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ABERAERON IN THE GALES

12/31/2013

   Last Sunday we returned from the balmy clime of sunny Aberaeron to the remains of snow on roadsides and furious overnight lashing storms.   The selfsame ones we'd experienced in that west Wales town nights before.
   We returned to our disused trampoline, a warehouse of acorns for squirrels and pigeons and only used by the neighbours' cats .......and not to spring up and catch blackbirds on oak branches! It was overturned like a stray leaf and our white picnic table was upside-down resembling a makeshift raft.
   A strange piece of sheeting had been blown against the fence and looked suspiciously like a piece of roofing ( packaging, on close inspection).
   All evening and through the night the rain hammered down and I missed the sense of the nearby sea and river Aeron meeting in all its frantic gushing.
   Any smugness about our mountain location was dispatched by my young daughter next morning , who was woken by an unwelcome shower......from her ceiling!
   Our notoriously prone dormer roof had succumbed to the constant downpours and a crack appeared above her head where the drip-drip began.
   And I know that our minor crisis was as nothing compared to the many left homeless and flooded over Christmas, yet it is still really annoying.
   Yet in Aberaeron you are always aware of the sheer vulnerability of the place .
   The sea - never as ferocious as up-coast Aberystwyth - was nevertheless as powerful as I've witnessed, with bucking bronco breakers, white manes splayed. There was a stampede till they reared at harbour walls and threw their load of stones and silt.
   The river Aeron as well was so gentle one day and the next a full-flooded torrent : a viewing bench submerged and mallards trying to seek out the reedy calmer waters.
   The sea rose up and river sped and a few sandbags outside the harbour houses seemed as inept as our felt roof against the elements.
   A visit to Aberystwyth the Monday before Christmas was conditional on the weather. We made of to the Arts Centre and supermarket, bit the town was impossible : it was in M25-ish gridlock with a house collapsed and diversions and cars at a stop.
   Ice-caps melt, seas swell and flood defences seem totally inadequate. Our 'weather weirding' of Jet Stream low pressure systems with isobars like contours of high-peaked mountains is incessant.
   The consequences are felt everywhere, yet river and coastal towns seem built from sand.
   Precious places threatened by this carbon future made all the more stark by our continued reliance on opencast coal feeding power stations like Aberthaw .
   My brother recently visited Aberaeron and was amazed at its transformation. He remembered it as shoddy and nondescript.
   Now it's a modest and colourful jewel on our coast with Balamory houses painted alternately in different colours from pastel shades to bolder ones, yet never brazen, like the plethora of ice-creams at cafe Y Cwch Gwenyn overlooking the harbour.
   One week there is time spent in a different world where, for my wife and son (who spend so much time driving normally) the pleasure is to leave their cars like workday clothes hung in a wardrobe.
   It's a world of honey ice-cream, chips from the renowned New Celtic, the chance to buy a bargain in the £1.20 shop's half-price sale and a couple of pints at Tafarn Cadwgan while watching Cardiff City blow it yet again ( well, it's not all escape!).
   A world of skimming stones and feeding ducks and imagining, as in childhood, that your bed's a boat afloat on the wild westerly and you're gliding past bewildered gulls and red kites high above the arcing coastline.
   A world where 'mae'r Cymraeg yn byw' in chip shop and pub, cafe and Costcutter, not just as a sop or sign ; more steadfast now against other storms, the crash of coins or steady erosion of American English and its grinding slang.

   ABERAERON IN THE GALES

Houses creak and strain in moorings
like boats with their yellow buoys :
an orchestra of rigging plays
high-pitched notes on the ropes.
Mint, lemon, strawberry and blackcurrant,
the windows of these ice-cream houses
are rattled and beaten storm-percussion.

Late night revellers cling to a band
of bright lights on eaves of Y Cwch Gwenyn,
before they're blown onto the street
and their drunken laughter's lost
into a gale speeding so fast
even the local policeman's notebook
is blustered inside out.

Awake in early hours , my head
is a thunder of rolled barrels
from next-door Tafarn Cadwgan
and in my dreams we are adrift
and manned by the three grandfather clocks,
old sea-dogs well past their chime.

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Down Town Sand-Sculptor

12/18/2013

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Sand-sculpted dogs (photo Edwyn Parry)

DOWN TOWN SAND-SCULPTOR

Small red mat of beach
on down town paving-stones
against the wall of Smith's
(soon to be closed down).

Out of his pile of sand
he's shaping a resting hound,
with one beady eye-jewel
from a bright pebble.

His skin dark as mud-flats,
stubble sharp as marram,
he's so intent and focused;
just a turn at coin-clack.

His hands move like waves
constantly smoothing out stones,
his blood the unseen currents
and ear-shells listening distances.

Sometimes money drizzles down
from people in their tides,
as he softly continues sculpting
the lying dog into life.

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SCATTERING AT ABER

12/13/2013

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Aberystwyth from the jetty at Tanybwlch - photo, P.Jenkins

   I'm standing at the edge of the stone jetty at Tanybwlch near Aberystwyth.
   Suddenly, I feel a lightness and fear of falling I never experienced as a child here : too many nightmares about cliff-edges.
   I'm scattering the remains of my stepfather down into the sea, which sometimes whips up as a serpent of spray so characteristic of this area.
   Simultaneously, my brother - a sure-footed risk-taker and flier - is letting loose my mother's ashes from a wooden casket with a metal plaque on it.
   My sister stands bare-foot on the cold pebbly jetty, lost in a large green riding-hood cloak.
   I am spilling him out as a fountain of powdery ash to join her, just as he willed.
   They had talked about buying a house there, overlooking the harbour : his enduring love of boats and her affection for the town where she spent her formative years, yet also a marriage which would gradually deteriorate ( to my father).
   My brother says - 'It's our turn next!'.....but I have no intention of making that too soon and step gingerly back from the brink.
   Some of my stepfather's ashes remain on my hand and I am content to leave them there.
   There is no great sense of sadness among us, just an acceptance.
   My mother died five years ago, but my stepfather died very unexpectedly during the summer.
   I can recognise and admire his great love for her and how that meant, for many years, that he never wanted to share her with her own family though - truth be told - she was never inclined to being an enthusiastic mother or grandmother, quite the opposite.
   The evening before we had toured Penparcau and Aber in a memory-trail of intense nostalgia.
   It was too much for my sister, whose recollections of our flat and council house were all disturbing and full of unhappiness.
   While those of our grandparents' flat in Caradog Road must have summoned a deep sense of loss, as she was brought up by our 'Nanny' when my mother had mastitis and rejected her.
   For my brother - who has returned less frequently - it must've been a fascinating journey into the past with some buildings changed so little and others,like his old school Ardwyn, now transformed into flats.
   For me it was less unsettling or surprising. I have gone back so often as a student, teacher-trainer and when my older daughter was studying there.

   But the scattering was something different.
'Will you write something for the occasion?'my brother had asked.
   'I don't think so!'
But then I wrote a haiku yn Gymraeg the day before. I would know when we got there if it was fitting to read it and it didn't feel right.
   Neither my mother nor stepfather had any affinity with Cymraeg and, in fact my mum, like my dad, had an antipathy.
   I recall her referring on a number of occasions to the Urdd as the 'Welsh Hitler Youth movement'. She was never one for understatement!
   On the way home I showed my haiku to my siblings and translated it. My sister liked it and my brother felt I should've read it out (maybe that's for another time in Aber).

                      Lludw yn yr awyr,
                      y mor yw'r cartref olaf :
                      ymuno a'r ddwr.

                      (Ashes in the air,
                       the sea is the final home :
                       joining with the water.)

   My brother had researched both tide and wind direction, so we avoided possible pitfalls and the jetty provided the perfect platform.
   My stepfather always said how much he loved Aber and my mother very much belonged there, though she had always resisted becoming an adopted Welsh woman.
   As children, we had played many times on Tanybwlch storm-beach and both my sister and I had learnt to swim in the cold and treacherously shelving sea there. It hardened us and we both prefer to swim in the sea rather than pampered and chemical pools.
   To our house my brother brought just some of the clear-outs from my stepfather's place and amongst them a folder my mother had inscribed with 'Mike's Poems'. There were books, magazines, newspaper cuttings and even old school Speech Day programmes (the one year I won two prizes, they got my initials wrong!).
   In among all this were several poems written by her.
   I knew she had begun writing some when she attended the Univ. of the 3rd Age in her 70s and had read one in their magazine.
   Unlike my dad, who had real pretensions to be a writer (when he didn't have pretensions to be a sailor, pilot, painter, photographer etc etc), my mother possessed genuine talent.
   I just wish I'd read these when she was alive and discussed them with her.
   She may have wanted rid of her children and made this evident (who was it told me I had been a MISTAKE?), yet I do owe her a good deal when it comes to poetry.
   I remember her early readings of Dylan Thomas into a tape-recorder, her love for Manley Hopkins' verse and the anthology 'New Poetry' she gave me which inspired me so much.
   So the sentiments in this - one of her poems - are quite extraordinary : a strength of maternal bonding she never showed through the years, when her main priorities were always the men in her life (though not my crazy and sometimes dangerous father).

FOR MIKE

I cannot write poetry.
In my school poetry,
Was always Iambic Pentameters,
And making things rhyme.
How can you float the rhythms inside you
On an eternal dee-dum dee-dum?
I cannot write poetry.

My son can write poetry.
For him the words can flow,
With the fullness and force of the milk
Which he sucked with such strength from my breast,
That it fountained the facing wall
If he moved his lips away.
So may his words
Spread and coat the walls of the world.
My son can write poetry.

I cannot write poetry.
For me creation was always the rhythm
Of mine and other bodies
Fighting or indulging the elements
Of Space, Weight and Time.
And much of that creation got buried
In brussel sprouts and other things.
I cannot write poetry.

I am glad my son can write poetry.
When he was late inside me,
I pick-axed the rocky soil
To grow food for my family.
'There's dreadful she is', they said,
'The baby will be born dead.'
But he came from me
So swiftly and easily,
And with so little pain in his coming,
That I thought he was a pre-natal indulgence
In too many kippers!
How could any poet put that in a poem?
I cannot write poetry,
But I am glad my son can do so.

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THEA GILMORE CONQUERS THE GLOBE

12/6/2013

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Thea Gilmore at the Globe, Cardiff

       An eavin and jam-packed Globe on Albany Road, Cardiff and such a contrast from the last time I saw Thea Gilmore live, only a couple of years ago.
   What has happened between-times is remarkable, as that gig in Aberdare was very sparsely attended.
   At the time it was a big disappointment to the organiser Geoff Cripps, who I met recently at a full-to-brimming gig he had also organised, at the Muni in Pontypridd. When I mentioned I was going to see Thea again he commented that she had 'crossed over'.
   I wasn't exactly sure what he meant, though her concert did suggest it to me.
   At any rate her influence abounds, even though it may not be directly acknowledged. I hear it particularly in the songs of Milford Haven's Paper Aeroplanes and winner of Welsh Album of the Year for 'Week of Pines', Georgia Ruth.
   Both acts deliver songs full of emotion, devoid of cliched lyrics and showing an admirable diversity of musical styles, just as Thea has through the years.
   As someone who bought one of her first albums 'Avalanche' many moons ago at a now disappeared record shop in Cardiff, I recall the assistant advising me to get Neko Case instead.
   I've never regretted that purchase, though it probably wasn't until I listened to the double cd version of 'Songs from the Gutter' that I truly fell in love with Thea's music.
   Since the Aberdare concert she has acquired many fans as a result of Radio 2 exposure, the fact that her Sandy Denny song 'London' was played on TV during the Olympics and a series of catchy, tuneful singles.
   The fact that she may have 'crossed over' into the very 'Mainstream' she once castigated on the song of that name doesn't greatly bother me. This is because, between the somewhat throwaway singles like 'Love Comes Looking For Me', there are so many songs to inspire.
   Her vocals live are more intense than the recordings, especially the latest album 'Regardless' which, with a full string orchestration, is slightly over-produced.
   The acoustic settings of her performance were far more spare, with just guitar or keyboard, cello and violin (with her 7 year-old son joining in on fiddle for one song.....a future star for certain!).
   My one major quibble is that her own words weren't that clear, whereas her husband Nigel Stonier , who was a very good backing act, could be heard at all times. It may have been a matter of balance, because there was no problem at Aberdare, where the band was bigger.
   For a fan like myself, accustomed to almost every song, this was less of a problem than for a first timer.
   From the beginning, Stonier has played a vital role in Thea's work, producing her albums, co-writing songs and, also playing guitar and keyboards ( at the Globe, a borrowed one he coped with masterfully).
   I liked the way she focused on more recent material and there is a real sense of maturity about it : a number of songs speaking to her children ( in an imagined future) such as 'I Will Not Disappoint You'.
   I wish she had chosen to do two of the strongest songs on 'Regardless' rather than those singles : 'Let It Be Known' and 'Punctuation' are both deeply philosophical and full of original imagery........they may not have suited the acoustic setting though.
   It was fitting that she included several of her Sandy Denny songs from 'Don't Stop Singing'. Together with Stonier, she put Denny's lyrics to music and, as her own vocal style is very close Denny's, this was an album which should've received a lot more acclaim. Some of the songs are very harrowing and relate to Denny's tragic life of lonely alcoholism when her child Georgia was taken from her.
   As well as a powerful cover of Bowie's 'The Man Who Sold The World' were a few songs from her Christmas album 'Strange Communion', which is the only Christmas album (yes, not even Sufjan Stevens' epic!) I'm likely to ever play.
   'Sol Invictus' and 'Cold Coming' are two of the most evocative seasonal songs you will ever hear; sadly, she only performed the latter.
   I'm sure there are many out there who've never heard of her, though they may well laud the likes of Laura Marling, media darling.
    Thea performed one song new to me ( in total antithesis to 'Mainstream' and 'Everybody's Numb' from the album Harpo's Ghost) ,which gave sympathy and sound advice to young aspiring artists in the music business.This was 'Beautiful Hopeful' from an e.p. called 'Beginners'.
   The audience at the Globe would probably have stayed all night for encores: we were in no hurry to get home for our Horlicks and hot water bottles.
   Thea Gilmore had undoubtedly conquered the Globe and , who knows, she could go on and do the same to its much larger namesake!
   I hope that anyone who becomes Gilmorable will embrace her truly amazing back catalogue.
   As she announced, with some astonishment, 'I released my first album at sixteen!'
   She's now 35 and can write like a sage : listen to 'Punctuation' and you'll hear an earthbound psalm.

                              AT    THE    GLOBE

Here at the centre
of the Globe,
walls of ice-plaster,
heat of magma music,
a spiral of black and white
twisting, turning, rising.

If some words are lost
up into the balcony of rock,
we are still carried
on thermals of voice,
heads bubble and steam
surprising the stubborn surface.

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ABERAERON IN THE GALES

Down Town Sand-Sculptor

SCATTERING AT ABER

THEA GILMORE CONQUERS THE GLOBE

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