He only once attended our monthly Open Mic. sessions at The Imp in Pontmorlais and I believe Richard Gwyn was the guest poet.
Gwyn's work was erudite and somewhat prosaic and Dai wasn't impressed. He told me he wouldn't return till we got 'someone like Pam Ayres'.
However, his favourite poets are Idris Davies and Harri Webb, though he dislikes the latter's politics.
' He was a bloody Welsh Nash!' he snarls, baring his teeth,' most probably in that FWA and an anti-English racist.....couldn't half rhyme though!'
Dai is an avid bird- and dog-lover and I often see him walking his Jack Russell Vlad ( after Lenin) on his daily stroll to the paper shop and back.
He does, however, despise pigeons. This is because he was set upon by a particularly vicious one in the bus-station a few months back.
He was wheeling his beloved shopping trolley along : it's his pride and joy and has a special compartment for Vlad when he feels like a dog-nap. He also has warning lights on it, which flash like Christmas decorations.
All this did not deter the pigeon, who took a fancy to his bag of sausage rolls fresh from Gregg's and began to ferociously poke at his precious trolley bag ( which is plush red).
Dai took off his fur hat with a red star on it and flapped at the psycho-pigeon. Luckily he disturbed Vlad who began barking at the mangy bird.
Apart from pigeons, Merthyr Council are the main targets for his verse and, despite its remarkable reburbishment, he has no time for the Redhouse (Old Town Hall).
'Just look at all those pictures of Merthyr luminaries,' he told me,' they all look like characters from bloody Tintin! And what the hell's Harri Webb doing there?.....he came from The Gower!'
Dai 'The Rhyme' is a communist with a small 'c'. whose family came from the Rhymney Valley; from New Tredegar ('same place as Johnny Owen, the boxer').
He's an ex-miner, which further reinforces his admiration of Idris Davies - 'Gwalia Deserta, The Angry Summer , amazing poems mun....who needs Shakespeare?'
Whenever I meet him I ask if he'll come along to the next Open Mic. and he always says - ' Nah, sorry Mike.....too much of that modern stuff!'
He explained about his latest project, which happens to be limericks of well-known figures, mostly politicians. He slipped me one as we exchanged 'Hwyl fawr!' and here it is -
There was a politician called Cameron
Needed a pig's head to turn him on,
When he shoved his plonker
In the mouth of the porker
He squealed - 'Sow much better than porn!'
Two days ago I met him down town and he was distraught. He was breathing heavily and I thought he was having an asthma attack.
' Mike....It was trolley rage mun!'
I led him to a bench, as Vlad cheerfully snapped at pigeons on the way.
Here he explained that 'some woman he might of gone out with centuries ago' had deliberately rammed her tartan trolley into his, breaking one of his warning lights.
'She yelled at me!' he was aghast.' You know what that's for Dai Davies!......But I never! I could hardly remember her. As Max said Duw it's hard, eh?'
'You could try writing a limerick about her,' I suggested.
'Limerick? Can't even remember her name!'
Dai hasn't been the same since his wife Doris passed away, while waiting to be served at Tesco's fish counter.
I've only been in his house once and it's full of photos of her ; she looked a stunner when younger as well. So sad they had no children.
When I explained to Dai about Wayne-O Pijin and his antics he stared at me as if I was on day release 'from Bridgend' ( as we used to say).
But he must've been taken by the notion because he commented - 'I can see why he uses that Redhouse as his headquarters.....it's only fit for bloody pigeons!......Mind Mike, you're still off your trolley!'
(This is one of a batch of poems he handed me a while ago and asked me to put on my 'dot-dot machine' some time).
MERTHYR IS HAVING BOTOX
They cleared the brickworks site
Waiting for Trago Mills,
For years a terrible site,
A rash upon our hills.
The Council are no doctors
They cannot cure our ills,
I wonder what they're for,
Can't save Merthyr with pills.
The litter spreads like acne,
Pigeons are taking over
And it's been this way
Ever since Hoover's closure.
The brand new retail shops
Are just like plastic surgery,
The old town's having botox,
But it's not for me!