After his remarkable re-birth, former election candidate for the Coo-coo-operative Party Wayne-O Pijin agreed to meet me at the now holy shrine of Lucy Thomas Fountain, lower High Street, Merthyr.
   I was very wary about getting to the top of the fountain, but Wayne-O assured me this would be easy.
   'You're a Bluebird!' he insisted, I've seen your Facebook profile. If you can't fly up, then nobody can.'
   I was about to explain the connotations of being a Cardiff City fan when he flew off towards the Redhouse to meet his disciple Al-Wings Jones.
   He left me with a pizza box and on it, scrawled in tomato puree, were ten commandments of Pijinism :-

  1. Everything is Nothing and Nothing is Everything.
  2. Pijic Flying is essential for spiritual well-being ( courses available from Wayne-O Pijin, one pasty per session).
  3. Death is merely a state of mind ( leaflets can be purchased from Al-Wings Jones, one donut each).
  4. Greggsology is a false creed (don't be fooled by its open doors).
  5. Seagulls are messengers of the devil ( even though we don't believe in him).
  6. All droppings from above must be selective not random. No-Wings who embrace Pijinism will henceforth be guano-free.
  7. The Food Tubes shall be re-named The Food Cloisters and be regarded as holy ground to all pigeons.
  8. All offerings left at Lucy Thomas Fountain shall be shared ( between Satguru Pijin and his many wives and offspring).
  9. Coo-munion will take place late every Saturday night with the 'taking of the retchings'.
  10. The only true politics is the philosophy of one-ness experienced by 'flying without wings'.

   When I eventually met up with Wayne-O Pijin at Lucy Thomas Fountain he was extremely amused as I clambered up towards him.
  ' Call yourself a Bluebird? You No-Wings are soooo pretentious!'
  Finally, out of breath and feeling precarious, I began the interview :
   ' What exactly is Pijic Flying and how will it benefit anyone?'
  ' It is the way of harmony and connection with the whole universe, except seagulls of course! I experienced it when I was judged to be 'dead'.....I am now saying that everyone else can, even a so-called  Bluebird like yourself.'
  ' But why do you want to profit from it?'
  ' The profit, as you call it, is merely the energy of the universe. It is the fuel to sustain this mystery.'
  ' But doesn't it go to you and your very large family?'
  ' Look, my Bluebird friend, we are here on this sacred site. I accept you have doubts, but be assured this isn't for my good but for everyone's....I already have one No-Wings who is a convert....he has partaken of the blessed vomit.....Look below you and see him balancing on that bench. That No-Wings is experiencing Pijic Flying.'
  ' He just looks drunk!'
  ' Not true! Listen and you'll hear him proclaim.'
  Sure enough, from below in the street I could hear the man call out:
   'Ey I'm flyin! Don' need no wings! This is fuckin magic mun!'
   I put it to Wayne-O Pijin that he's simply interested in exerting more power over other pigeons and gullible No-Wings as well.
   ' I'm only a messenger for that great energy which flows through everything and brings opposites together - life and death, light and dark, good and seagulls - into one.'
   ' Seagulls?'
   ' Well, maybe not....but they are trying to take over and threaten our livelihoods.'
   ' So how come there are certain rules for you - like having so many wives - while everyone else must couple for life?'
   ' Once again, O Bluebird of Doubt, this is entirely down to that energy force. I have to do its bidding.'
   My interview was then cut short when Bazza the Wood Pijin arrived with some serious Tincture of Cornbeef Pasty and Wayne-O declared that he had a meeting of his Inner Circle.


   I leave you with a eulogy written by one of Wayne-O's wives, the enchanting Rita  Homer :-


                                ALL  AIL  PIJIN!




All ail the Satguru o Pijinism,
all ail Wayne-O Pijin!


No more will Greggsology
determine ower livin.


Holy spew an scraps an pickins,
worship at the Lucy Thomas Fountain!


Skewer us with yewer spikes,
or shoot us with yewer stick things ;


we will not die, we are alive
as the re-born Pijin.


Pijic Flyin is a state of no-mind,
I Rita Homer am at one


with ev'rythin and nothin.
All ail Wayne-O Pijin!


   

   - It's bloody appnin mun! Yer....in this town!
   - Seen it all b'fore. 'member  Man, with Micky Jones?
   - Nah!
   - Exac'ly my point! Where's the friggin statue to im? Boxers maybe....but oo gives a shit 'bout rock stars ? Theyer come an gone!
   - No...yew don' understand! We got loadsa bands. Merthyr's the new Madchester....like with the Appy Mondays, Stone Roses , Smiths an 'a.
   - Jest coz yew wan' it t appen, don't mean it will. Wales as bin done, son...Cool Cymru an all tha crap....Catatonia, Manics, Super Furries, Stereophonics an them. Int gunna appen agen, not in my lifetime!
   - Well, yew wait an see. Mewsic's the on'y way!

   In all the 35 and more years I've been living in Merthyr - renowned for its boxing, when it should've been more historians and literature - I've never known such an exciting music scene.
   Of course, I'm aware of being dubbed a hypocrite.
   Only weeks ago I blogged that women in rock were making the most interesting contributions without getting due recognition.
   Yet here we have an exclusively male and mostly young rock scene.
   But, because it's centred on one place and that place has often been portrayed negatively in the media, I do find this 'Mewsic Uprising' all the more fascinating.
   I'm sure I'm missing important bands, but the ones I've listened to have been very impressive, namely Chapel Row, Pretty Vicious, Local Enemy, The Dole Age, Plastercene and The Moon Birds.
   Sometimes catching them on You-Tube can be misleading though, as the recording quality can be poor. Soundcloud and their own Facebook pages are more satisfying.
   The first three are younger and certainly represent more of a Merthyr sound. It has been called 'punk n roll' and that's not a bad description.
   I was proud to witness Pretty Vicious (who have signed a deal with Virgin EMI....quite some breakthrough for a teenage group) supporting the Manics recently at Cardiff Castle.
   They were very tight, energetic and passionate and if their songs were a bit samey, you could still marvel at their raw emotions.
   The other bands are going to depend heavily on a single to make a similar impact as Pretty Vicious' excellent 'Cave Song'.
   The Dole Age have certainly got one in their witty tale of marital trials using boxing terms, 'Seconds Out'. Even more outstanding is 'Weekend Rockstar' from Local Enemy, which I hope gets the air-play it deserves.
   Like The Moon Birds with their jazzy tinge, Plastercene don't fit into the aggressive soundscapes. They remind me of the early Stereophonics with their tales of Valleys' life such as 'Intoxicated' and 'Existing Statistics', such a rare thing in rock today.
   But why Merthyr and why now?
   The music scene hasn't just emerged, and bands like the recently defunct Epaulettes and Oratorios paved the way (in fact, the latter's frontman is also the singer of The Dole Age).
  Out of adversity comes a desire to express and , for many young people, rock is the medium .
   Digital opportunities now abound, of course, but this could apply anywhere, not just here.
   The annual festival Merthyr Rock has no doubt been an inspiration and, above all, the chance to play at regular venues in town like the Redhouse and the Crown. 
   The Merthyr Rising Festival has undoubtedly focused attention on the town's creativity, which ranges from singer-songwriters like Jamie Bevan, Kizzy Crawford and Delyth McLean to brilliant artists such as Gus Payne and a plethora of writers.
   The Rising Festival has prompted a renewed interest in our history which the education system has tended to ignore : our rebellion against capitalism ( the ironmasters) and the forces of the British state ( the Army who savagely put the Rising down).
  There are economic reasons as well, and rock is the way to success and an escape from constant struggle, in much the same way as boxing once was.
   Will anything come of this 'Merthyr Mewsic', or will it focus on Pretty Vicious and ignore the rest?
   A forthcoming compilation album of the bands who played in the Rising Festival could prove a turning-point.
  Merthyr is rapidly changing, yet staying the same.
  Retail parks, new road systems, a brandnew college.....yet still one of the poorest parts of the whole of Europe, with a giant opencast mine glooming over us.
   Maybe this very tension has helped produce an upsurge in creativity. Even the 'Western Mail' is paying attention!
   Anyway.....wha'ever......it's definitlee appnin yer!


Spot the name checks...........




                             BAG  FULL  OF  WRITINGS




The local enemy Number One,
a poet on the street
with his bag full of writings
his only possessions.


No Del-Boy this, he's sold
his CD collection just to eat
and drink, he wobbles
to the Nye Bevan Clinic.


They tell him his liver
is so pickled it'd make
pub onions taste sweet
as Crawford's shortbread.


He's been living in the dole age
since they invented it ;
his plasticene face moulded
by worry and rage.


Night-time and the moon birds
are circling in his head ;
drunk, he returns to Chapel Row
where his family lived lifetimes ago. 
      
         

   (Diolch yn fawr am fy nhiwtor Phil Stone a fy nghwraig Marie)


              
                           GOBAITH


                         ' A fo ben, bid bont'


Edrychwch ar y pontydd ym Merthyr :
rhai a ddur lliwgar, un gyda siap parabola.


Ysbrydion a stem yn croesi'r
hen draphont dros yr afon.


Ond, ble mae'r cewri nawr
fel Gwyn Alf, Keir Hardie neu Lewsyn?


I gyd wedi diflannu yn y twnnel
tywyll iawn trwy'r mynydd.


Mae angen pont i'r gorffennol,
man lle gall pobl gerdded ;


siwrnai araf i'r pentref a gollwyd
i glywed y straeon o obaith.




******************************************************




                                        HOPE


                         'Let those who lead also be a bridge'


Look now at the bridges of Merthyr :
some of coloured steel, one a parabola.


The spirits of steam are crossing
the old viaduct over the river.


But where have the giants gone,
like Gwyn Alf, Keir Hardie and Lewsyn?


All disappeared down the tunnel
dark through the mountain.


We need a bridge to the past,
a place where people can walk ;


a slow journey to a lost village
to hear the stories of hope.

   Phil Knight ended his high energy and hilarious launch at The Imp last month wearing a daft hat and flinging paper aeroplanes into the audience.
  He was delivering his raucous mockery of performance poetry with a magnificent finale to a wonderful evening, organised with the Dic Penderyn Society.
   Despite his satirical take on the posturing of such poets, Phil is himself one of the best performers around today.
   I've watched him develop confidence and a range of poetry which is truly unique, brought together in 'You Are Welcome To Wales', the third in Red Poets' RED VOICES series , which has been a delight to edit.
   While Phil undoubtedly follows in the tradition of Harri Webb and John Tripp as scathing social and political commentator and expert satirist, he is also very different.
   Surprisingly, it's not the avowed internationalism of his Trotskyist beliefs (he's a long time SWP member and activist) which singles him out.
   No, it's much more to do with his interstellar imagination and hyperbole which knows no bounds.
   In 'Bara Brith' for example , he takes a simple overheard conversation and converts it into an exposure of touristic expectations and, ultimately, the way Wales has been historically exploited by our close neighbour -
    ' ' You can cover it in Devon cream.'

      Money changes hands and once more
      something Welsh is drowned for the benefit
      of a cash transaction.'
   When he's angry he can rant with all the venom of  Patrick Jones and 'Elegy for the Original Mad Cow' pulls no punches in laying into Thatcher's legacy.
  It certainly rivals Elvis Costello's 'Tramp the Dirt Down' as a diatribe -
      'She had dragon-breath that stank of gin,
      A sane society would have put her in a loony bin'
   He is much more stylistically adventurous than Webb and rarely favours those ubiquitous couplets.
   'The Tree Rings' may be atypical, but it is simple and thoughtful as he muses on time and the passing of generations, to end -
   ' and the profits
     of tomorrow hold
     more value than

     the trees of
     history.'
His two Martian poems owe nothing to that movement which included the likes of Craig Raine, but are about the poet acting as tour guide to Zog the Martian, paying a visit to Knight's home town of Neath -
   ' At the end of the day, I asked the visitor
     what he liked most and he replied
     the highlight had been in meeting
     ' a man with an incredible Welsh Dalek.' '
   In addition to being a satirist and commentator, Knight also translates work from Latin.
   'A Warning for Tyrants' by Julius Capitolinus is surely a message for our times -
   ' Beware of the multitude,
     even if you do not fear a single soul'
   While he definitely draws greatly on Webb for his literary satire 'Synopsis of a Post-modern Prize-Winning Welsh Novel', he has very much his own voice. 
   Though I'm unashamedly biased, I'd say that 'You  Are Welcome To Wales' is the funniest book of poetry I've read.
   Humour's often seen as a second class means of communication when it comes to verse : a device for those performance poets indeed. In Knight's case however, it exposes pretension, hypocrisy and , above all, releases us to see the world anew.
   Swansea artist Alan Perry's wild and wacky cover perfectly captures the world of Phil Knight : citizen of Neath, friend of aliens and Welsh poet waiting to be celebrated.

                    RE-CYCLING  MADE  EASY
                         (for Phil Knight)




You will be issued with five bags
and  bins suitable for re-cycling.
The large green bag
will be for garden waste
which will include grass, hedges
and all cuttings except dandelions;
this is because the Chief Executive
has declared them 'honorary flowers'.
Any bags containing them
will be duly ignored and local slugs
will be called in on force.


The larger blue bin is for household waste
and you have another smaller blue one
to keep in your house , so your dog
can knock it over looking for scraps.
The blue bin must contain food bags,
these are decompostable and can be purchased
( sausage skins or blown-up condoms
will not be accepted as cheaper alternatives).
The larger bin will soon crack
giving easy access to rats and saving us problems. 


The large blue bag is for plastic only,
but when we say plastic that doesn't mean
hard plastic or plastic wrappings
or , indeed, plastic bags of any kind.
If you have any hard plastic
we suggest you take it to a Charity Shop.
We do accept bottles and containers
but not polysterene or bubble-wrap ;
the reason for this is it would distract our operatives
who would make models with the former
and waste time popping the latter.


The black or green boxes are for a variety
of things such as cardboard and glass bottles.
Please ensure that all cardboard is flattened
and graffitied with lewd pictures and bottles emptied
of everything except, of course, alcohol.
Any tissues or paper towels you have been using
for disgusting purposes must be destroyed
as evidence, but please include
all letters and receipts with bank information.


The giant invisible dome will be collected
once in your life-time, when you kick the bucket.
It must contain your vision
of a better world written as a shopping list
or a mathematical formula.
Your vision will be filed on our computer
and, we guarantee, not deleted.
If any of your dust is left
the elements will duly deal with it.