Leaving Syracuse I did feel some sense of achievement.
   I had limited success as a missionary for the cause of Cymru. I had finished Jeremy Hooker's fascinating journal 'Upstate' about his year spent in that very city and the dog Molly had even managed to train me to do a game with her favourite, well-chewed squeaky toy.
   Above all, I had reclaimed my luggage intact, though curiously opened by the TSA, who left their calling card.
   I was greeted at Portland airport by Ceri Shaw of Americymru, wielding a placard with JENKINS on it.
   I only knew Ceri and his partner Gaabi because of their formidable presence online.
   They have created the pioneering website Americymru and organised events in the past, some for the Wordstock Festival and others for their own West Coast Eisteddfod.
   Ceri is to the internet what Walter White of 'Breaking Bad' is to 'cooking'
( meth , not food!). Indeed, Ceri introduced me to that captivating drama series when I was in Portland and I became addicted.
  Americymru is always looking to expand and Gabriel has become just as enthusiastic about Welsh culture. They now  offer Welsh lessons and a 'Welsh American Bookstore'.
   In a  largely separate project, Ceri and Phil Rowlands edit the magazine of new writing 'Eto', which is into its second issue and always looking for new material.
   What would I make of Portland, a city I'd been told was avowedly leftfield and full of creativity?
   My first impressions were of distant volcanoes and volcanic mountains and many river bridges. Mount Hood resembled  a huge cone of ash which looked as if it would erupt and send its contents to cover the streets any minute.
   Even the bridges had the feeling of precariousness, as many could rise up in the middle to allow large boats to pass.
   The sidewalks of the city bustled with jugglers, beggars and drummers who hammered out complicated rhythms on white plastic bins. Full of dynamism, it also portrayed the other side of US society as I'd never witnessed before.
   I had never seen so many homeless people in one city: on grass, sidewalks or queuing outside the Mission; they sat defeated and without hope.
   Where was the American Dream for them? More like the kind of nightmare depicted in Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman'.
   People abandoned by society and now as low as you could get. Would Obamacare save any of these? They desperately needed employment and  decent homes and it would take a lot more than healthcare to solve this massive problem.
   Portland also seemed familiar in some ways : it had Credit Unions and pawnbrokers and the supermarket even reminded me of Tesco in Merthyr ,in contrast to the one in Syracuse with its Organic section the size of a pie and pasty one in the Valleys.
   While I'd only seen one public bus in Syracuse, Portland's transport system was geared for a less affluent, non-driving population and its regular trams and buses were reminiscent of Manchester.
  Though, like Syracuse, the bike hardly got a look in and the States are playing catch-up (or should that be 'ketchup'?) on that vital mode of transport.
   Like Syracuse, some roads were lined with junk food outlet after outlet, including ones I'd never heard of like Wendys and Jumpin' Jacks. I got to sample the delights of a heart-hammering, sugar-doping yet strangely finger-licking breakfast of hash browns , French toast and maple syrup.
   My first event was at Portland State University and entitled 'Culture Wars', as it was based around Tracy Prince's book 'Culture Wars in British Literature' .
   Tracy is a lecturer there and led a panel discussion with her well-argued proposition which illustrated clearly how peripheral Welsh Writing in English is in British Literature.
   She linked it aptly with the marginalising of black literature and she put forward a strong argument  for the greater inclusion of these within the so-called canon.
   Given that British Lit. in American universities is largely English Lit., I have a lot of sympathy for her treatise. It is based on sound principles, though when she cited Mrs Windsor as an advocate for greater multicultural diversity I began to lose that sympathy. Like Ed Miliband, the monarchy just want to create a deluded sense of 'One Britain' ( clinging to the last strands of Empire).
   My counter argument was that Welsh Literature should be seen as one entity and dealt with as such. In both English and Welsh there is such a tension, similarity and indeed on-going dialogue, especially now that more writers are using both languages, such as Jon Gower, Gwyneth Lewis and Grahame Davies.
   I cited my friend at Le Moyne Prof. Dave Lloyd as an example of what could be done. As well as bringing a number of  Welsh writers over, he has for many years taught Welsh Lit. ( on a par with Irish Lit.), relating the mythology of the Mabinogion to modern texts in both languages.
   Like our Irish counterpart, we deserve a unique place on syllabi, not just in the USA but at home as well.
   Taking part in this discussion made me think about the absurd situation in our schools and colleges, where Welsh Writing in English plays a negligible part in that subject English Literature (not even Literature, though it includes many American writers on the syllabus).
   British Literature would not comprise one of the most important poets of our time, Seamus Heaney and you cannot divorce these terms from the rapidly-changing political reality. If Scotland votes for their nominal independence next year, where does that leave Britishness and,like Heaney, many Catholics in the six counties (N. Ireland) can hold Irish passports to match their allegiance.
   A day manning the  Americymru stall at Wordstock followed.
   Wordstock is Portland's annual book fair and festival of writing, though Star Wars was a category on a par with Poetry and Fiction and we kept meeting Darth Vader on the road crossing.
   There are stalls for individuals, publishers and even magazines on hen keeping! There are also many readings and interviews.
   Listening in on a few of these I had the impression of the great I AM, with writers talking to wannabes and the public few and far between ( even the English media orientated Hay has many book lovers).
   Writing was viewed solely as a career and the whole Creative Writing industry much criticised by the likes of Rob Minhinnick did seem out on force.
   A lot of writers were researching Medieval Wales for their fantasy novels, but had yet to visit this country.
   Sometimes, it was a rare pleasure just to talk beyond the sales of books and online processes , about real issues and the power of the vernacular. 
   The final event I took part in was a reading at Mount Hood Community College, organised by Ceri and Jonathan Morrow, a Welshman there who helps lectures and helps produce their magnificent creative writing magazine 'Perceptions'.
   As with Downtown in Syracuse, it was the dialect poems which struck a chord , the tales of Merthyr in all its crazy humour and anger somehow relating to a place just as downtrodden and neglected.
   I am grateful to Gaabi and Ceri for giving me these opportunities and also tipping me off about the mountain lions!
  Also, to fellow scribblers Phil Rowlands and Chris Keil who made the stay so stimulating.
   The Stereophonics conquered Portland that same weekend, but I'd like to think we did our bit for Cymru, showing that we do have a highly distinctive culture and  not one which has to ape English literature.
   As America once was, so are we a young democracy, trying to forge our own way despite the strictures of economic austerity imposed from London.

                          TWITCHING  CHRYSALIS

On the sidewalk of Burnside,
lying in mid-day drizzle

road a gorge cut deep
by speeding Chevvies, SUVs

the red hand of the crossing
bloody and staying on stop

she wouldn't get over,
there was no point

a cold, damp chrysalis
waiting for metamorphosis

anxious for those butterfly wings
crystal blue and white

her burnt and crumpled skin -
something in her bag keeps twitching

reading a dollar bill-sized book
it's title       ?       ?


  
  

       
   Upstate New York in the bright Fall and maple leaves redden to a hue normally associated with ripe berries. 
   White corn on the cob, syrup and freshly-picked blueberries.....'the fatta the land' I recall from George and Lennie's dream in 'Of Mice & Men'.
   But I am initially obsessed with my mobile.
   (They have become extensions of our bodies; our thumbs will no doubt grow great lengths as we evolve and adapt.
   Even our closest and dearest tweet and facebook as we try to speak to them.)
   So, without a signal and worrying, I spent a wasted hour in a Kindle-impossible dialogue with some 'Guru Frank' ( probably in India) who asked me all kinds of questions I had completely forgotten the answers to.
   In the end, I resigned myself and never once regretted its absence.
   My day at Le Moyne College in Syracuse was interesting. Once a predominantly Jesuit-run university, the campus has a light feel to it, full of green thinking space.
   Despite being fairly relaxed about my reception, I couldn't help having flashbacks of Columbine whenever I walked those long corridors armed only with books and poetry.
   In the morning I talked with two groups of First Years (Freshmen) who must've been stunned into silence by the  Merthyr dialect, one Welsh language poem each (with translations) and my explanations of a country which existed somewhere east of Jupiter.
   They seemed the antithesis of typical American youth : reserved to the point of reticence.
   Two stayed behind from the first group : one who wanted to know everything about the Premiership (he was a Chelsea fan) and a girl who longed to find out about England ( I had somehow failed there, I think).
   The two afternoon groups were older, Creative Writing students and were much more confident and forthcoming.
   One black student - who hailed from New York City - wore a t-shirt declaring 'Fight For A Living Wage' and I felt instantly at home.
   I asked them what difference Obama had made to their lives and they shrugged and replied - ' Not much, far as we can see.'
   Just like over here, times are very hard for students and I didn't expect to shift many books ( Dave Lloyd had warned me).
   I performed later alongside him to an audience  predominantly of staff and students  and he read from his new novel 'Over The Line' ,from the viewpoint of a youngster growing up in troubled times in an area just like the one they lived in.
   I read mostly from 'Barkin!' and 'Moor Music', as I did the next evening at the Downtown Writers' Center in Syracuse.
   This was organised by writer Phil Memmer and his colleague Georgia, who have done a marvellous job building up the place with many workshops and events down the years.
   This was a truly inspirational venue to perform in and I loved every minute of it.
   I asked the audience if they had 'goolies' in the States and it was soon translated into 'balls'!
   The dialect poems were received very enthusiastically and I met most of the audience afterwards (some with strong Welsh connections).
   At last I realised that the street language of my home town could travel far and that people related to the characters and their stories, identified with the humour and tragedies.
   The longer I stayed the more I began to adopt their version of English, even absurd words like 'Rest Rooms' for 'Toilets'. ( As the comedian Micky Flanagan quipped on 'Room 101' , who actually sits on the bogs having a crap and thinks of it as 'resting'?).
   Syracuse slowly sank into me, as Dave told me tales of the notorious Southside and its gangs, though I only glimpsed its edges. I admired the series of white sculptures   of waiting passengers on the old station and was bewildered by the ubiquitous horse sculptures (why not deer, whose country surrounds the city?).
   Those sculptures were as white as the salt which was once the main product of the place.
   Beer was a priority and we soon visited the Middle Ages microbrewery (complete with silly ale names) to sample the free brews ; a haven for wandering alkies. The IPAs  were the best and so hoppy I was turning into an inebriated rabbit!
   We went to Al's Wine & Whiskey Lounge one night (the wine has all but disappeared) to see Los Blancos (no connections with Real Madrid) one of the city's all-time best bands, who used to play a fusion of Latin and  the Blues.
   They seemed jammingly laid-back to the point of stonedom and I wasn't surprised when they announced their impending retirement half way through the set.
   A ceiling-high wall of bottled shelves behind the bar was stocked with multitudinous whiskeys, spirits and even Belgian beers.
   When Dave asked the barmaid (who was bursting out of her dress) if she stocked 'Penderyn' , she knew the exact spot it should be, but was no longer there.
   In nearby Cazenovia we watched the sun go down over Green Lake, which appears that colour because it doesn't 'turn over' due to the different densities of water-layers.
   Then off to the unique Seven Stone Steps Tavern, a cavern of wood with every inch etched by signatures, initials , messages and graffiti.
   I wanted to ask the glum, taciturn barman Frank for a knife so I could add to them, but decided against it.
   Here we met Hank (originally from the Big Apple) an Irish-American who had been to Ireland three times , but refused to set foot in the North because it was 'British'.
   Explaining the current situations in Wales and Scotland found a ready ear and he knew nothing about any struggles for independence in these two nations. 
   Hank was later warned and threatened with expulsion for swearing by Frank , who the former described as 'a real hardline Irishman'.
   One of the many highlights of my time there was undoubtedly at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, where we went to see the band Pour Whyte Trash.
   Bars in the States have to serve food and we ordered a plate of sides to whet our appetites for what we anticipated as country music.
   We were wrong.
   Despite singer Terry Kohut's black stetson and their readiness to entreat 'Yeeee-hawwws!' from the crowd , they were more rock than country-rock, producing excellent covers of K.T. Tunstall and Janice Joplin, as well as thrilling originals.
   They were at their height, wandering among us, playing and singing, but never straying from the melodies.
   So struck with them - especially the presence and voice of Terry - I asked her after if they had any cds for sale.
   Surprisingly, they had none and had no ambitions to make it BIG. I was shocked.
   Here was a group who deserved to be heard by thousands - not just those in the bars of a few States - yet who seemed content  just to gig.
   Maybe they had a bigger plan?.......Or maybe they knew how impossible it would be to make that breakthrough?
  
   'Have you seen the News?' Dave said.
   When I did - the evening before I was due to leave for Portland, Oregon - I was astounded.
   The USA was heading for shutdown! A small minority of Tea Party Republicans were attempting to thwart Obamacare even as it was about to be introduced whatever.
   I saw first that Air Traffic Controllers would be out, only to find out online that this was false.
    That night I had my first and only dream about flying.
   The inside of the plane was like a farmyard, scatterings of muck and straw, as the passengers stumbled about like drunks in a bar.
   I was sitting next to my friend the writer Chris Meredith (whose books include 'The Meaning of Flight', 'Air Histories' and 'The Book of Idiots' with its  sequences describing flying).
   He was calmly beatific as the plane proceeded to land on an uphill road flanked by trees and then veered dangerously straight towards a craggy cliffline!
   I was in a state of utter panic till the next scene, where we walked towards the Baggage Claim and the contents of my case came out, sock after sock, onto the carousel.
   Luckily this was not a portent.

                              THE  DINO
                     for Dave Lloyd

At the Dinosaur in downtown Syracuse
at the corner of Reach-out Avenue
and Used-to-be Boulevard,
three blocks away from despair.

We were there with a plate of sides
for the songs and the IPAs,
one band     no breaks     into the late
and the future of rock, again.

POUR WHYTE TRASH, one black stetson
but no country twang,
just tight as couples necking
or wrapped up in a smooch.

Two men sat munching away
while it all hung loose :
singer and lead into the crowd
wooing them like serenades.

Terry the singer swaying, laughing,
mouthing and teasing, her voice
a range from fall to pine,
wide thru-way to wooded mountain.

And even when she performed
The Star-Spangled Banner
hat held low, making her vital point,
we could forgive her.

Line-dancers stepping out
and air-guitarist Hendrix impersonators,
at the Dino in downtown Syracuse,
music and singer our one-night Muse.
   

  I've just returned from a fortnight's trip to the USA, staying with friends and doing readings.
   This is the first of a series of blogs on that experience..........

I knew everything about the States and I knew nothing.
   Nothing truly prepares you for what's coming : not the movies or the songs, not The Simpsons or Glee (my young daughter's obsessions).
   It was my first time.
   'An American virgin!' I declared to a chuckling audience of students at Le Moyne College in Syracuse.
   I landed at Dulles airport in DC and had a negative impression : security was even tighter than Heathrow.
   I'd already practically stripped off and removed all metal from my body, including the plate in my skull (with some difficulty!).
   At Dulles, they took everyone's finger and thumb prints and x-rayed down to the bone.
   Unlike the effortlessly relaxed and efficient Vancouver of my homeward journey, the place was singularly chaotic.
   Staff looked stressed and seriously lacking in numbers. Announcements were totally inaudible and the plane delayed with 'computer problems'.
   Boarding the small jet to Syracuse, NY state, there were further delays when a mechanic (who wore the yellow vest of a road-worker) tried to tackle more 'computer problems'.
   Normally a calm flier, I was very tired and anxious by the time we took off. I sat next to an enormous sweaty guy who resembled an American footballer and sneezed his germs in my direction.
  However, flying over Finger Lakes and down to Syracuse was worth waiting for : the whole horizon lit up with a strip of bright red with dark above it ; the skyline glowing.
   It was wonderful to be welcomed by my good friend Dave Lloyd, a Professor at Le Moyne and later his wife Kim and daughter Nia. I have known Dave since we were 19 year-olds at Aber Uni. and he was editor of the college literary magazine 'Dragon'.
   Their small black dog Molly barked at me furiously ( she has an aversion to men, especially tall ones with dark glasses). I'm not tall, don't wear shades, but do qualify for the gender part.
   Slowly I won Molly over though, particularly when Dave , myself and her went on an exploration through the land where his garden becomes a wild area, akin to a Nature Reserve.
   Nose to ground and sniffing frantically, the little black dog led the way through waist-high weeds and bulrushes, following the tracks of deer, beaver and squirrels (both black and grey).
   A dog's paradise I'm sure, this orgy of aromas.
   I was more taken by the strong scents of pine from above and wild mint from below, as we made our way through this remarkable country close to Dave's house 'Bryn Hyfryd' (his parents were Welsh-speakers who moved to Utica, NY).
   Dave was the perfect guide, telling me how the beaver usually appeared at dusk, having learnt to avoid daylight because that's when they had been killed by Man. I just caught sight of one's head; just a moment and hardly a ripple.
   He showed me the stump of a gnawed branch and whole trees felled by them. I saw the edges of the large pond where they'd built up packed mud, the skilfully-built lodge and dam designed to keep some water always flowing.
   There was a tree split in half where a deer-hunter had once built a hide, intending to shoot the  ubiquitous animals. Dave had left a polite note warning the hunter and amazingly he had taken heed.
   This is deer country and they were everywhere and nowhere (seen, then gone into shade) ; drawn to Dave and Kim's apple trees, we'd encounter them late night crossing the road, not tame but hardly shy of humans.
   The large studio next to the house where Kim sometimes works on her sculptures was once a slaughterhouse for deer. How fitting that a vegetarian
artist should now occupy such a space: the gentle blood of creative flow replacing the violent gush of killing.
   Further down from the pond, we followed the creek past an abandoned car, stolen then torched years ago (some things seem familiar).
    Many forest sounds I couldn't identify (I needed my brother there, the expert 'twitcher'). Countless hawks and other birds of prey and surely a blue jay, away where I couldn't glimpse it.
   All the way along to a waterfall, a curtain of rushing white despite the 'Indian Summer' of early Fall. The house of a man perched to its left, who regarded it all as his own property and would, Dave told me, shout at anyone who swam in the plunge-pool below.
   Magical country, so close to the large clapperboard houses of affluent America with their star-spangled banners displayed (no special celebration, Dave and Kim concluded).
   Later I would get a sense of Syracuse itself, a city once made great by the Erie Canal and all the industry which grew up around it.
   But for now, I simply sat in wonder, gazing out on their garden which gradually merged into a land the Native Americans must have known so intimately, where the only routes were made by deer and beaver and not the heavy tread of mankind.


                            TO FRONTIER / TO WILDERNESS

               Led by the small black dog down
                    the shaved lane of lawn
                        sniffing close to ground

         to frontier                to wilderness

calls of hawks
                     of herons
                                             ghost dances
                                                                 of Indians

       following deer trail
                                       beaver run
           
                         pausing at gnawed-out tree
                              tooth-grain of flesh bark

  packed mould of mud
             at rim of pond
                                              daytime water unstirred
                                                  except waking ring of fish

        beaver retreated to lodge -
           stacked sticks and log load
                                                   learnt the fire of gunsmoke

   ( deer
            rush
                       white
                               fur
                                    into shade
             
                                           the stalker's tree
                                             split in half
                                             by trigger lightning.