigeon with the runs in Cardiff! None brought me luck! Especially not the last one , as I had to buy a new pair of jeans the damage was so great!
   When trapped they can be terrifying creatures. I have managed to coax quite a few out of our garage, but my most petrifying Hitchcockian experience was when we lived in the Rhymney valley. Starlings got into the house when we were out and I returned home to the sight of them, perched at several windows, staring out as though the house was theirs. My wife refused to enter till I'd cleared the place and it took me ages of flapping ,fluttering and sheer panic to persuade them out of openings.
   When I wrote the poem below I couldn't  help but recall the man on the beach in Wales who was blinded in one eye by the injured gannet he'd picked up to try and rescue ( it had panicked because of his dog).
   This seagull seemed more street-wise than anything ( well, platform-wise at least).
   Anyone else got strange bird tales?


                                    KAIRDIFF  CENTRAL SEAGULL

I've never felt threatened by a seagull before,
but this one's got 'STREET'
written along its beak,
which suddenly looks sharp
as a Stanley knife.

I wouldn't be surprised
by its swagger and attitude
if it wasn't into NWA or Tupac.

It eyes up my food
as if it already owns it
and I recall those stories of seabirds
snatching pasties or putting eyes out.

Those days spent by Aber pier
throwing crusts to balletic birds
seem a century away,
this creature's Kairdiff Central
born and bred, could pick
a packet from the rails
just before the inter-city's in.

It struts around me :
I am surrounded by a single bird!
Its pupils are two barrels
aiming straight at my cheese and celery.

I gulp the sandwich whole
like a heron with a fish.
Bro Seagull saunters off
to mug a kid with a burger
    

   There have been unprecedented, widespread mourning and tributes (notably in football circles) to Wales manager Gary Speed. By all accounts, he was a much loved and respected man and these are fitting.   However, a massive question-mark remains: why did he commit suicide when so much in his public life seemed to be going well? Only that day he'd spoken on Football Focus about the future of Welsh football and even the most cynical of fans could only agree with his optimism.   It's not just about stars like Bale, Bellamy and Ramsey, but the achievements of the team to play as a unit with a system which suited them to perfection. This should be seen as one of Speed's greatest legacies.
  Why did it happen? Nobody has referred to bouts of depression, so we can only assume something truly terrible was happening in his personal life; something which may never be revealed. Perhaps he was a person who internalised everything and who, when it came to his own problems, felt he had no-one to turn to.
   It's one thing to have friends you associate with and discuss the game, but another to have someone to confide in and trust, who can listen and proffer sound advice.
   Though he appears not to have suffered from clinical depression, his action would certainly suggest that his mind was totally imbalanced. I think many have been close to that, but haven't taken that final step which shuns all rationality.
   One year in particular in my life , I was  often close to such despair.
   I had left university with no idea what I was going to do next. I returned to live with my grandmother, who was rapidly deteriorating with Alzheimer's disease. In the same house, but living totally separately in the living-room he had commandeered, was my father.
   He had always suffered from mental illness though it had never (looking back) been successfully diagnosed. He continually lived on the edge and was ready to take those nearest to him with him into the abyss. His violence was invariably of a verbal rather than physical kind, though he had been sacked from a few jobs for assaulting bosses.
   I managed to get a job 'on the pumps' at  a local garage and two lunchtime incidents illustrate the trauma of that period.
   I returned home once to find my gran flat out on the kitchen floor. At first I thought she was dead, but quickly realised she was unconscious. A nurse lived opposite, but when I ran across she wasn't at home, so I phoned for an ambulance. The paramedics soon brought her round and it was only then that I smelt the strong stench of brandy.
   Normally she drank sherry and forgot she'd had a glass, so would take another and another......the bottle had run out and she'd turned to the medicinal brandy, in the cupboard alongside the Rennies and TCP.
   My grandmother had been a highly intelligent woman, a dedicated Primary teacher and literature-lover and it was tragic to see how this disease took over her whole life and destroyed her last days.
   Another lunchtime and my father was unusually at home. After an altercation, he stood at the doorway preventing me from leaving. As I went to brush him aside, the next thing I knew we were wrestling on the floor. We'd never fought before, though he had threatened with knives and ,more often, used the car as a weapon by driving like a maniac when he completely lost it ( in Cambridge, he once ran a policeman down!).
   He could be most charming and credible, a well-read person who was interested in both sciences and arts. He was also a total egomaniac, whose idea of conversation was a long monologue, without a pause.
   That year, close friends saved me in Barry, but drink was also my regular companion and I used it for vital release  as well as a need for oblivion. It was the latter's dark danger which made that year so close to the brink for me. I could easily have become dependent on alcohol to escape my predicament.
   My father took strong tranquillisers to lessen the effects, while my gran could only turn to sherry to numb the pain. Like her, I followed that way all too regularly.
   Looking at my family, I'm astounded how commonplace mental illness has been and how unresolved. It seems like the brain is the last undiscovered continent and for all our drugs and therapies it's probable that , in the future, our methods will be seen as akin to Medieval trepanning!
   My sister fractured her skull falling on a mountain in Israel and was very fortunate to survive. She has never recovered from this and epilepsy has been one of the many awful consequences.
   I was shocked to find that my mother had become addicted to temazepan in the 1970s, when she should have been weaned off it instead.
She had been someone who regarded mental illness as a sign of 'weakness' and all pills as unnecessary, so it was even more appalling to learn about this and her later admission into a psychatric hospital must surely have had something to do with those tablets.
   When I think of my mother's addiction now, I 'm reminded of her scream. I was occasionally woken by its screech-owl pitch when I shared a house with her and my step-father. It seemed like all her repressed emotions had found a way out in the middle of the night. 


                                     NIGHT   SCREAM

We lived in a house of bones then :
it was a white house.
Bones of animals ground for glue,
a smell which clung like petrol fumes.

I always felt like a lodger there.
My shelf of books alphabetically ordered,
any adventurous dust rounded up
and marched into the garden.

A stain was a direct insult.
Sometimes I'd kick the walls
and try out new swear words
just to see if the bones would break.

My mother polished them every day
so they resembled chair legs.
My step-father ordered them
so they hung like a skeleton.

I was woken by a scream in the middle
of the night, my mother's scream;
as if she was being murdered,
a scalpel to her brain.

The house of bones became
a house of nerves and the white
became the face of my mother,
whose voice tore at walls and doors.

The morning after in that place
the gluey stench came back
and stuck my questions down.
Dust rose, like fo

   Afternoon in Newport Central Library. John Frost Square. Benches and shut-down shops and no signs of a 21st century Charter.   The children's library has been taken over by a local Primary who, after creating a group poem about a peculiar Leisure Creature, are intent on producing their individual versions.
   They cover the entire floor with a creative buzz, drawing at first, before taking on the persona of their creatures whose bodies consist of parts of foods, places, sports, animals and objects. Bizarrely, one girl seems to associate leisure entirely with spiders!
   Wonderfully, the teacher and her assistant, as well as a girl on work experience at the library, all join in. The teacher writes a poem and says she might make a poet one day. I tell her she already is.
   Even more strangely, our starting-point had nothing to do with fantastic creatures, but was the poem 'Leisure' by Pill-born poet W.H.Davies, the original Supertramp. Sadly, the museum (on the same floor) seems to have no place for one of Newport's most famous sons, who was a real down-and-out in the States and Canada before acquiring a wooden leg whilst trying to hop on a train and ending up doing his tramping in London instead. He became one of the leading Georgian poets thanks largely to Edward Thomas, who took him under his wing. His autobiography tells all.
   It was only when the teacher mentioned Friday afternoon as they were leaving, that it occured to me: this was that dreaded teaching time last-lesson-on- Friday-before-freedom- kids-even-more-hyper-crowd-control-how-about-a-leaflet-then?
   I haven't missed such survival tactics since I retired from teaching a couple of years ago, nor have I missed the thrilling opportunities to get kids producing work they never knew they were capable of, simply because I get a chance to do that now in places like Newport Library.
   But, as the public sector strike looms for November 30th and almost the entire workforce in education will be out in the fight for decent pensions, I have nothing but total admiration for friends, ex-colleagues and close relatives who remain on the chalkface ( well , interactive whiteboard seam).
   As ever, I overhear conversations on the buses of the 'They get 6 weeks holiday ' variety and I really would like to say - 'Well, you try it! It's one of the most demanding jobs you can think of, if you do it properly. You have to possess endless patience and need to be on top of your game at all times. Above all, you really do need to care about every pupil.......even the ones who make your life very difficult!'
   I can recall one teacher in Merthyr who had spent most of his life in industry before joining the profession. He used to sit in the staff room in a state of utter shock much of the time, because he simply hadn't anticipated how hard it would be.
   'Waterloo Road' and 'Gwaith/ Cartref' couldn't be further from the truth. In both, you see mostly young glamorous teachers out partying all hours. In reality, many would be at home marking and preparing, or on the sofa sleeping out of exhaustion through the fantasies of 'Waterloo Road' and 'Gwaith/Cartref'! I think of my wife spending hours to make her lessons so stimulating for her class and having to fill in mind-numbingly pointless forms.
   Teachers do so much work without any remuneration and one example is the many parents' evenings.Imagine if they were solicitors and they charged each parent according to time taken : they wouldn't need to be going on strike about the Government's callous cuts to their pensions.
   The action is unprecedented. Even the hitherto reactionary NAS/UWT which supported SATs and teaching assistants(the latter now take many lessons which should be taught by qualified teachers, just as the NUT warned), are going on strike.
   Remarkably, the ATL have even taken a lead in this. This  is a trade union who are the descendants of the  PAT ( we dubbed them the PATSIES), whose one policy seemed to be.......we don't ever strike!
   As support is almost unanimous, it's appalling to see the nature of some resistance. A former colleague has told me about one teacher, over 50, who actually said to him - 'Oh well, it doesn't affect me, so I'm not supporting it!'
   Those who fail to support a democratic decision  should not benefit if there is an eventual victory for the unions.  They will have taken their pay for one day and maybe crossed the picket lines. Like the example above, they have no principles and are totally selfish.
   The attempts by the ConDem Government to divide and rule with their marginally improved offer have failed. Now they are trying to bully the unions into submission , with Liberal Danny Alexander at the forefront. Any views on this Kirsty Williams?
  With minimal support from the Labour Party, it is surely up to us to make demands like the Chartists of old. I am not a reformist, yet I see them as a step-ladder to reach a window and , beyond that, a changed country. Here are 6 possible ideas for a 21st century Charter :-

        1. Everyone must have the right to a decently-paid job.
        2. Everyone must have the right to decent accomodation.
        3. All forms of privilege to be abolished, including the Lords and monarchy.
         4. The democratic nationalisation (i.e. elected management) of the utilities and transport services.
         5. Radical redistribution of wealth, based on progressive taxation, such as the bank transactions tax.
         6. Equal status for all historic languages and cultures of these Isles, such as Welsh and Gaelic ( applied to public and private sectors alike).

   These should be the absolute minimum demands and I hope the likes of Frost and Zephaniah Williams would approve. Perhaps even William Henry's spirit would give them a nod.


                               W.H.DAVIES AT NEWPORT LIBRARY

By the Reference Library
(no place in the Museum,
though he could've been dug up
with that Medieval ship
from the mudbanks of the Usk).

All his possessions, two bags,
stuffed into a single seat ;
he was desperately trying to sleep.

William Henry, son of Pill,
classed in Wikipaedia as
'Poet, Writer, Tramp'.
Here, much darker
(maybe that mud?)
and, as far as I could tell,
without a wooden leg.

He was waiting for Edward Thomas
to discover him again
(wrong place, wrong century).

I wanted to say, 'If you're a Supertramp,
how come you're not crossing the sea?'
He handed me a scrap of paper,
genuinely shocked to be there,
it read - Too much time to stop and stare,
I could do without this leisure.

                       
   
        

   'Later With Jools Holland' is the only music programme of its kind on tv, as eclectic as possible. However, over the last two series there is an overall sense of the paucity of the music scene.
   Despite the recent and mostly good 'Best Of...', it has failed to reflect the incredibly exciting albums which have been released, preferring to plump for average white bands like Coldplay or monstrous combinations such as Lou Reed with Metallica ( what next, John Cale plus Megadeth?).
   I want to argue my choices for an alternative 'Not Jools' show. I would've included The Waterboys, but they recently appeared on it and I want to suggest those who haven't.
   I have avoided the idea of a headlining band and gone for three groups who'd have equal status : young Welsh rock band The Joy Formidable, Richard Thompson and band and Gilad Atzmon & the Orient House Ensemble.
   Two I was tempted to choose were Americans DeVotchKa, a unique combo whose music straddles the Mexican border and sounds like  soundtracks to unmade films and Welshmen Super Furry Animals, whose 'Dark Days/ Light Years' is one of their best albums and is so musically diverse it's hard to define.
   The Joy Formidable recently toured with the Manics and, by all accounts, outshone them.Their lyrics are often intriguing puzzles and the only time I took any note of one of my young daughter's fave programmes 'Waterloo Road', was when they played the whole of 'A Heavy Abacus'. They are intense and thrilling and one of the finest to emerge from Wales in a long time. The change of pace and tone in 'Llaw= Wall' and the quieter more reflective 'Maruyama' show they aren't afraid to experiment, which bodes well for their future. Like DeVotchKa, their passion is in every phrase and note.
   Richard Thompson may have brought out 'Dream Attic' last year, but it remains one of his best ever. His voice may be an acquired taste , but he's unquestionably one of the greatest songwriters around and the album takes you through so many emotions, from the gentle love songs like 'If Love Whispers Your Name', to dark murder ballads like 'Sidney Wells' and the cutting satire of 'The Money Shuffle'. He is also one of the most original and tuneful guitarists living, his style imbued with his distinct marrying of English folk and Eastern influences.
   Add to that, his band are brilliant musicians, with the likes of Joel Zifkin on violin and multi-instrumentalist Pete Zorn ; their names alone onomatopeic!
   Atzmon deserves far wider recognition: a writer and activist as well as composer and jazz musician. He's an Israeli who has been ostracized by his homeland for views which are very sympathetic to the Palestinians ( an unapologetic peacenik).
   Two years back I read at Narberth and his pianist Frank Harrison was sharing the gig. I'd never heard at Atzmon then, I'm ashamed to say.  Atzmon is Robert Wyatt's favourite musician : what better recommendation!
   Here's jazz which, like Weather Report, crosses over into rock's territories without you knowing. It uses distortion, voices and street-sounds as background to Atzmon's extraordinary playing of saxes ( which place him in the West), clarinet ( bridging the oceans) and Shabbaabeh flute (rooting him in the Middle East).
   Yet the music transcends high barriers, barbed wire dividing and watchtowers overlooking, to a place as in 'Prayer For Peace' where you journey far, without and within.  
   Two other guests would be Thea Gilmore and Lleuwen.
   Astonishingly, Gilmore has never appeared on Jools, even though she's been recording marvellous music since the late 90s and has brought out a series of albums which represent some of the best songs written in the last decade : ''Songs From The Gutter',' Harpo's Ghost', 'Liejacker' and 'Recorded Delivery' are all classics and it's a crime she isn't HUGE.
   But Thea would be singing from her latest offering 'Don't Stop Singing', an album of songs by the late, great Sandy Denny. Gilmore's highly emotive voice together with her affinity for Denny has made these songs as much her own.
   She brings out all the pain and defiance of songs like 'London' and 'Long Time Gone' and, in contrast, the utter tenderness of 'Georgia'. Like Thompson, she has played with sensitive and subtle musicians for many years and none more so than her partner Nigel Stonier.
   Lleuwen's album 'Tan' is an indication of just how exciting these times are for Welsh music and , along with the likes of Huw M. and Gwilym Morus, there is a real revival of Welsh language singer-songwriters.
   'Tan' is more experimental than the other two, more jazz-tinged and much less clear on its influences ( though Meic Stevens must be one).She sings in Cymraeg and Brezhoneg (Breton), a voice of the sea and sometimes, the stones.
   For my legend; a real one!
  I was tempted to say Ry Cooder, whose latest 'Pull Up The Dust and Sit Down' is a revelation. He's been called a 'modern Woody Guthrie' but he's different, a man  of many persona. It's the only album I've heard which hilariously rails at war and bankers alike.
   No, it's .........Tom Waits!
   He would inevitably play from 'Bad As Me', his recently released cd. It combines most of the many strains of the man over the years and , for any Waits-virgin, is as good a place to begin as any.
   On it there are ballads like 'Last Leaf', the bluesy bawling humour of 'Satisfied' and one of the best anti-war songs ever 'Hell Broke Luce', a blackly-comic empathy with a soldier's plight. All this plus one of the greatest guitarists ever ( and I don't mean Keith Richards, who's on a couple of tracks), the incomparable Marc Ribot.
   Waits is the closest you get to poetry in music and closest you get to the alien offspring of Beefheart and Howlin' Wolf in vocals.
   So that's my line-up. Any other suggestions?


                   THE NOT JOOLS HOLLAND SHOW

Let's hear it for
the legendary!
magnificent !
wonderful!
amazing!
buy their new album
'Bestiality Blues'


making a comeback
for the first time on tv
all the way from
somewhere near Aberystwyth,
Llan- something or other

THE  SHEEP-SHAGGERS!

for the first and last time,
banned from every gig
thrown out of village halls,
once did a benefit
for the Free Wales Army

let's hear it
before they cut us off,
their latest song
'Carlo Rubs Himself On Trees'

the unknown!
the up-and-coming!
the world famous!
(well, Borth famous)

catch them here
before they appear
at the Cardigan Bay Stone Skimming Festival,
let's hear it for.......

bollocks! they've pulled the plugs on them
like Seeger once did to Dylan.