Looking out the window at midnight and seeing the stillness of settled snow, it glows with a light which brings back many memories....
    Of my children haring down the slopes of the Waun at the back of our house on toboggans.
   ( Now the place is eerily deserted despite the schools being off).
   Of my friend and fellow 'loopy' English teacher Pete Smith taking every descent with total abandon on only a black rubbish bag.
   Of the Beacons and my older daughter Bethan speeding all the way downhill through an open gate and onto the A470 below, whilst myself and my son tumbled half way down.
   Above all, of the times when my two girls were born, both December days of heavy snowfall.
   Bethan over the mountain in so-called 'snake country' of Aberdare and Niamh ( as befits a Bluebird) in the Heath.
   The first in notorious 1982, when it was the biggest fall of my lifetime and a neighbour kindly came over with blow-torch to unfreeze our ancient, inefficient central heating vent.
   Even last year was memorable, as we returned from Bethan's wedding in India to blizzards at Heathrow , but somehow made it home thanks to my wife's single-mindedness, only for our combi boiler to go on the blink and a frantic search for a suitable engineer despite the white-out.
   Despite such calamities I've always loved the snow and even at a writing course I once tutored at Totleigh Barton in Devon, we took time out between stanzas to borrow trays from the kitchen and slide down empty country roads.
   As a teacher, a single flake whispered the promise of a day off.
   One Head who regularly refused to close soon regretted it when he left his car in the school car park overnight only to find the very expensive sports car trashed the next day! After that, he'd close up after a couple of flakes!
   Growing up in Aber I've no memories of early childhood snow whatsoever and then in Cambridge and its Shire there was a distinct lack of hills nearby, though we did play risky football on a frozen pond.
   Only since living up here on Aberdare mountain have we all appreciated the seasonal playground.
   It's a chance to become one with memories: to roll the years into a tight ball and hurl them with joy and mischief. A chance to watch them break up into tiny particles of laughter.

                         JOINING  THE  V

Her back's bent
she stares groundwards,
the old border collie
tugs her hubby round
Bryn Bach is mostly frozen
as mallards balance
on thin ice,
a flock of Canada geese
root out food below snow -
her two Nordic sticks
are vital extra arms,
she's determined as moorhens
finding warmer pools.

In her dreams she flies
south to her grandchildren
many continents away
from treacherous paths, 
towards suns of smiles
she swims and glides
watching the grey glaze
of the lake disappear,
joining the V, higher and higher. 

  

   This is a tale of three Heads : not a three-headed monster but.....it could be!
   I'm certain that somewhere there exists a good Headteacher, but in all my teaching career spanning over 30 years I never came across one.
   I've blogged previously about the urgent need for democracy not autocracy in education, so I don't want to repeat myself. Suffice it to say that it simply does not work having one person at the top and ostensibly in total control.
   If we need to educate young people for genuine democracy then schools and colleges must be the starting-points : let them learn to make executive decisions alongside staff ; give them the power to act responsibly and vitally, to learn from mistakes.
   By way of examples here are three actual cases, two of which are on-going -
   The first involves a Head still in charge of a large Cardiff school ( not where I used to teach, by the way).
   He's highly regarded by the local authorities and would be given the title ' Super-Head' in fact.
   Yet what this person did was to instruct a whole department to falsify their results for GCSE coursework and when one staff member refused she was forced out of the school.
   Of course, we are still living in an era where results (especially at GCSE) are paramount and determine what colour ( or grading) the school gets according to Leighton Andrews' 'traffic light' system.....an alternative  form of league tables. 
   Pressures on schools to improve results are enormous and - as I've blogged before - this destroys the very essence of education : sheer enjoyment in learning and discovering.
   The second case goes back to the 1990s and the overriding desire to make a school into an 'achieving one'. and also this Head's personal ambitions above all else.
   Once again, this person actively encouraged blatant cheating yet was never sanctioned as a consequence, despite the fact that the whistle was blown and the Education Dept conducted an enquiry into it.
   In this instance the Head actually taught an English class who, despite being a top set, all produced the self-same essay, dictated to them by that person.
   The Head then told the Head of Dept ( an inspirational teacher) that he had to let those results stand.
   This Head of Dept soon left the profession to become a librarian, largely because of  what happened! A huge loss to education.
   That Head carried on at the school for many years, bullying those who refused to tow the line and making them leave.
   Lastly, there is a similar case of a bullying Head who progressed rapidly in terms of promotion, despite a lack of teaching experience and without marking pupils' work properly.
   Because of his incessant bullying he drove a number of very good teachers to utter despair and , following this, got promoted to the powerful job of Challenge Advisor, enabling him to deploy that bullying against whole schools and also to appoint his cronies to many posts.
   People may assume I've been tainted by my naturally rebellious nature in my views here, yet I speak from experience as my very first job was in a school where the Head was an alcoholic who used to physically abuse pupils violently and became 'over-friendly' with female staff of an afternoon after a few lunchtime drinks.
   Indeed, most other teachers and ex-teachers I know share my views on Heads.
   I'm not saying the system can be reformed though.
   It needs a revolution  as it reflects the shamocracy of our society itself : consultation is minimal and people on the chalk-face ( digital-whiteboard now) are seen by government and councils as not to be trusted.
   Until power's distributed, the system is wide open to the cheating and bullying I have described.
   With the focus increasingly on results at any cost and at the expense of creativity, such practices will continue virtually unchecked.
   Sadly, those who rise to the top are the very Yes-men or -women who place their own ambition before everything.  


                                  IT'S  CALLED  EDUCATION
​

Contrary to Floyd's 'brick in the wall'
most teachers actually like children
and desire to inspire them.

Those who don't just want
to get out of the classroom :
they are called Heads.

Heads who find they can't stand
the staff who to them are problems
become Challenge Advisors.

Challenge Advisors make their living
out of bullying the teachers
they used to find really annoying.

If they fail enough teachers
because of the results of ludicrous tests,
they end up with promotion.

They are then called Inspectors
who go into the same schools
and find everything wrong with them.

The teachers just cannot be inspiring
as they're busy training kids for exams.
And we call this 'Education'.

     

   I've been to Glasgow three times to visit my son and his family, yet feel I barely know the city.
   Cities are such vast entities and I am unfamiliar with their workings, mysteries.
   I was brought up in a village near Aber, moved to Cambridge and for a while got to know it until I came to dislike it intensely; then moved to a small, farming community and , for many years have lived  in Heolgerrig above Merthyr.
   Unlike my Belfast-born wife I am always uncomfortable in cities, even old friends like Cardiff and Swansea.
   It's partly my upbringing, but also an obsession with maps and geography I've had since school days.  I've maps of countries and continents in my head, yet can't visualize cities in the same way and even Belfast with its spokes of roads from the centre becomes blurry at the edges.
   When people talk about city-breaks and generalise about liking this place or that , I am suspicious.
   To me, the Glasgow I know is two small areas separated by the River Clyde and those bridges passed over daily: in the south around Queen's Park and in the west near the university.
   I've a sense of it from the taxi-drivers talking football and many friendly assistants in shops, restaurants and cafes.
   Flying  this time was quite an ordeal, as Glasgow was immersed in fog. However, our troubles began at Cardiff Airport and a delay which FlyBe officials explained as ' one box at the front not connecting with another at the back'.......all very technical!
   Glasgow's distinctive for me because of its tall tenements made from sandstone in the 19th century.....it's astonishing to think that some 73% of its population live in flats. They are proud, sturdy buildings which give a real sense of continuity to the cityscape.
   We actually stayed in one this time and when the fog cleared had a view of the infamous Ashton Lane beyond the tree-tops, all spangled in lights and a restaurant called Ubiquitous Chip where the large chips are more like mini roasties and should've been renamed Frozen Chip when we went there, as we sat in a draught the whole meal!
   Though I'm no fan of Christmas with its crass commercialism and carnivorous carnival, it's so exciting for our family to get together again and to see my grandson as he develops so quickly and his personality takes shape.
   Now he's up walking and exploring everything you've to keep an eye on him; yet it's very inspiring watching him copy movements and sounds and begin to fashion language and respond with such awe to his surroundings. We take so much for granted.
   We all sit round vying for his attention by making the most ridiculous noises and I'm one of the worst offenders : my Donald Duck impersonations desperate.
   In amongst this silliness, my wife can produce a song for almost every toy or game in both English and Welsh, my favourite being 'Mi welais Jac a Do' as he taps his head ( to me he's 'doing the ayatollah'!).
   My son and daughter-in-law keep a detailed account of his progress and I was glad to contribute by writing out a couple of haiku from this year about him and a brief history of the Jenkins family.
   Here are three more I wrote after our visit :-

Taller than his dad,
it blooms light-buds and strange fruits :
he plucks a soft snowman.

=========

In the room's corners
he discovers shiny sounds :
offers them around.

=========

For each toy and game
her songs are strongly blowing :
he's a tree swaying.

   Glasgow appears to be a vibrant city culturally and one day I hope to go to the Celtic Connections festival ( mostly folk music), where this year two of my favourite artists are appearing on the same evening , namely Scottish singer-songwriter  Karine Polwart and Armenian jazz pianist/composer Tigran Hamasyan.
   It's a city which deserves to be the hub of a fiercely independent Scotland, but one where its rulers need to be open to criticism and readily embrace true socialism and republicanism.
   I look forward to returning to see how my wee grandson finds his way and whether he takes on the accent I know well from the literature of the likes of James Kelman  and Tom Leonard.
   Hopefully next time we'll fly into more clement whether!


                                  INTO  THE  FOG

We're flying into the fog
and there's a deathly quiet
till one old lady says -
' I'd rather not end up
in pieces scattered all over!'

Everyone glares at her
as we glimpse the lights
of the city below in the distance
and, for a moment, think
we are saved this fate.

Then we descend into it :
a swirling, freezing, blind cloud ,
I think  is the perfect
metaphor for Brexit 
except nobody's at each other;

and Theresa May is not the pilot
because she's on auto, with her
'Brexit is Brexit' and ' The only deal';
we have to depend on the skill
of the person in the cockpit.

The co-pilot sounds like Corbyn
so calm and reassuring -
'We've enough fuel for an hour
of taxiing, if we should fail.'
We halt mid-air, jittery with information.

The co-pilot has a plan
as the cabin crew look doomed.
When we judder and brake-screech
onto the runway, nobody claps
because May's still out there, lurking.

   
   

   I'm absolutely 'wrth fy modd' to have a new book of poetry out from Culture Matters, entitled 'From Aberfan t Grenfell', with the title poem looking at the comparisons between those two man-made tragedies, where working class people were victims of callous capitalism and the authorities' indifference.
   First and foremost, it's a volume from two people, myself and the multi-talented Swansea artist, poet and story-writer Alan Perry.
   Alan's someone I've known for a long time and even when I was a student at Aber Uni and trying to get a magazine of creative writing together , I turned to him for a cover and he produced a great drawing for the only edition of 'Asp'.
  I recall him a few years later doing a hilarious reading at St. Donat's where he proceeded to balance a book on his nose!
   After that, we used to meet up regularly in Swansea with Peter Thabit Jones to plan a magazine which never materialised. His illustrations, however, have often appeared on the cover of 'Red Poets' magazine, not least the latest one, a typically quirky and funny picture. When I was editor of 'Poetry Wales' in the 80s it was to Alan I turned for a series of striking cartoons satirising the lit business.
   He recently read at our Open Mic at the Imp in Merthyr and everyone agreed it was one of the best ever. Alan is so modest he was about to sell his books for a couple of quid till I persuaded him otherwise.
   He definitely doesn't deserve to be on the margins of Welsh art and literature and it's a scandal that he isn't more widely recognised and praised.
   This book's very different from the previous one published by Newcastle-based  left-wing website and press Culture Matters.
   For 'Bring the Rising Home!'  brilliant Merthyr artist Gus Payne selected images / paintings to complement the poems mostly written in standard English, with some in Welsh and a couple in dialect.
 'From Aberfan t Grenfell' is entirely in Merthyr dialect ( 'dalek' according to Phil Knight!) and Alan created his intricate line drawings around the poems themselves, so word and image become an entity.
   We also insisted on a size and format which enhanced this and the subsequent size is like that of 'Planet' magazine.
   Alan's stark and moving cover ( above) of the miner/rescuer of Aberfan and fire-fighter at Grenfell was excellently designed by his son Gareth and we're indebted to Alan Morrison for his proof-reading.
   Just one example of this 'merged' text and artwork is the poem 'Steve the Bus' where we view the protagonist through a bus window and the text becomes part of the vehicle with a single wheel at the base of the page.
​   If the poems are buildings  , then Alan's drawings are the opening which shed light on interiors : illuminate but never make glaring.
   We are both indebted to the editor at Culture Matters Mike Quille who is one of the heroes of the alternative publishing scene. As a long-time Communist he knows the value of patience and is now publishing some of the best books around.
   One of these is 'The things our hands once stood for' by the extraordinary London poet Martin Hayes, whose work is like that of a witty, urban Whitman and which concentrates entirely on his work and that of those around him. He captures a modern industry - the courier one - in all of its manifestations, exposing the enormity of exploitation through the behaviour of so-called ordinary people who, in reality, are anything but. 
   Offset by his own black and white photos, this book is my favourite poetry book of the year and shows how Mike Quille's venture to combine the written and visual is a truly pioneering one.
   An exciting development from our book are Alan's hand-coloured prints which will be framed and ( hopefully) sold. Alan is planning an exhibition of these, almost certainly in his home-town Swansea . There is also the possibility of publishing a limited edition of  these coloured versions in the future.
   While it's heartening to think that the dialect poetry is getting wider recognition , I do wonder if I'll carry on writing it.
   However, I do find writing from various viewpoints far more interesting than self-absorbed confessionals.
   The future of my writing is very much like writing a single poem : there's a shape in my head but not a plan ; an image but not destination.
   Who knows where I'll arrive?
   Therein lies the thrill.

( This is a poem from the book, which I wrote a year ago.........


                       A  DRONE  F   CHRISTMAS


'Ee wants a drone f Christmas!'
she sayz goin on an on an on
as she searches the Sale
of smellies, 'lectronic cars,
quizzes in fancy,silver tins,
cardboard face masks
an ping pong with beer glasses.

'Ee've set is eart on it!'
she keeps repeatin
past chocolates in pyramids
an ewge Italian cakes
size o rabbit utches.

'What ee'll do with it
is beyond me mind!
Blow up nex door,
or take photos of er opposite
when she shows er all?
I'm beginnin t think.....'

I jest wanna tell er ......
'Yew won' find one yer,
but if yew try bottlin
yewer voice, put a stopper on,
yew'll ave the perfect one!' 
  
   

    What kind of band take their name from an Emily Dickinson poem?
   The answer is an incredibly unique one called Another Sky, taken from Dickinson's 'There is another sky', which begins - 
'There is another sky
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there'
.....you can read different things into these lines: a meditation on hope even in despair, or intimation of immortality in another world.
   However, Another Sky possess - like the inventive Californian singer-songwriter Julia Holter -  an uncanny ability to be poetic, political and powerfully dramatic at the same time.
   They've been compared to the XX, Alt J and Radiohead , but I see more similarities with Holter and also Grasscut ( based in Hove but with Welsh connections).
   Some music grabs you immediately,often because of a single song and I only had to listen to the likes of John Cale, Thea Gilmore and Tom Russell once to make up my mind.
   At other times, it can be the opposite. When I first encountered Cohen, Dylan and even Waits I found their voices hard to take, being so unconventional ( some would say, unmusical).
   It was the same with singer Catrin Vincent of Another Sky, simply because I heard the single 'Avalanche' first and the vocals sounded like a man's shrill falsetto; disturbing because it was so original.
   Yet this didn't prepare me for any of their other songs!
   Their music is crafted but never slick, dramatic never bombastic,owing much to their togetherness, but without that voice........
   What's remarkable is  they've released two singles and an e.p., but no album as yet and for each song Vincent sounds very different , like animals shape-shifting.
   They are London-based and met up at Goldsmith's, attended by none other than Cale himself before he moved to New York.
   Vincent is the main songwriter and has explained how politics ( in the widest sense) are never far from her concerns ( their FB page includes the band's poem against fracking). She grew up in a small, right-wing Midlands town and rebelled against every aspect.
   The politics is never overt or ranty ( Vincent's a fan of Kate Tempest) and emerges particularly strongly in the singles 'Chillers' and 'Avalanche', both of which they performed on the last series of Jools Holland ( occasionally he does discover gems).
   'Chillers' has a peculiar chant-like chorus and , like the other single, switches perspectives in a challenging way : from ' Acid rain, acid took you out' to ' throwing bricks at each others' egos'.
   'Avalanche' is more of a righteous yell yet still moves from 'Desperation on every street corner' to 'we are the bird-song, we are the sea-bed'.
   In other words, those Dickinson mysteries are always evident.
   Their e.p. 'Forget Yourself' is excellent throughout : four songs, four elements.
   The title track is airy and wind-swept with layers of sound, including piano and electronica, very similar to the best of Grasscut - 'seeing colours in the dark'.
   'Fighting Bulls' builds up the tension like Cale's cover of 'Heartbreak Hotel' ; but guitar-driven and earthbound - 'those fighting bulls try not to die'.
   'All that we do create' is internal fire : flames of creation not destruction - ' all that we do create / the world is no cold, dark place'. Breathtaking positivity in such troubled times, like Idles' album 'Joy as an act of resistance'.
   Finally 'The Water Below' takes us beneath the surface growing fins like Beefheart's song, breathing where we should drown -
' I was a girl
Made of debris
Now I build a home
In my body'
   They are finding their way and so much the better for it.
   Poetry, passion and poignancy : that rare trinity. 


                                SONGS  SHAPE-SHIFTING

​

Her voice a red kite
survivor scavenger gliding
across the pasturelands,
glint of blood in eyes.

Lands and transforms
into a bull struggling
to throw knives from skin
as goaders surround.

Dashing into the sun
burning through veins,
fox away from the hunt
with its brush on fire.

Into the river, a trout
leaping for Mayflies ;
her voice a form
smooth down-stream.     
    

     With that Bakweri title 'Mola' I feel part of it all.
   The Welsh word 'teulu' once denoted a household, clan or tribe, not just 'family'.
   We are two countries who share linguistic divisions and this has caused problems, yet ironically also adds to the richness of our nations, the interactions between them bringing new forms like the hybrid Pidgin and the English dialects especially in the Valleys. 
   Such divisions are a legacy of old colonial ties and still serve to divide and rule.
   Cameroon moves slowly towards embracing bi-lingualism just as Cymru sees an upsurge in Welsh medium education. Yet what of the many tribal languages there? Indigenous as Welsh to this land and linked to their ancestors, to that ancient sense of 'teulu'. To make a vital contact with the land and its gods again it can only happen through these.
   In a circle we share palm wine from a plastic bottle ; hole pierced at the top. It has been tapped that very day and fermented as we spoke. Anybody is free to join and, at our hotel, a mayor from a nearby district sits down to imbibe , calling us 'mes freres aux Pays de Galles'. The next day he brings an even bigger bottle to share.
    On the roads we come face to face with realities of death. Three hunters stand over a beautiful antelope and a porcupine resting on it. Bloodstains beneath them as they put a price on these corpses and even on photos of them.  
   On our return journey  a man is run over by a truck whose brakes failed and the driver does a rapid runner into nearby dwellings pursued by many locals. His fate could well be to be macheted or torn limb from limb unless the gendarmes get to him first.
  One cop shows up late and waves his arms, phoning for reinforcements.
   When we're stopped at a checkpoint by armed police one evening I'm desperately looking for ID as I've forgotten my passport. I use my trusted Merthyr bus pass instead and they write down the details diligently. There's a moment of panic as one of our party ( a man from the mountains, his name a give-away) has no ID! Money's passed and we're able to move on : typical of many a tricky situation, but a great relief also.
   My free bus pass proves equally effective getting into the British Embassy a few days later where I'm 'poet laureate' but not Carol Ann Duffy with a sex change!
   After two hours of browsing through royalist propaganda in their waiting room, we meet a man called Elvis who once wrote poetry but gave it up on reading Keats and discovering it only led to destitution!
   The National Museum in Yaounde was totally empty on a Sunday and our meticulous guide showed us around all the exhibits, explaining with erudition.
   He also told us how a Japanese tourist had slapped him when she saw the huge picture of President Biya which greets you as you enter.
   I never saw any tourists in Cameroon, just a few Westerners visiting on business or reporting on the election and Chinese contractors working on the football stadium at Douala.
   The museum tour did end in a whole room dedicated to Biya, including a photo of his first wife who, apparently, he got rid of!
   Outside was a photographer with a series of pictures of the same sky where a space in the clouds was the shape of Cameroon. 
   I couldn't help thinking of the many aspects of this lively and fraught country you could photograph : signs, street-sellers,empty rows of Government shops, okada drivers, those with goods balanced on their heads, or official buildings protected by razor wire.
   Religion underpins society here.....so different from home.
   Protestantism of the Anglophones, Catholicism of Francophones, quite a few Muslims and that ancient connection with the tribes and their many gods, so tangible in the sculptures outside the museum, like the spider of wisdom.
   Yet in the zoo nothing but depression. A car with no wheels and a dead kite left lying nearby.
   Two of our party sensibly opted out of the visit : one who , like me, loathed zoos and the other who commented ' I've seen enough wild animals on my plantation'.
   Neurotic baboons in confined spaces and one, seriously disturbed by the keeper , who dashed to the wire, baring teeth and then retreated in fear.
   The keeper explained how he'd actually fought with this ape and lost, so ran for his boss to save him; since that day the animal had always challenged him.
   Soldiers in watch-towers; patrols on the roads ; aftermath of a controversial and much-queried election evident everywhere.
   As playwright, poet and editor Eric Ngalle Charles often said - ' If you think you've grasped the politics of Cameroon,then definitely haven 't!'
   So where was this divided country heading? Could it be whole again?
   In his poem 'Y Ty Hwn' from Eric's anthology 'Hiraeth / Erzolirzoli' , National Poet Ifor ap Glyn writes -
          ' boed i annodd bod yn syml,
           a'r heriol yn hwyl'
  ( ' let difficult become simple,
      and challenging become fun')
   ........a call for a new kind of government in our country, but which could equally apply to Cameroon, whose challenges are far more serious in terms of violence and the well-being of citizens.
   One man tries to balance a country on his head, it will sooner or later crush him, pound him down.
   But if every person carries a part of it along the dusty highway - even in midday sun - it can be transported : a shoe, some fruit, coconuts or clothing.
   One person holds a country like a coffin, but each person sharing the load holds it high like a trophy, a celebration.


                                 Y   TRI   MOLAS
                                ( i  Ifor ap Glyn)

Aeth y tri Molas o Gymru i Gamerwn:
roedd Eric Ngalle capten y criw,
dyn o'r bobol Mopkwe
gyda theulu ro'n ni ei ddathlu
a chwerthin oedd yn teithio'r byd ;
a hefyd roedd 'na Ifor ap Glyn
un o fois enwog Cymry Llundain
gyda biro wastad yn barod
ro'n sgwennu, sgwennu, sgwennu,
ac, wrth gwrs, dyna fi
'poet laureate' yng Gghamerwn, meddai,
am dim ond cwpl o wythnosau,
gyda cherdyn bws Merthyr
a agorodd drysiau swyddogol. 


Aeth y tri o Ddouala i Yaounde
yng ngwlad y Matanga ac okada:
lle mae'r tlodion'n trio bod yn well
ond mae'r arweinwyr'n dal i ennill.
Roedd y tri Molas yn darganfod
cyfoeth y cregyn 'cowrie' a chwmni.

( diolch i Marie a Phil Stone a
m eu help) 



                             THE  THREE  MOLAS
                                (for Ifor ap Glyn)

The three Molas, from Cymru to Cameroon :
captain of the crew Eric Ngalle
a man of the Mopkwe tribe,
whose family gathered to celebrate,
whose laugh encompassed the globe ;
and then there was Ifor ap Glyn
one of the famous London Welshmen
with biro always at the ready
to write, write, write,
not forgetting me , Mike,
'Poet Laureate' of that country
for a couple of weeks only,
with my trusty Merthyr bus pass
perfect for checkpoints and embassies.


Three of us from Douala to Yaounde
in the land of Matanga and okada,
where the poor struggle for better lives
while the rich are always victors.
The three Molas who discovered
a wealth of cowrie shells and company. 
   
  
    
   

   Just a few weeks back the 3 Molas - namely myself, Eric Ngalle Charles and Ifor ap Glyn - set off on a visit to Cameroon, a Welsh delegation ready to launch the anthology Eric edited 'Hiraeth / Erzolirzoli' ( Hafan Books), make contacts with writers there and build for the future of Cymru-Cameroon ( all supported by Wales Arts International).
   So, I entered the utter darkness.....no, I don't mean Africa, but Sophia Gardens bus 'station' in Cardiff. Park gates locked, no lights....overnight express to Heathrow ( loosely 'express', as it goes through Chepstow!).
   Screaming kid all the way recalled the new TV drama series 'The Cry', especially when a woman yelled - 'Give him some bloody water!'
   At the airport Eric's case was seriously overweight with copies of the book, but sharing and a new case sorted that.
   Africa before us, first time for myself and Ifor.....a Continent shaped in my consciousness by the likes of Achebe, Jack Mapanje and Conrad. Cameroon itself hatched in my head by Eric's own inimitable performances ....a part of that country already in Wales, as Ifor put it.
   We landed in the commercial capital Douala and very soon at the cafe opposite our hotel, Eric's many friends and family gathered : sister arriving with her baby on an okada (motorbike taxi) and his mother, as larger-than-life as he is, so even Sion Tomos Owen's cartoons would find it hard to pin down.
   There were immediately many tales of his home near Buea, across the river and not so far away : tales of the guerilla war fought by Ambazonian secessionists for an Anglophone state ( Cameroon is 80% Francophone and 20% Anglophone) and brutal army response. How even Eric's mother wanted to move and his friend, the film-maker Palmer Ngale Mbua had run 3 kilometres when shooting broke out. 
   This starkly contrasted the celebration and feasting of this first evening.
   The first of countless times, Eric patiently explained that I was a 'vegeterien' and, as in France , he might as well have introduced me to waiters as a 'Martian'.
   While they tucked into snails, chicken, fish and tripe ( avoiding the viper and python on the menu), I ate the furlong ( Garden huckleberry) and plantain that would become my staple diet.
   Languages criss-crossed and leapt about the tables : Bakweri of Eric's tribe, English, Pidgin ( a hybrid dialect of English and some German),and some French ; though Eric is from the Anglophone south-west.
   Next day we embarked on the long car journey to the political capital Yaounde, inland and more tropical, for the launch, media appearances and to meet Cameroonian writers who appear in the anthology.
   The main road symbolizes the state of the country : a place thronging with hard-working, busy traders, a timber industry paying no heed to the environment and a collapsing infrastructure. It often became a rough track or was so full of fissures and pot-holes it was like there'd been an earthquake. 
   A new stadium's being constructed outside Douala in the hope that Cameroon will host the next African Nations Cup: incongruous amongst the dirt tracks.
   Few buses were on the road and , despite teams of whistle-blowing safety-men, many vehicles were being driven with broken screens, lethal loads and black fumes from exhaust from the cheap fuel sold in plastic canisters by the roadside.
   The country's rich in resources from timber to coffee, tea to cacao : where was all the revenue going to?
   Certainly not roads, transport or toilets which consisted of ( as Eric put it) 'dangling your parts' beside a bush or ditch. Caught short in the middle of Yaounde, I had to do this and provoked many car horns to my complete embarrassment! 
   Our Yaounde hotel was welcome comfort after Douala's dubious dwelling and that evening we met several writers from 'Hiraeth / Erzolirzoli', including Douglas Achingale, Joffi Ewusi and story-writer Tiffuh Esther.
   Douglas is a brave poet of protest and I gave him a copy of 'Red Poets' ; I sincerely hope he submits as his work would be the perfect fit.
   It was wonderful to hear Ifor , our National Poet, talk so eloquently about Welsh history.
   Explaining Cymru became a vital task just as we were learning so much about their country. It wasn't enough to reference Gareth Bale either and our language and degree of self-government had to be placed into context.
  If there was ever the perfect choice for National Poet then Ifor must be it : he adapts so readily, writes notes furiously about the culture and place and even won the great Achu challenge, a one-finger style of eating this yellow soup in a crater of coco-yam, while I swallowed a chilli whole and spluttered ! On Facebook, one wag described that meal as 'a ring of meringue with curry sauce inside'!
   For our launch the next evening at the Chamber of Agriculture he had even written a celebratory englyn, which he duly read out after addressing the audience in Bakweri.  
   The launch was due to begin at 4 pm so, as Eric had warned, we kicked off well after 5 , just as the rain poured down and thunder erupted. Soon as I heard it I said to him - 'There'll be a power cut!'
   Sure enough, a black out just after the start. Luckily, his sister had brought torches and our voices carried down the large hall.
   Ifor's poem 'Y Ty Hwn' which was written especially for the last opening of the Welsh Assembly was read out in Bakweri by the translator Efange Protus Esuka. This was a moment of sheer magic, as was Eric's performance in front of most of his village for the first time . In the intervals between readings and speeches, the wonderful ChaCha dancers even managed to involve two rather wooden Welshmen.
   Douglas Achingale's reading of 'The Honourable Minister' was particularly pertinent in such troubled times.
   Each of us was interviewed that night for national tv and in the ensuing days we were interviewed for the national press and radio; the latter by Charles Tembei, who actually did an internship under Channel 4's Jon Snow in 2007!
   Despite being government owned, the radio station building was much like the rest of the country: toilet flooding, ceilings gaping, an entire theatre space disused and a subterranean darkness pervading.
   Defying these surroundings, Tembei was master of the mic and we had a meal with him afterwards as the Presidential election results were announced on tv. They would take several hours and had no running totals he explained.
   When the incumbent President Paul Biya was declared victor with over 70 % of the vote nobody seemed shocked, though everyone expected trouble.
   There had been many allegations of fraud and malpractice and a very low turn-out in the Anglophone south- and north-west where the secessionists operate.
   Biya is 85 and spends an inordinate amount of time in Geneva. He has never addressed the people in English, despite the contentiousness of the issue, a legacy of colonialism. He has held power for 36 years and the first country to congratulate him was the so-called liberal Macron of France, the former colonial power who still benefit considerably economically and maintain a security presence.
   His face ( well, a much younger version) is everywhere on billboards, official offices and the museum and his party are all-powerful. I later learnt about the many Cameroonian writers detained or exiled for their alleged criticism of the regime; surely cases which PEN Cymru must pursue.
   One billboard slogan reads 'THE FORCE OF EXPERIENCE' , an apt mistranslation from the French! 
   Wealth and poverty are strange neighbours here, as they are in India. Right next to a city community like a 'village' without sanitation and with corrugated iron roofs,we came upon a palatial house with high walls and iron gate.
   Yet when I reflect on the people I met  and came to know I admire so much their ambition and drive, despite these stark inequalities and violence lurking.
   I think of the film-maker Palmer who has so little support for his many projects , yet is determined to enter next year's Cardiff Film Festival and, even after watching us lose 4-1 to Liverpool is an honorary Bluebird!
   I think of poet Joffi Ewusi with her three young children, who still finds room in her house for two 'displaced' young people from the war zones ( there are many such 'internal refugees' in Cameroon).
   I think too of the postgraduate Raoul Djemili with French his first language, telling me about the plight of Cameroon's writers ; a subject I hope he'll write about for 'Red Poets'.
   I think also of our indomitable driver 'Benji', a man of few words but many Vimtos, who steered us through so much mayhem with great placidity and who appeared on national TV at our launch to much acclaim from friends and family.
   Above all, I think of the 3 Molas bringing those two words 'hiraeth ' and 'erzolirzoli' so close together they have become inseparable, one Welsh and one Bakweri.
   Who would have imagined it?
   Two countries so far apart, inextricably joined. 


                                      OUT  OF  THE  DARKNESS

                                        ( for Eric Ngalle Charles)


A resounding explosion like shock of news
travelling fast from troubled territories,
lights out so we could no longer view
that framed face as it peered
on every street, promising 'THE FORCE OF EXPERIENCE'
( mistranslation telling much).

With torchlight, as in a cave, the ceremony proceeded :
poetry and speeches bringing light.
All his village had journeyed for his homecoming:
for them , a tunic of many colours,
black hat and stick ; applause for returning son. 

From the depths like beams through a cleft
came Cha Cha drummers and dancers chanting,
so Cymru-Cameroon joined together one expression.

Rain ceased its troubled nattering
and the cockerel crowed both dawn and day-time
when we later shared palm wine
under the gentle shade :
two friends, two lands learning.            

   I've recently joined a choir called Merthyr Aloud/ Merthyr Yn Uchel and we sing world music / cerddoriaeth y byd.
   Felly, dw i'n wrth fy modd!
   It's not as if I have a wide experience of choral music though. I reached the heights at the age of 11 when - the Aled Jones of Milton Road Juniors - I soloed on 'Once in Royal David's City'.
   I was duly spotted by my mother, who had designs on dispatching me to the nearby King's College school in order to make way for her lover, our lodger.
   But I was having none of that.
   In Grammar I was  a choir member ( apart from voice-breaking years)  and we once performed in Coventry Cathedral, having spent the night in the creepy crypt.
   Later, singing bass baritone, I especially enjoyed our carol singing from house to house to raise money for charity. We ended up at the Head's house for mince pies and the notorious 'Twitch' suddenly became human.
   When my children were young I loved singing them to sleep and knew well the ones to lull like 'Witchita Lineman', Randy Newman's 'Marie', plenty of Beatles and the selected songbook of Leonard Cohen; though 'El Condor Pasa' was maybe a little lively.
   I'd like to think that our communal love of the Beatles derives from those early years, though Cohen never made a lasting impact.
   So, in one way or another, singing has always played a part in my life : from our staff choir singing rock spiritual 'Holy Boy' at two Merthyr churches, to annoying those same teachers end of term in a mini-bus with Cor Cochion Caerdydd anthems like 'Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika'. Only the pleas of my leftist mate Arwel Davies stopping the inebriated teachers from throwing me onto the roadside!
   My most memorable singing moment came in Merthyr precinct one Christmas during those anti-apartheid campaigning years.
   Cor Cochion were actually being arrested for obstruction when , impulsively, I joined them for 'Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau'.
   I was left standing alone still singing, as they were hauled away into a black mariah!
   With Merthyr Aloud I was wary at first, finding it tricky keeping to the bass parts and switching languages.
   But soon my confidence grew and the director Tanya is so encouraging, enthusiastic and talented.
   Some songs, such as Cohen's renowned 'Hallelujah' are all too familiar , though not the bass part however.
   Others are new to me and after only three weeks I was delighted to lead the way on 'Long road to Freedom' from the Nelson Mandela film ( mainly because the other basses were away).
   This song took me back to the best days of Cor Cochion when Tony Bianchi's booming bass resonated so strongly.
   Soon I'm off to Cameroon with Eric Ngalle Charles and Ifor ap Glyn to launch Eric's anthology ' Hiraeth / Erzolirzoli ' and Tanya told me her daughter did a project on that country and found it had the biggest frog in the world. I'll keep a look-out!
   It's fascinating changing languages and also styles : from rousing negro spirituals to purity of carols, Shakin' Stevens to Laughin' Lennie.
   Some members of the choir ( plus a cameo appearance by everyone) will be on S4C after Christmas as part of a programme about the recording of 'Atgof Angel' featuring opera singer Rhys Meirion.
   On November 24th you can catch us at Pontsticill Xmas Fair in the Village Hall at 12.30.
   When I sing I become that boy again in Milton Road school, standing in a semi-circle around the piano singing folk songs and sea shanties ( though my voice is a little deeper).
   Music can make us ageless.


                                 MERTHYR YN UCHEL
                                     i Tony Pritchard  

We shake off the days
we shake off age
we reach for apples
up in the clouds,
become Tarzan tongue-twisters,
learn to breathe again


we travel by song
from land to land
Zimbabwe, Mexico, Slovakia
returning in our hiraeth
to Cymru and the river :
changing keys of water


standing in a crescent
light from the harmonies
sometimes fractured
sometimes flowing,
touch fruit of Tir na Nog
taste of sound glowing.     

  Walking. So vital to verse : rhythm and breath. Seeking the changing seasons, glimpses of animals never seen before. One day the kingfisher.
   As a teenager in East Anglia those fields of barley and sugar beet ; isolated copses. Transistor radio in hand, listening to 'Pick of the Pops'.
   Or in the flatlands closer to the city , searching for a river-bank to hide from the huge horizon.
   In Aber as a student re-visiting my past daily down the prom, on the half-pier's machines, or over to Tanybwlch's storm beach where I once learnt to swim in freezing, wave-crashing Bay.
   ( Seeing a Cornishman pop up from the long grass, book in hand.....what a place to read, to learn!).
   Pen Dinas bound by paths where I wandered wild as a kid  playing kiss chase and hide 'n' seek till the sun went down and my brother was sent to haul me home.
   Walking. The metre and the line. A forest track or a footpath.
   In Garw Nant in the Beacons all the animals seem to have gone and left their understudies : wooden imitations sitting by the route, fossilized before their time.
   Yet in the Valleys you suddenly discover a place passed many times, some of it reclaimed from the old mine, where waste is kicked up.
   Parc Penallta, Ystrad Mynach : wasteland being slowly taken back and forests of deciduous and evergreen.
   Single spark of a green woodpecker as the sounds compete : buzzards above while, from over the valley, the road-rush of incessant traffic.
   There'll be dog-owners, Nordic walkers and ardent runners later on, but for now this place is virtually deserted, as we tread tentatively on the grass form of Sultan the pit pony, a profiled shape which makes you join those raptors and gaze down.
   Blackberries rot in the bushes, yet gorse flames even as autumn begins its colours of dying.
   Returning to Merthyr over Gelligaer Common, where horses, sheep and cattle wander over the cropped , bare moorlands and a quarry looms on the skyline like a strange, out-of-place volcano.
   The Valleys are full of places like Parc Penallta and sometimes we forget to laud them, living close to cosseted National Parks.
   Walking. Sentences punctuated by birds and squirrels. Burying images for another, hungrier time.


                            GRASS PONY, PARC PENALLTA

                                for Julie, Tog and Debbie  

Scrabbling up the flanks of Sultan,
you'd need to be a buzzard :
in the distance hear them mewling.

Whispering into his wire ear :
'How dark deep down,
how damp in the narrow gallery?'

Standing on a nostril
clinkered with pit waste,
a memory of thick dust.

Walking along the pony's body,
his hair of returning grass
and mane with slag exposed.

With his hooves of coal
and the wind whinnying,
Sultan's a twmp protruding.

With eye of split stone
peering into a clear sky,
come at last into light.
   

   Recently we launched issue 24 of ‘Red Poets’ magazine at the Imp in Merthyr Tudful, now an annual ritual.
   We’ve actually been going 25 years as we managed to skip a year while suffering a prolonged hangover from all the collating and stapling of issue 1.
   It was a wild and stormy night in Cymru and some contacted me with apologies, saying they were lost in the floods.
   However, Harry Rogers made it all the way from Castell Emlyn, John Williams had come from Lewisham and Leon Lazarus had been re-born while trudging up the valley and emerged looking like he’d nearly drowned!
   It was another great night of music and verse and wonderful to welcome poets such as Adele Cordner from the Port and Paula Denby with her surfer son, both making their debuts. When Paula sang ‘Ar lan y môr’ it was a moment of sheer magic.
   The issue’s so packed with fascinating contributions that I can’t mention everyone…..opening poems by the Buddhist Boyz Barry Taylor and Al Jones reflect wryly on the Red Poets themselves.
   There’s much masterful satire from the likes of Dave Hughes, Martin Hayes and , of course, Phil Knight whose ‘I love Wales’ refers repeatedly to our many types of rain –
    ‘I love its rain.
    The hard rain, the soft,
    The acid rain, the carbon rain,
    The salt and sand rain
    Of lost Saturday afternoons.
    The rain, the glorious rain.’
…..read marvellously by Heather Falconer to the soundtrack of that very rain crashing down outside in Merthyr.
   There is a poem by the eminent poet, essayist and critic Jeremy Hooker who – for the first time in his life – recently joined a political party, namely Corbyn’s Labour and who shows his passion and praise in ‘Aneurin Bevan Memorial Stones’ –
‘ …this young man with a stutter
     declaiming Shakespeare or Marx,
     correcting his voice, and honing it,
     like a tool, useful as a miner’s pick.’
  Such precise description and so apt.
  Fittingly there are 4 poems dealing directly with the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower : Merthyr’s own John Williams went to help in the aftermath and ‘Fully Furnaced Flat’ is a frighteningly stark response. Then there’s the anger of Des Mannay and Tim Evans’ poems and the righteous indignation of J. Richardson –
     ‘  The media carefully avoids the bottomless vault
        Of anonymous horror
        The un-glamorous deaths of the poor.’
   One of my favourite poets on the scene today is undoubtedly Becky Lowe of Swansea and it’s high time a publisher in Cymru brought a book out by her, because her work is always imaginative and thought-provoking ; ‘This Pen’ is no exception –
     ‘ This pen contains
        Love or poison,
        Can amputate hearts
        At a single stroke
        Can make you disappear
        Or become immortal.’
   Another poet who, like Becky, reads regularly at Talisman in Swansea, is Teifion Hughes, so underrated and unassuming. His ‘ A Single Spark’ tells of Che and Fidel in Mexico, a narrative poem yet full of strong descriptions –
    ‘ Here comes the wind to mimic
      Che’s asthmatic : his drug left
      dry on a Mexican shelf.’ 
   I feel proud and honoured to give poets like Teifion this opportunity.
   Then there are the old-timers such as myself, Alun Rees  and Tim Richards who’ve been here from the beginning ( well, almost in Tim’s case). Tim’s ‘Being Welsh’ is as pertinent today as it would’ve been when we were all members of the Welsh Socialists , Cymru Goch the very group who gave birth to the Red Poets in Clwb-y-Bont, where Alun Roberts must have been mid-wife!
   Tim questions our allegiances and how easily these can be cast aside –
     ‘ So I loyally vote Labour
       and get English Tory governments
      ‘cos when it really comes down to it
       I am a True Brit.’
   Red Poets remains a multifarious collection of voices from all different parts of the Left : SWP to left Plaid, staunch Corbynites to anarchists.
   As I say in the Intro to this issue, referring to young poets like Rufus Mufasa and Kate Tempest –
   ‘ Despite the blandness of much of the literary scene, I’m heartened by young artists taking poetry onto the main stage and challenging the predictability of so much popular culture.’
   Indeed, we have both Leon Lazarus and Patrick Jones who often use spoken word and music so effectively.
   From red to green to black and back again, 25 years after our first ‘one-off’ magazine.
 
 
                                        RED  STORM
 
 
A storm blew them in
bedraggled and blasted ,
up the flooding High Street
past flying branches
and clogged-up drains.
 
A storm with innocuous name
like that of an Aunt
visiting over the summer ;
but here they gathered
wet and wound up
by the one-way system,
to take a stand.
 
A storm they didn’t shake off
or change like damp clothing,
but which became their words :
bringing down barriers and walls
and lifting everyone like seabirds
in a full-feathered freedom.