Birdman

Birdman

Bold Dewi Jones would leave his home
first thing every morning,
and trot him down to Towy Wood
just as day was dawning,
and there he filled his Tesco bag,
five pence from any store,
with chickweed celandine and seed
and other weeds galore.
Then he fed them to his finches
to peck at in the cage,
while he ate his Kellog Cornflakes
and read the sporting page.

When Dewi was a kid at school
he hadn’t many toys,
and on the farm out in the sticks
there were no other boys,
so the woods became his playground,
a bird his childhood friend,
and he played a game with finches
he prayed would never end.
Their songs were short machinegun bursts
that echoed through the wood,
and Dewi, in green camouflage,
would stalk like Robin Hood.

A grown-up now, he made a frame
that lay beneath a net,
and then with trails of wild bird seed
a crafty trap he set.
That’s how he caught his lovely birds,
cunning if not clever,
and neighbours came along to praise
Dewi-boys endeavour.
Yet we all new that in the wood,
birds sang like heaven’s choir,
while, in the confines of the cage,
finches were much shyer.

Now Dewi’s wife, religious was,
chapel every morning,
in Aberystwyth born and bred,
should have been a warning.
Though pleasant to the roving eye,
pretty as a flower,
like milk upon a summer’s day
she curdled and went sour.
“It’s wings God gave,” his wife would scream,
“so birds can rise and fly;
and nature gave them songs to praise
the wonders of the sky.”

One day while on his morning rounds
bold-Dewi had a stroke.
“An awful thing,” the village said,
“for such a lovely bloke.”
No muscle could the birdman move,
eyelids would not flutter.
The voice that once trilled, “Sosban Fach,”
not a word could utter.
We don’t know why God struck him down,
spite – or was it pleasure?
What e’er the Lord was dishing out,
Dewi got full measure.

Now Dewi’s sitting in a chair,
just staring into space,
and carers who come twice a day,
pour soup into his face.
His wife just up and left him,
no fuss or angry words,
just said, “I hate to see you there,
caged up like your birds.”

Liaison

Liaison

She waits by the stream as she promised
she would, “If the Big House feels safe and
the going is good.“ She smiles with her
eyes, gives a tilt of the head and we
sink to the ground with the moss for a
bed. She’s the fount of the magic of all
woman kind, music and poetry come
flooding my mind. Her skin is the
breath of the newly mown hay. She
lights up my life as the sun lights the day. With
bodies so tense that we feel they must burst, our
mouths fight to quench an unquenchable thirst.

Limbs all entwined we just lie by the stream
reliving what’s gone in a beautiful dream.
She says, “I must leave with the world wide
awake. You know I can’t linger, there’s too
much at stake.” She floats over the field like
the midsummer breeze, until lost to my
view in the shade of the trees.

LIAISON

Liaison

She waits by the stream as she promised
she would, “If the Big House feels safe and
the going is good.“ She smiles with her
eyes, gives a tilt of the head and we
sink to the ground with the moss for a
bed. She’s the fount of the magic of all
woman kind, music and poetry come
flooding my mind. Her skin is the
breath of the newly mown hay. She
lights up my life as the sun lights the day. With
bodies so tense that we feel they must burst, our
mouths fight to quench and unquenchable thirst.

Limbs all entwined we just lie by the stream
reliving what’s gone in a beautiful dream.
She says, “I must leave with the world wide
awake. You know I can’t linger, there’s too
much at stake.” She floats over the field like
the midsummer breeze, until lost to my
view in the shade of the trees.

Jobber

Jobber

He sits beside me on the pew,
the bell has ceased to toll,
a rugged man with piercing eye,
his hair as black as coal.

He casts a glance then weighs me up.
“There’s things a man should know,”
and then he stares ahead again,
his words are whispered low.

“I am the Resurrection come!”
The vicar starts the dirge.
“Lord Fibba’s cold,” the stranger croaks,
“the dead don’t re-emerge.”

I feel the urge to run away
so sinister the voice,
but blood is duty bound to stay,
I feel there is no choice.

“And even though we die we live,”
the priest is on a roll,
reciting spells from out a book
to save a wicked soul.

“I bet that makes m’Lady wince,”
the stranger shakes his head,
“she doesn’t want no comeback kid.
She wished old Fibba dead.

A shocking way of going, mind,
marauders in the night,
who only came to kill, they say,
a man too old to fight.

They stabbed him in the heart, they did,
an organ full of sin,
then left without a trace of how
and when they’d broken in.

He had it coming to him mind,
his life made work a farce,
three hundred quid a day he got
for sitting on his arse.

Then played away from home he did.
His wife is seething mad.
A beauty queen and young she is,
which makes it twice as bad.


Now all these fogies on the pews
would pull her into bed,
along with those ill-gotten goods
that live though Fibba’s dead.”

I shake my head that such a man,
uncouth to ear and eye,
can know so much about the life
of those who are so high.

“For memories we treasure,”
the vicar’s in a trance
and tries to get the flock involved
but doesn’t stand a chance.

The stranger slides along the pew
and whispers in my ear,
“Comes riding by each Thursday noon,
when no-one else is near.

Astride a big black stallion,
ne’er gelding or a mare,
a midday gallop in the woods,
knowing I’ll be there.

She pokes me with her whip, and then
she orders, ‘Follow me!
I will need you Mr Jobbing Man.
An urgent job you see.

These demanding hours of dressage
are all a girl can take,
play havoc with my back and thighs
and make my body ache.

Now you must massage me
wherever there is need;
but ne’er forget, rough jobbing man,
we’re of a different breed.’

Posh ladies like my jobbing hands
upon their tender flesh.
The broken nails and callouses
tell tales of my caress.

The morning that Lord Fibba died,
I’d scarce got out of bed,
when up she rides and hands to me
a box the weight of lead.

‘Lose this in the bog, my dear,
beneath the moorland sky.
Reward will come tonight, my love,
when I come riding by.’”

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,”
the vicar’s song is done.
Then when I look along the pew,
the jobbing man has gone.

Such joy! My love has killed her spouse.
Success is with our plan.
But what a hellish way to find
she has another man.