This week my young daughter started at Comp. We have spent more on her uniform than on a self-catering holiday in Kernow.   There are trousers which are not boys, yet look the same as them; there is a jumper with badge on, and long-sleeved shirts far too hot for classrooms; there is a grey hoodie which can't be worn in class and is for sport alone, to be worn by girls and not boys in a breach of the European Declaration on Human Rights for certain.
   There is a  hockey skirt and I half expected a lacrosse outfit, except she's off to Ysgol Gyfun not Howell's! We bought the wrong one, a wrap-around affair like a mini-sari. I was sent to buy the right one called a 'scort' and nearly came back with a 'scart lead'!
   At least she inherited ties from my two oldest, though one is unwearable as it's graffitied with 'MANICS'. We checked the other to see if it had 'MOZART' on it, but luckily didn't.
   I loathe school uniform and always have done. From my days in Grammar School waering cap , ridiculous shorts and an enormous blazer handed down from my brother, right through to being a teacher and witnessing the inordinate waste of time spent spying on pupils, admonishing and punishing them for breaking petty rules.
   Having taught in Germany which, in common with most of Europe, has no uniforms, I know that they're totally unnecessary, uncomfortable and very expensive. Moreover, German pupils had acquired a very sensible and practical approach, mostly wearing jeans and t-shirts. In summer they could wear shorts without fear of suspension. It was all very civilised, like the 6th form at Radyr Comp. (where I used to teach) and like Primary schools used to be in this country.
   I'm tempted to take the whole matter to the European Court of Human Rights, as no school can legally force any pupil to wear uniform, many of which are fit for funerals ( black), or for mockery from other schools (red).
   The only thing stopping me is the fact that my daughter would be a 'guinea pig' in this process and her schooling would be sacrificed for my principles.As with the tawse in Scotland and cane elsewhere, I dream of a day when uniform's banned forever.
   It's all a legacy of the public school system : a reflection of the over-riding militarism in schools, which sought to impose discipline from above rather than foster self-discipline. The ConDems would return to this in a more obsessive way with their desire to appoint ex-members of the Armed Forces in all England's schools; conveniently forgetting the strong culture of bullying in the Forces, exemplified by Deep Cut barracks.
   It's about time that we learnt from the likes of Finland ( whose system was excellently reported by a certain Ciaran Jenkins on BBC Wales last week) and trusted pupils and teachers to make their own decisions and that includes what to wear in both cases. I was once admonished by the Governors of a school for not wearing a tie, though thankfully my last school weren't so dictatorial. Pride comes from loving the whole school environment, not from brandishing the regimental badge.
   The April Rising at Pen-y-dre High School in the 80's brought this home to me more dramatically than anything else.
   It was the time of the Miners' Strike, Greenham Common and the teachers' industrial action. Every lunchtime we left school, as part of a work-to-rule, to demonstrate that the lunch hour was ours.
   I believe all this influenced the pupil protest at Pen-y-dre ,which was highly organised, even if some criminal elements did exploit it to fling sausages at staff cars and smoke in the open. It was a reaction to a newly-appointed Head of Year who threw her weight around and banned white socks and donkey jackets ( maybe that's why white socks became so iconic in Merthyr).
   About 60 pupils managed to chain and padlock the gates and sit down on the drive, having changed into 'civilian clothing'. Many more joined them later. Unbelievably, the only person allowed to leave was the Head, who had a meeting in Cardiff!
   The police eventually arrived at the end of the school day to break it up and 200 pupils were suspended as a result. The local paper published a story describing it as a minor disturbance: the Head was a master of spin long before Tony Blair.
   Contrary to myth, most pupils I taught were against school uniform, many vehemently so. There are also an increasing number of teachers with these views, often too afraid to voice them.
   The financial argument is increasingly important, as many newspaper stories have illustrated this week. In 'The Observer' an article entitled 'Families 'break the bank' to pay for school uniform' shows clearly how the rising costs and cuts in grants have hit the poorest families hardest.
   The argument that you cannot distinguish social class so easily is an absurd one. Pupils who are poorest inevitably stand out, with the tattiest uniforms. Pupils spend ages trying to defeat the system with its trivial rules about the colour of shoes or length of skirts. Energy better expended elsewhere.
   How can they possibly have faith in an education system based on such futility? How can they show respect to staff who have to pounce on them for wearing trainers to school? It merely breeds resentment and that April Rising was symbolic of it.


Off  To  Grammar


At eleven, I was packed off to Grammar
wearing above-knee grey shorts,
a peaked cap and handed-down blazer.
I must've resembled a stunted jockey
desperately searching for his horse.

I might as well have had the motto
'I am a victim. Aim here!'
on the badge at my head and heart.
Yellow the colour of the crest,
yellow the colour of my fears.

The older boys would grab our caps
and hurl them onto bus-shelter roofs,
they'd giggle at our spindly legs
which weren't even sprouting hairs.
At least my blazer was in shreds.

Within a month I wore long trousers,
my tie was hanging off like fur moulting,
my jumper beginning to lose its skin
and my cap had become a rugby ball
tossed down the three-quarters of the bus.

The bright badge was darkening
like a love-bite shown off for boasts
and whoever invented school uniform
to rile and humiliate us First Formers
must've tut-tut-tutted at the constant abuse.


  
  
  
   

   Both my older children have said to me they could never live in London and I would certainly concur. I always feel a sense of panic on the crowded tube and lost, even if I do have some notion of the geography. The bus is preferable, at least it gives you an idea of where things are in relation to each other.
   Some people relish the anonymity of cities, but I'd rather have a feeling of belonging in a village or small town. When I returned to Aberystwyth to live as a student I felt it was a town to fit my head. Even Barri (where I lived then) sprawled too much to the east , while I knew every inch of Aber (though curiously still have problems with street names).
   I grew up in Penparcau, a village near Aber and like Heolgerrig, where I live now, loved it's proximity to both countryside and town. Penparcau had the hill of Pen Dinas with its strange unfinished monument, the rivers Rheidol and Ystwyth and sea at Tanybwlch. The town was a walk away for an adventurous six year-old, with a half-pier where we could plunder machines for chocolate.
   Cities always seem to define themselves through areas anyway, rather than an entirety and Cardiff contains so many contrasts, between say rough Ely and posh Pontcanna (to use two stereotypes). Although my older children have both lived in Cardiff, I don't think they have put down roots there.
   As a teenager, I lived in two very different village communities which starkly defined the influences of the city. The first was Horseheath on the border between Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, a farming community though some worked at a nearby factory.
   Much more than the city, the classes did mix, though my friend the Rector's son would never play with the village lads  as I did endlessly, both footie and cricket. The palatial landowner's house up the road was another matter and his two gorgeous daughters were beyond our chances, even if they did travel on the same bus to school.
   Most of my friends were sons and daughters of farm and factory workers
and I soon picked up their distinctive accent. My Grammar school divided between 'city' and 'country' and I soon sided with the latter, loving the burr and rounded vowels which were the opposite of swallowed Cockney of Cambridge.
   When we moved to my stepfather's house between Whittlesford and Duxford it was a different world completely. This was a middle-class area of no name, which housed commuters and every morning I made the same trek to the train as they did. There was no sense of community whatsoever and it could have been a suburb of Cambridge.
   My wife is from Belfast and shares my antipathy for cities. She spent too long surrounded by streets and estates not to value the closeness of moor and mountain, even though she doesn't appreciate the hostility of some neighbours in Merthyr.
   When I lived in the city for five years I disliked it intensely, even somewhere as attractive and easy-going as Cambridge. The best of times was during my first year on our newly-built estate, where old allotments existed and we could roam them picking fruit. In retrospect, I think I only liked it because it reminded me so much of my filching days in Penparcau, where a badge of pride was a tale of being chased by a farmer brandishing a gun!
   Cambridge offered no freedom to someone brought up to swim in Cardigan Bay, skim stones on rivers and make labyrinthine dens in bracken and gorse. Though I cycled everywhere, there seemed no way out of its endless streets and its murky river was no companion.
   It belonged to someone else : the students or tourists.......definitely not to us.
   Though we played footie and cricket for hours on Jesus Green, it was never ours like the cow-field we claimed in Horseheath, with two old branches for posts, cow-pats to dodge and a  boggy ditch for the touch-line. Jesus Green was smooth and lawn-like and could've been anywhere.
   Even now, Heolgerrig has little left of community, which revolves around the Primary school if anything. Now the Thomases have left, our Post Office is no longer a bastion of Cymraeg and one of our two pubs has recently been shut. New housing estates are being built despite the recession and it is falling further into commuterdom.
   Yet there's such promise in the Waun and Aberdar Mountain. Cattle have at last returned to the Waun, though the grass is so long they seem to be drowning in wild rye. The landowners have given up - for the present at least - their stories about cows collapsing down old mine-shafts; a ruse to prepare the way for opencast mining.
   The mountain gives up its crops of wimberries and blackberries in abundance and there are always exciting visitors such as the Tawny Owl which shrieked so loudly from our oak tree the other night that my young daughter was sent scurrying downstairs like a petrified rodent !
   This is a poem about being in Cardiff and its negativity, though I don't always feel this way.


                             EVERYBODY'S SOMEWHERE ELSE

Today like many others
on the streets
in the city
waiting for the green man,
it's normal to be mad

everybody's somewhere else
talking to themselves :
tiny ear-pieces you can't see
and tiny microphones
you can't detect

I don't reply
I don't wide berth
everyone lost in private sound :
concealed wires
and invisible nets

their palms are screens
their fingers pad,
their faces books
of pages failed to print,
arms raised in praise of masts

everyone is where they're not
and by the time they match
the voices to the flesh,
they'll be bedded down
where there is no searched or found. 

   Unlike professionally-opinionated Prof. David Starkey, historian and master of the ludicrous generalisation, I don't pretend to have a PhD on 'The Street' and the effects of gangster rap. Though I have to say to him, why now? Why not any other time in the last decade or more, when this rap has been just as influential?
   I cannot pretend to know what it's really like to be young in the cities of England ( because most of those rioters were young ); to feel that intense pressure to join a gang, to be part of its close network, its comradeship and to feel the pull of violence and criminality, so the mean streets of Hackney resembled those of L.A.
   The part played by gangs in the riots may have been important, but it was also an abandonment of their traditional roles, which suggests the leaders weren't in control. As one commentator said - ' If you're operating a large drugs syndicate, the last thing you want is the place crawling with police.' Gangs left their territories and forgot allegiances for once, with a common purpose of crime always manifest. Though many of those prosecuted were individuals caught up in the mayhem.
   When I first began teaching in Merthyr in one of the most deprived areas in Europe over 30 years ago, there was an outbreak of gang warfare on the yards.  It was very vicious as they were vying for control; 'boyz' out to prove who was hardest.
   It was no accident that this was also the most oppressive and violent era in education I've experienced, with the cane used regularly and almost every teacher using some form of physical punishment. One serial offender once told me he'd prefer the cane to detention any day : it was over much more quickly. This lad went though school being punished and emerged to spend a lot of time in Her Majesty's institutions ( and I don't mean the armed forces!).
   Violence bred violence and, as the system improved markedly to favour the pupils, the influences of gangs waned. They were replaced by individual criminalised families and others who warranted a undue influence by being 'rock 'ard'. However, generally school created an alternative atmosphere to the destructive forces of the estate and sometimes, the home.
   For many, it was very difficult though. With parents who didn't care or single mothers constantly struggling to survive, many couldn't be changed by the school's 'other world'. These weren't always pupils without academic ability. I recall one girl ( who I wrote about in 'Sara's Story' in the book 'Child of Dust') who was extremely bright. She would invariably volunteer to read in class and was a vocal and articulate presence at all times. She was highly creative and her poems and stories were a revelation.
   One day I found her writing a letter in class. I asked her who it was to and she told me her boyfriend in jail. I found out later he was a drug addict and well-known pusher.
   After that I noticed an alarming deterioration in her personality : from an outgoing, lively character, she became sullen and withdrawn. Soon, she dropped out of Year 10 completely and I learnt that not only had she been taking hard drugs, but she'd become pregnant as well. The sense of waste and missed opportunities was tragic, yet she tried in vain to finish her English coursework from home.
   How to break this feeling of rejection by family and society isn't easy to solve, of course. Job opportunities and an education system which values everybody and fails none are fundamental. 
   Moreover, education can do a lot more to find and encourage pupils' talents. Many disaffected pupils are also the ones who can express themselves very well through poetry and music and they aren't given enough chances to do so, with music not inclusive enough and poetry-writing marginalised.
   To encourage a sense of belonging, local history must be the foundation-stone of the History syllabus. It should involve both individual and group research into family and place. This is certainly an area which has declined in recent years and the Welsh Bacc. could play a significant role in reviving it.
   More vital is that youth clubs should be run which actually empower young people. It's interesting to note that in the weeks preceding the riot at Tottenham, 8 out of 13 youth clubs in Haringey had their funding cut. These clubs should have direct links to the Councils, so youngsters can make their voices heard and, above all, see that their proposals are taken on board and executed. Even more importantly, young people should have opportunities to carry out changes to their environment, helping to design murals and skate-parks and , indeed, construct them.
   All these require investment and trust. Some are already happening with regeneration programmes, yet need to be co-ordinated so they are seen as levels of true democracy and participation and not just another 'scheme from above'.
   The following poem is set in a rough, tough estate in the Valleys, but it could be a lot of places where trainers mark out a gang's territory. Poetry and artwork, rap and song : the children of such areas have so much to offer and we must not let them down.




Two Trainers Tied




Two trainers tied to telephone wire,
flick-tongued tightrope walkers
left them behind ; the gangland sign
declaring – ‘ Do not enter!
This terrortree is owers!’

Two trainers are like trophies
of animal ears always listening
to the conversations complaining
that somebody has fallen far
down to the white lines.

Two trainers marking a no-go area :
if you’re the wrong person
at the wrong time you’ll be dangled
like a puppet, then strings broken,
your limbs found in the gutter.

Two trainers like flags of the poor
hoisted from shoulder upon shoulder,
a ladder of bodies aspiring upwards ;
emptiness steps and stops mid-air,
along the wire waves of fear. 




 

   They went in without a care for the law or the disdain of the outside world. They attacked violently, burning and invading, only concerned with what they could acquire. Innocent people died and the fires flamed for days.   Yes, the invasion of Iraq was a prime example of neo-imperialist looting.
   This scenario uses what I call 'Left Switch', which I deployed in my poem 'Them Blue Ooligans' depicted the police as football hooligans on the rampage. My friend, comrade and fellow Red Poet Tim Richards has used this successfully on many occasions.
   I am not trying to be over-simplistic in equating last week's riots in England with Blair's Iraq debacle, but I am picking up on an excellent point made by an Iranian-born rapper on Newsnight last week, where he argued that the rioters were merely following the example set by the upper echelons of society. He said that looters were behaving just like countries, who invade in order in take what they want (oil, in the case of Iraq).
   Of course, such parallels are fundamental to any understanding and both Cameron and Miliband  have stressed that the whole of society must take responsibility, even as they demonise the rioters while excusing the war, even as they allow the likes of Michael Gove to pay back money for goods acquired on expenses, whilst jailing one woman who simply received a pair of stolen shorts and actually slept through the riots!
   There is, in short, a marked disparity between grand statements about collective guilt and their actions. The incident which sparked the initial riots in Tottenham - the police shooting of Mark Duggan - will be dealt with in due course ( whenever that is!). Yet if the police involved had been instantly suspended on discovering that he hadn't fired a bullet and was almost certainly executed on the streets, then Cameron would've been setting an example to the rest of society.
   Instead, the police are universally praised for their bravery at the same time as being criticised for a lack of robust tactics. What can be more 'robust' than killing a man in such a way? If the Norwegian police could detain Breivik in much more fraught circumstances, then why not Duggan?
   Bankers and tax evaders have long looted our society, playing on fear and greed in the international markets. Have they been punished in the retributive manner now being seen against so many rioters? No, they have been rescued by our taxes and  rewarded by a resumption of the very bonus culture which caused the problems in the first place.
   The rank hypocrisy does not stop there. Why are no journalists confronting Boris Johnson and fellow ex-Bullingdon Club members Cameron and Osbourne with their own pasts, when they went on the rampage, wrecking pubs and restaurants in Oxford?
   There has been much speculation about the causes of the riots, but the malaise of capitalism hasn't often been raised. An exception was a fascinating article in the 'Independent' by Chumbawamba's Boff Whalley, who showed clearly that the word 'anarchy' had been much misused and abused by the tabloids.
   What happened in England's towns and cities was the antithesis of true anarchy, a state without leaders but with an order greated by a belief in the basic goodness of humanity. It was leaders who created the conditions which led to them : poverty, heavy-handed policing and stringent cuts.
   As the week's events unfolded it was very interesting to observe the changing use of language. They began as 'UK Riots' and then gradually the 'England Riots' became synonymous with British ones, as if England and Britain were interchangeable.
   Despite short and erroneous columns in the 'Guardian ' and 'Independent', they never happened in Wales. Why is this important matter not discussed in the Anglocentric media?
   I believe the reasons are as complex and manifold as those about the causes of England's Riots. After all, Gloucester and Bristol kicked off, yet not the more deprived cities of Cardiff and Swansea.
   Our levels of poverty and unemployment are undoubtedly greater than England, though both are more entrenched and we benefited a good deal less from the  New Labour regime, so the shock of relative poverty isn't so recent.
   However, I genuinely think that , like Scotland, there are factors in our favour. With a comparatively new and gradually developing Senedd, we are witnessing  a period of increasing self-confidence  and the 'Yes' vote was indicative of that.
   The expenses scandal which rocked Westminster and created mass disillusionment with politicians affected Wales, but AM's have shown much more openess and affinity with the struggles of the people. Despite dire economic circumstances, this self-confidence has seeped downwards.
   Moreover, while the ConDem Gov. has illustrated its sheer callousness by abolishing EMA's, maintaining fanatical testing in schools and raising tuition fees, the governments in Cardiff Bay and Edinburgh have carried out Social Democratic policies which showed they did care about young people : refusing to get rid of EMA's, insisting on an education system without 'exam factories' and divisive Academies and not raising tuition fees.
   Of course, many are totally alienated in Cymru : they don't vote because no parties represent their interests or alter their lives. Youth unemployement is rife and growing rapidly. Yet, especially in the Valleys, a semblance of community does remain. Despite it all, there's a fierce sense of belonging, reinforced by the static nature of those towns and villages over the last few decades.
   I've merely touched upon the reasons why we avoided the riots of last week, but I believe that our education system, more caring government and sense of hope against the odds are just some.



                              NOT THE WELSH RIOTS

The riots never happened in Wales.........

because we're too civilised,
because we actually believe
in real communities

because we're all in prison anyway,
because the English started it
and we've got to be opposite

because we have a sense of belonging
and a sense of the future,
even if we've no idea what it is

they never happened in Cymru
because the only blackberries
are growing on bushes everywhere

because bards are enthroned not queens,
because of the Merthyr and Chartist Risings,
because our history's waiting to be reborn

because we couldn't be bothered,
we're all too high or low,
too exhausted after so many elections

the riots never happened in Wales
because we abolished SATs and league tables
which branded so many as failures

because someone, somewhere really cares
and we're busy lining up
for our free prescriptions

because of our pacifist traditions
and when we talk about 'the City' we mean footie,
because we have a lot less people to envy.



                            

   One person who had a profound effect on my political beliefs was a fellow garage-worker, who I met on my 'gap year'. It wasn't called a gap year then ; it should've been dubbed a 'I- haven't- a- clue-what-to-do' year really.
   I wrote the poem 'John' about his premature and sudden death from a heart attack. He was one of many people I adopted as father figures, as I never got on with my own.
   In his 20's, John had walked out from the Valleys' Depression to seek work in the nascent car factories of the Midlands. Now he was retired, but working part-time 'on the pumps'. In the middle of our many political discussions, he once told me - 'as I get older, I get more revolutionary.'
   At that time he veered towards Plaid Cymru and that same year another Plaid activist in Barri persuaded me to go along to a local meeting addressed by their one Councillor, John Dixon , then of Dinas Powis. As an anarchist, it didn't take long for me to realise that I had little in common with them.
   I feel now as John did then, just months before his untimely death, that every day reinforces my belief in revolutionary politics. I recently spoke to one prominent member of Plaid who dismissed Marxism sweepingly with - 'Is anyone a Marxist nowadays?' To which I instantly replied - 'Yes, I am actually!'
   But it's much more complicated than that. Culturally and historically I identify with Cymru, Britain being a product of Empire, war and monarchy and Europe a  conveniently constructed economic market. I want to see a socialist republic in Wales as I do in every country, each different according to their relative histories. Trotsky's 'world revolution' has never been more pertinent and we must organise globally as well as nationally and locally to overturn capitalism which thrives on the Markets' greed and gambling with the lives of the poor.
   So economically I remain an avowed Marxist. While I can see that tinkering with the present system can have short-term benefits and would praise the efforts of the One Wales Government and the SNP to introduce universal policies such as free bus passes and prescriptions, this is ultimately 'pissing in the wind'.
   In the end, SNP leader Salmond (seen as a role model by Plaid) knows that getting elected is all about not offending too many Scots and supporting the monarchy and, worse still, ingratiating himself to Rupert Murdoch to ensure that the 'Sun' in Scotland fully supported the SNP.
  In short, Marx was right in his analysis of bourgeois democracy. It has an appearance of power, but the real power actually lies with the multi-national corporations. Gas and electricity prices rocket and many people will die this winter as a result, but the solution of re-nationalisation isn't even whispered by social democrats.
   Yet it is the only solution to ensure price control and fairness for all. Of course, it must be very different next time around. The workers themselves must own the companies, so they have a  continual interest in their improvement. They must be run on a democaratic basis, with management elected and accountable at all times.
   As stock markets plummet, cuts abound and prices soar, as benefits are slashed and pensions and jobs threatened, the whole nature of capitalism should be questioned. In the long term, any system based on division, greed and 'boom and bust' will fail. Marxism is a relatively new philosophy in historical terms and, with the exception of Chile ( destroyed by their own military in league with the CIA), there have been no revolutions which fitted Marx's ideas of the majority of workers taking their place in history.
   In the midst of all this, the best hope for social democracy in Wales (i.e. Plaid Cymru) are looking to their US-based guru Adam Price to return like Lenin to the Finland Station (there the analogy ends) and save us all!
   The 'Western Mail' has spent the 'silly season' touting him as Wales's future 'Salmond factor', with a possible interim leader such as Leanne Wood.
   Yet his absurdly argued 'Flotilla Effect' doesn't even do justice to reformist politics. More like 'the floater effect' , whereby it's impossible to flush the shit down the pan. The shit being capitalism and its unending series of crises.
   Price's arguements about the benefits of being a small country in Europe are patently ludicrous. You have only to look at neo-liberal Ireland to see that. A succession of right-wing governments doling out the very low corporation tax Price advocates, have led that country to the brink.
   His analysis is devoid of any Marxism, as befits a Harvard scholar. The problems created in Ireland with an unregulated banking sector and exploitative companies would merely be replicated in a capitalist Wales.
   Furthermore, I am an anarchist as well, because I believe power must be distributed as widely as possible. Co-operatives need to be run democratically, as do educational establishments, with no hierarchies to cause endless friction as a result of bullying by management, headteachers etc.
   With revolutionary politics coming to the fore in the Middle East and north Africa, it is positive aand refreshing to witness what can be achieved without resorting to the militarism of those oppressive regimes.
   I am not naive enough to suppose that peaceful revolutions will inevitably happen in Europe in the near future, but simply do not see reformist social democratic parties like the Greens, Plaid or even some elements in Labour being able to deliver.
   They may dismiss revolutionary politics as deluded, but I believe their adherence to a corrupt and ultimately destructive system is far more dangerous. Passing the Plaid stall this week at the National Eisteddfod I saw Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas sitting in splendour : monarchist, pro- nuclear power and peer. The system changes them, they do not chnage the system.

                                      THE ROAD DOWN

The desert lands, flat and treeless
and dust in our throats
no water could wash away.

The motel where we stayed
on the road down, the noise
of other refugees from the Great Collapse.

This Leisure Centre where there is
no enjoyment, close to shopping malls
and diners I couldn't show my face.

The school where I disguise myself,
where I learn  silence about a mother
stranger I haven't heard for years.

The hall we call home,the floor
we room, the mattresses we bed down,
and dreams I balance on top of canyons.

My father says - 'We're at the bottom, darlin'.....
there's only lookin' up from now on.'
I tell no-one where I'm living.

If it had been a flood or hurricane
we'd flown from........but job, house, debts ,
gone without breakages, except out heads.

I want to crack the mirror where
my mom's eyes stare back, to break
every neon mocking what we've become.



  

   On Monday August 1st 'Dim Gobaith Caneri' will be launched at 7 pm at Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tudful. It's the first in a series of joint exhibitions of stunningly arresting paintings by Merthyr artist Gus Payne and text by myself ; it runs will the end of the month and free pamphlets of the prose-poems/ micro-fiction will be available for all.
   Our collaboration began a few years ago when we decided to interpret idioms in Welsh, certain familiar phrases and  local place-names.
   Our interpretations were arrived at individually and it was never a question of a joint approach, or illustrating each other's work. We did, however, agree to explore a number of common idioms such as 'dim gobaith caneri' itself ( ' no hope like a canary'), with its specifically Valleys mining connotations.
   Others, like the name of the huge opencast coal site above the town, Ffo-y-fra('ditch of the crow' ) reflected our mutual concern for the future environment of Merthyr.
   What is crucial, I feel, is that Gus ( who calls himself michael Gustavius Payne as an artist and on his website) and I share a great deal.
   First and foremost, we are both learning Welsh, though he is well ahead in terms of fluency ! Furthermore, our political ideas are very similar : strongly leftwing, but with no party political allegiances.
   Beyond this, we are both very much influenced by music. Gus once sang in a punk band and music has always played a major role in his life. For me, it's probably more inspirational than the written word, attested by my latest book of poems 'Moor Music'.
   Another factor is that we're both vegetarians and passionate about animal rights. This is illustrated, I believe, by the animal imagery running through my prose-poems and micro-fiction and Gus's paintings.
   Initially, we were both drawn to bird imagery : this is understandable, as many of the idioms centre round birds , like ' gwyn y gwel y fran ei chyw' ( 'the hen always sees her chicks as white').
   Gus is a master of animal depiction and since then he has introduced monkeys and dogs into his work, as well as the ubiquitous lurking cat.
   Dogs and cats figure more in my micro-fiction than the prose-poetry. in 'Allan o'r cwd' ( 'out of the bag' ) for instance, I use the historical setting of a travelling fair to show how easily people are enticed and duped.
   It will be interesting to see how people who attend our exhibitions respond to our distinctive yet instinctively shared imagery and narratives.
   For two of my poems ( only one of which appears in the free pamphlet) I have taken a different approach. 'The Canary-Child' and 'The Boy Balancing' (based on an earlier painting) are direct responses, products of close-watch. Both appear on his website.
   I fopund that prose-poems lent themselves to this project. They are, after all, framed by their own shape, as are the pieces of micro-fiction. Sometimes, it's hard to distinguish between what is prose-poetry and micro-fiction, and that is as it should be.
   I truly believe that Gus is one of Wales's greatest artists and I'm absolutely 'wrth fy modd' to be associated with his stunning paintings.
   The following is one of the most recent prose-poems and also atypical with its Mabinogion connections...............


                                        A FO BEN BID BONT

   Once I waded the ocean, palming the wind and treading down tides.

   A message under a starling's wing brought me.

   I knew that man who had cut off their lips and tortured with such savagery.........but she had given nothing but gifts, my white crow: even the feathers of herself.
   Once I had laid down my head in a river for my countrymen to traverse.
We hunted for her captors; terrified of me for all their fearsome ways.
   Now my head's an empty viaduct, where ghosts of steam pass over a gravel path.
   Yet she has been released at last, returned to this, her belonging.

   And those over the sea, miraculously, can speak again, lips grown back!

   One day, perhaps, my head will serve as  a bridge for women and men to cross valleys, rivers, estuaries in search of the bird-woman rising up, knowing and beyond knowing.

     a fo ben bid bont - to be a leader is to be a bridge 

   The pre-season can be almost as anxious a time for footie fans as the actual season. Just witness the debacles at Wrexham and Plymouth, where the former's future remains in limbo as fans seek to buy out the club in the form of a Supporters' Trust and the latter causes much consternation amongst fans because their club has been bought by one Peter Ridsdale ( who notoriously took Leeds to the brink and repeated it with Cardiff City later) for the sum of £1........and one of the players probably lent him that! 
   Whereas last summer saw very precarious times for Cardiff City, when threats of bankruptcy and even administration eventually subsided and a glut of loan-signings arrived; this summer has been different, though just as hectic.
   New manager Malky Mackay has had to re-build virtually the entire team. 12 players left : Bothroyd and Burke out of contract, Chopra sold to Ipswich and numerous loanees, including the dire Bywater and Samuel, inconsistent Olofinjana and brilliant Bellamy.
   I believe Mackay will be a successful manager given time, but there's no way a plethora of new players are going to instantly gel into a team. He will instill team spirit and discipline, both seriously lacking under Jones.
   As well as that, I expect a very different approach, with the team not reliant on playing long balls to Bothroyd when in doubt. With the real possibility of Kenny Miller and Robert Earnshaw up front, there's no chance of these tactics anyway!
   Last year Mackay's Watford were prone to defensive lapses (see our 4-2 victory at home), but could be a devastating attacking force deploying pass-and-move football ( see our 4-1 defeat at Vicarage Road).
   Moreover, there are also opportunities for Plan B's and even Plan C's, unlike under Jones when we were lost without Jay Tweet ( the play-off Final v. Blackpool exemplifying this). Miller can operate as a lone striker and we have many promising midfielders like Gunnarsson, Cowie and Kiss who could make up a 5-man midfield. Joe Mason could step in and if we sign French striker Gestede then the days of SuperTub Parkin are numbered.
   Gestede could partner either Miller or Earnshaw as part of the classic Big Man-Little Man combo so beloved of Jones in his adherence to 4-4-2 whatever the circumstances.
   Fans frustrated or annoyed at pre-season results must remember we've had a lot of injuries and most players totally unfamiliar with each other. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say we will struggle to make an impact for the first two months as they adjust and familiarize.
   After that, I believe Miller will be one of the best signings ever for CCFC and Earnie will thrive. In the long term, youngsters Kiss and Mason will be revelations.
   Of course, there are still nagging doubts about both our keepers : fine shot-stoppers but suspect in the air and at left-back, because new signing Andrew Taylor is preferred as a winger and Naylor has been destroyed far too often in the past.
   At least MM is building a team for the future, with a combination of youth and experience and a new methodology which will require our defenders to change their games radically. He actually seems to have followed overseas players and Slovakian Under-21 captain Filip Kiss is one he has been observing for a year.
  I hope fans show patience. Ideally,we need an extra two weeks pre-season just for players to learn each others' names! If Bellamy can somehow thrash out a deal to leave Man. City and return where he wants to be, then our attack will be frightening.
   Imagine Bellers alongside Kenny and Earnie! Mind, we said that last season about Chops and Jay!

    My brother is a 'twitcher' who goes on holidays all over the world to spot birds and note rare species. For me , there are really only one set of birds worth seeing.........

                                               FOOTIE TWITCHER

Every day I study the table :
we do not move up or down,
we have never been this consistent;
it's like being a 'twitcher'
but watching cartoons of Adar Gleision.

0 points from 0 games played
and we are seventh, in alphabetical order.
My pinpoint binocular eye-balls
are focused on texts, websites
and messageboards for rumours.

It's as if I'm waiting for the birds
to return after a summer's migration
and it's an almost new flock this time ;
I'll have to learn their names.
White away plumage dangerously like the swan's.

In my head I learn the calls,
think up chants to fit them;
a homing pigeon called 'Earnie',
rare Slovakian breed named 'Kiss',
all part of the Bluebi

   Neighbours? Don't you love 'em! That strong sense of community in the Valleys ; the essence of 'chwarae teg'. Wel, joc mawr yw fe!
   We have had a nightmare month as a result of our neighbours, but it is nothing new.
   Many years ago I wrote the poem 'Once A Musical Nation' to satirize them. They objected to my wife's evening piano lessons and detested my son and daughter practising on cello, piano and violin. They decided to call in the Environmental Services department of our then Labour Council to measure sound levels. At one stage, they almost ran over my son, such was their fury!
   We received a letter from the Council warning us about 'Noise Pollution'. Beethoven, Bach, Faure, Elgar........all deemed as 'pollution' by our enlightened rulers!
   I complained to Liberty and to the Ombudsman. Our neighbours came round to talk directly to us and, to our utter amazement, the police arrived saying there had been reports of a 'disturbance'! At the time, the police seemed to respond with totally uncharacteristic haste. 
   Irony of ironies, my son later went on to play cello at a Charity Concert organised by the mother of the man next door. She gave him great praise. Noise pollution topped the bill and received loud applause.
   Fast forward some 15 years and the latest dispute is equally petty.
   We came home less than a month ago to a high bamboo fence , which they had erected in our garden, because they'd expected us to put up a high fence which had been in place before.
   My wife was livid that they'd done so without even asking and proceeded to take part of it down.
   They have been obsessed with a new fence they had put up and even told my 11 year-old to 'stop touching it!', when she was playing in the garden.
   We actually managed to come to an agreement and told them we'd pay for a lattice-fence to top theirs. They rejected it, there followed a heated discussion ,but eventually a compromise was agreed. Within minutes , the police arrived on the scene ready to charge us with 'criminal damage' and taking the viewpoint of our neighbours at every point made.
   Firstly, how can the police turn up so quickly over what is essentially a civil wrangle? Secondly, they must surely know someone, because it was soon obvious the officers weren't interested in our opinions at all, assuming the land was theirs and we had no right to remove their bamboo barrier.
   I have since learned that they did commit the civil offence of 'nuisance'. Had I known this at the time I would have argued our case more adamantly with the police.
   Twice after this they summoned the police, who reacted with ridiculous speed on both occasions. It seems our beloved neighbours were carrying out a systematic harrassment of us and lying to the police every time to bring them out. Yet, they were not challenged about wasting police time. One officer told me - 'It's very hard to prove.'  
   This is the reality of life in the Valleys. Sadly, the antithesis of solidarity and togetherness.
   Of course, there are great people around us and we have had neighbours in the past who have helped and supported us, as we have them. However, the actions of our neighbours leaves you with a bitter and cynical opinion of people generally.
   When Wordsworth referred to poetry as 'emotion recollected in tranquillity', I'm sure he didn't have this kind of poem in mind. It is a matter of revenge : poetry as missile not metaphor!



CRIMINAL FENCE


There are limits t bard language.
If I called ower neighbours BASTARDS
it’d an an insult t ev’ry child
ever born outa marriage.

There int words t describe ow I feel.
It should be summin like THATCHERS
or BLAIRS or maybe CAMERONS.
Wouldn wan t breathe theyer air.

It’s ard t bleeve, they called-a pleece
three times in a matter o weeks,
they lied through theyer razor teeth :
they must ave a bloody ot-line!

Domestics, drugs, robbrees an may’em
all goin on round town,
but they come in seconds
all coz of a fence.

We come ome an it woz there,
a Bamboo Curtain, over six foot,
builders done it while we woz out ;
my missis rippin, we took it down.

‘Criminal damage!’ sayz the officers,
‘we could arrest yew on the spot!’
So we paid ev’ry penny t them
CAMERONBLAIRTHATCHERS.

Thought we owned the fence-posts
an got a builder t remove em ;
agen the cops arrived like we wuz murderers,
talkin ‘theft’ arfta theyer lies on-a phone.

Third time it woz theyer builders
oo I tol wuz committin a civil offence;
when-a  las cop come, thought I’d carried out fantasies,
sleep-walked an throttled em in my sleep.

No, this wuz about ‘abusin the builders’.
If ‘abusin’ is such a crime,
they could arrest arf the population,
or make the whool countree a prison.

There are limits t bard language :
if I could really describe ower neighbours,
if I woz ever in-a dock
I think I’d call em VILE MURDOCHS!


  

   The rivers running through my life. The very first ones, Rheidol and Ystwyth and their meeting-point at Aberystwyth.   We would play for hours beside them on their gravelly beaches, skimming stones in competitions and even trying to catch fish with improvised rods made from sticks and string.

  Reaching the sea at Tanybwlch : storm-beach on whose huge boulders I'd leap playing 'Basques'.   I'd seen a film about the Basque people living in the mountains and always thought of them as agile mountain folk who could jump from rock to rock like mountain goats!

   Then on to Cambridge and the Cam a very different beast. Brown and slow and murky-mysterious and though I did swim in the designated area a few times, we mostly kept well away.

   It was for students and visitors to punt along, while we relished the outdoor pool adjacent to it. And its smaller sister, the Granta, was tea at Granchester with my mother busy quoting Rupert Brooke. But mostly it was swatting away pesky wasps. Now I think of Pink Floyd sampling its sounds and the fact that the great Syd Barrett could have passed close by, when I lived in that area.

   When we later moved into the countryside and further along the river, it became a place of contrasts : of lust and poetry. On the banks it was all kiss and touch with a local girl I'd met at a disco. But we were always open to prying eyes and one so-called friend would invariably sing -  'He was born with wandering hands!' at me in a Lee Marvin growl!

   Alone, I'd nestle in the long grass and delve into Eliot's 'Four Quartets', not caring a jot if I couldn't decipher them, letting the imagery seep into my subconscious. The river was usually sluggish here and one of its many tributaries passed through the house of the local Tory MP.

   Years later, when my wife and I lived in Rheinberg, W.Germany, the Rhine ran by the town, the most powerful river I'd ever encountered. We travelled north to see its many pleasure cruisers and south to see its weight of trade and vineyards high up on the hillsides.

   In the 70's the worst feature of the Rhine was its pollution and you could see why the Green Party soon became very popular there. There were jokes that you could light your cigarette on it and they were frighteningly close to the truth. Along one stretch were many channels designed to divert the chemical foam. This was the other side of W.Germany's prosperity : a total disregard for the environment.

   Born in the mountains, the level lands of northern Germany and East Anglia never felt like home. When we eventually settled in Merthyr, the Taf began to flow through my days. The many train journeys down to Cardiff would follow its course, past collieries at Abercynon and Merthyr Vale. There was the sheer force of its waters in flood , as well as its history like a black snake of liquid coal.

   During the 30 years and more we've lived here, the Taf has changed radically, becoming less prone to flooding and so much cleaner. Herons and kingfishers have returned in numbers and even cormorants at Radyr weir. Councils have become more fish-friendly, with most providing salmon-ladders for their long arduous journeys.

   It's a river of remarkable dichotomies from north to south. As a keen Geography  student at school I was always fascinated by their life-cycles and analogies with human growth. Considering the Taf Fechan at Pontsarn and the 'old age' river as it meanders towards Cardiff Bay brings back those lessons which caught my imagination then.




Journey of the Taf




It begins in the centre
of a mountain,
waters breaking.

Nobody can say
exactly where
I come from :
parents Earth and Water
and the midwife Air.
Soon Fire, the sun
and everything
I feed upon.

This place of summits
called a watershed :
tears as light
stings my eyes.

I am just a stream
a nant, a toddler
finding my way
downslope, over the edge
of my mother
and with my father's constant
push of rain.

One like many others
till I start to cut teeth,
to haul stones
to erode the bed
and banks into a gorge.

I'm moving quicker
with steeper gradient,
my veins pulse
with the thrust of water
like a salmon at the point
of a journey across the world.

Soldiers with back-packs
and booted outward-bounders.
fight against my movement,
believing it's a challenge.

The children who paddle
squeal, splash and fling
their stones, sound like
an echo in my bones.

The Sun, my teacher,
comes and goes
promising destinations
and then, dips down low;
so any season
I could be bellyfull
or parched to a trickle.

Sheep sip clear water
heads bowed as in prayer
to a lost mother ;
or they're dead weight,
blood mingling with light,
soon a veil of flies.

Winding and wending around
scarp and spur
I reach a sudden drop,
a ledge of resistant rock:
the descents of childhood
then youth when greys
and blues and browns
become a frothing white ;
into the devil's punchbowl
and a whirling might.
Here secret swimmers come
to shed their many skins
and exuberant leapers
plunge into a scream
and come out laughing.

I am joined by others.
by brothers and I'm 'Fawr'
to their 'Fechan',
they emerge on the scene
demanding confluences,
driving deep into chasms
before we're all lost
in a man-made lake :
they term it 'llyn'
but it is reservoir,
a store of water
we are schooled into
( even in most vivid reflections
we wear our grey uniforms ).

I straighten, I widen,
my girth held by bridges
and above are viaducts
which span into another age.
Rocky islets - trees and bushes
growing from them - bring doubts
as I begin to be fixed,
my route determined by walls
and a weir which parodies
the earlier waterfalls.

Now salmon struggle upstream,
as I welcome the many heron
whose measured wing-beats
are like the peace I strive for
and the returning colours
of the kingfishers diving
like winged rainbows.

All this, as I am dumping-place
for trolleys, cans and bottles
like some cess-pit of the past,
some cholera-infested slum.

My parents seem so far away :
mountains aloof, quarried or conifered
and clouds that drop their load
then move on. They call me Taff
but I much prefer my Welsh name
(it’s what I call myself
and sounds like a stone’s edge).

Sometimes I seem to slumber along
all controlled by sluice and gate ;
sometimes I’m far too busy
to notice those who gaze
like seagulls on the bars,
or those who cavort in heat ;
too busy with the flow, the downward trek.

I have too many shadows :
rail and trail, the once canal,
higher up the road obeys the curve.
Each shadow more purposeful
to traffic and trade;
I begin to wonder
why I move in such haste
and whether I will be
beyond it all, lost.

There are so many white weeds
hanging in the trees,
fluttering like flags of surrender
sometimes falling and filling
into tumours on my surface.

Just as cormorants are fishing
so I begin to sense the sea.
Silt accumulates in my bed,
slows me down after years
of scraping and scouring;
I begin to meander,
to waver across the floor,
the buildings start to ignore
my presence and there are outpourings
secretive and poisonous
which seep into my limbs.

Becoming sluggish, my murky waters
of blurred vision in the suburbs.
I try to remember stretching terraces
where the only vines were children
spreading tendrils of imagination.

The mud is gathering,
the flood-plain’s a resting-place
for birds on their journey south.
Anglers wade out to tempt
the fish with threaded flies.
I yawn into the city
past a parkland of lovers
and solitary office-workers,
I am broad and straight now
without the energy of gradient.

The grand stadium looms
as if it were a ship of state,
but finds no reflection.
I have almost forgotten
the distant mountains I came from,
the fact I am water at all.

‘Afon’ is a slow way of saying ,
it seems to suit me better
than the rip of ‘river’.
Already I can feel the saltiness
creep into my body
and seagulls’ mocking calls
hover then swoop all day.

At the Bay, I’m trained and tamed.
On calmer days feel stagnant;
when there’s a restless breeze
I begin to wave and voices
of my ancestors come back :
‘Once you were black, all thick
with dust like a collier’s throat.
Once this was flats of mud
where waders and dippers
would pick for worms.’

Now I am becalmed,
waiting for the gates to open,
where I will lose my name.
It is a different sun,
one that threatens to burn up,
to leave me dispersed
into the Channel and after.

A roof of slate, façade of glass,
the twirling pipes of a carousel
all bring back reminiscences
of pebbles carried, reflections borrowed,
stirrings under a waterfall.

It is night-time and the moon
is whole and crying out
like a barn-owl over moorland.
I must go and never know
what will become of me.

   I'm not going to tell anyone my greatest fear, but it's not the Bluebirds losing at Wembley to Swansea City.

   As a child , it was undoubtedly the dentist's surgery. Every visit there was horrific and I'm seemed to go far too often (no-one warned you about sweets then!). So much so, that one time I refused to open my mouth. They used to give tiny sweets to try to placate you, but nothing would unlock my jaw that time; until they brought in the 'heavy' in the form of a dentist straight out of the film 'Marathon Man', who yelled at me. My mouth shot open, but the phobia worsened.

   In those days there was no local anathesthetic and extraction by gas was even more akin to Medieval torture techniques. The building itself didn't help, as it was an ancient converted hotel on the front at Aberystwyth. There was an old-fashioned lift with an exposed shaft, modelled on the mining variety.

    The noise of drilling and stifled cries would echo down this shaft, reverberating through the rickety scaffolding of my young bones. Even before we reached the waiting-room I was a blubbering blob of sickly blancmange, with skin that could be easily punctured by any of the many weapons ready on the dentist's tray.

   Without painkillers, drilling into raw nerves was excrutiating agony. I would grip the chair, sweating and vowing one day to take revenge on the entire dental profession, who all seemed sadists.

   The gas attack was almost as unbearable. You were 'put under' for an extraction and came round , dazed and confused, standing over a sink with blood spewing from your mouth in an apparently unstoppable flow. Even years later in Merthyr, I believe I came close to death having swallowed too much novocaine.

   For many years now I've attended the same dentist, know him well and trust him. The fear has gone away and a visit to the hygienist is much worse, with all that scraping and scratching.

   I'm conscious that others aren't lucky enough to overcome phobias. My wife has a phobia of cats which prevents her from being in the same house as one. As a baby in Belfast, I'm sure a fierce feline jumped into her pram and scrabbed her tiny face.

   This was unfortunate one time when we decided to rescue an emaciated kitten on a journey past Pontsarn, north of Merthyr. My older daughter spotted the sad-looking creature by the roadside, nowhere near any habitation.

   I scooped it up and brought it into the car and my wife drove off. It then managed to break free from my clutches and my wife almost veered into a hedge in panic. She braked abruptly, saying something like - 'It's your choice, the cat or me!' Despite my daughter's pleas, we had to release the kitten down the road where there were houses.

   Several of my family have a fear of flying. I put this down to flights to and from Dublin on a cut-price airline overe a decade ago. I think the plane was operated by elastic bands and made of balsa wood, much like those many kits my brother made when I was young.

   These thoughts arose as a result of attending the Cwrs Haf in Glamorgan University last week. One inspirational tutor used toys and balls to get us using 'hwn' and 'hon'. One woman refused point-blank to handle a tennis-ball because her fear of it. I've heard of a fear of buttons and even pears, but not come across this........is it Henmanophobia?

   The next day we had a task where we had to use verbs like 'gwybod', 'dyfalu', 'credu' and 'meddwl' followed by 'taw' to explain various obscure phobias written in English on cards. I had 'hedonophobia' and managed to guess right. Obtuse ones like 'onomatophobia' emerged, and I wonder if there are others such as 'alliterophobia' and 'assonophobia'!

   In the end, most were probably coined by Thomas Hardy, who once came across a neologism which confounded him. He investigated it, only to find that he was quoted as the only source!


                                        INT GOIN OUT NO MORE!

I int goin out no more.
It int worth the risk.
This bloke ee got mugged in Merthyr
an it wuz on'y 8 in-a mornin!


I ewsed t travel t Cardiff on-a bus
till this driver on-a News
runs inta somebuddy's ouse,
loadsa passengers woz urt.


Int gonna visit my bro in London,
too many knifin's an yew bet
Al Quaeda will pull off a big one
now tha they ad Bin Laden.


Cancelled my oliday t Tenerife
arfta tha pooer woman got killed ,
ad er ead chopped off in a soopermarkit ;
ee come out carryin it like a shoppin bag!


Bin thinkin o all them Pit Bull attacks
an tha girl struck by lightnin........
mind, she woz in er own ome.
Think I'll jest stay in bed an moan.