Howling

They howl in the night
when no animal stirs,

they howl in the darkness
where all sounds blur.

They hunt down the weak,
the small and the defenceless,

with such ferocity
to bend a victim's senses.

Eyes electrified at night,
ghostly forms in the trees,

the bravest of beasts
all fall to their knees.

The woods they haunt
are in their autumn throes,

and their presence besets
all manner of woes,

they clad the forest
in a cloak of screams,

then slip away silently
never again to be seen.

Songs of the Lemurs

Singing floods the forests, melts the dawn frost,
the Indri's serenade to the treetops,
songs from the days of a sanctuary lost.

The fossas still lurk, dangerous beasts to cross,
though as bipeds invade their hunting grounds,
singing floods the forests, melts the dawn frost.

Sifakas leap spaces too wide to cross,
fleeing the hands which reach out to strangle
songs from the days of a sanctuary lost.

Troops of ring-tails flee from progress's cost,
away from the songs of hungry chainsaws,
singing floods the forests, melts the dawn frost.

The mouse lemurs shelter amongst the moss,
ears tuned to the last notes of old harmonies,
songs from the days of a sanctuary lost.

At last the lemurs huddle in a glade,
homes torn asunder, new symphonies in the air.
Singing floods the forests, melts the dawn frost,
songs from the days of a sanctuary lost.

Frynwys Features #3: Return of the Goldfish

It's that time again. A lot has happened in Frynwys since the last installment, although in Frynwys terms "a lot" is often what other towns and cities would call "nothing much". This time around there is more news from across the village; at the ponds, on the roads, in the fields and not too far beyond.

The first thing of note is the sudden increase in the number of people repairing fences in the area. This in itself isn't uncommon; homes need maintenance all the time and so to hear someone repairing a bit of woodwork in their garden isn't a strange occurrence. However it's become such a regular occurrence that I'm beginning to wonder if there's a club somewhere encouraging it. Is there a local group which organises Sunday afternoon meetings in someone's front room, filled with china-laden cupboards and linen-clothed tables? This isn't so much a news item as it a personal grievance, but if I hear another hammer hitting the back of a fence or a shed, I might have to start investigating this phenomenon further.

In other news of the slightly less infuriating variety, it appears that someone did not take the nature warden's warning about releasing fish into the pond seriously. Somebody in the village recently noticed up to thirty enormous goldfish swimming around in it, big enough to qualify as small koi carp. The last time this happened the local wildlife which inhabit the pond took a major blow, especially the frogs which use the pond to nurture their frogspawn. That was just a few small fish. After about a week it seems that these fish are not only thriving in the pond, but multiplying. I don't know if the wardens have spotted them yet, but I've spoken to a few people who live near the pond and they certainly have. What sort of measures the wardens will put in place this time remains to be seen, but if they put up another sign I suspect they might need to rethink their deterrence strategy.

With regards to the local animal population, a few new dogs have been spotted in the area. Not strays but dogs with owners attached, and in particular a black pug has caught my attention. He appears to be less than a year old, and is quite hyperactive from what I've seen of him. He runs around the fields to the south of the village in search of other friendly dogs. Most of the other dogs take little notice of him, but if he meets another puppy then an impromptu greyhound race will certainly take place. He's only run up to me once, and I haven't seen much of him since, but hopefully I'll catch sight of him again in the near future.

And last but by no means least, it appears that a few ravens are making their home in the nearby forests. It's not often that you see a raven (at least as I've found), and they're fairly distinctive compared to jackdaws and crows, not by any subtle difference in their plumage, but in their size. They are as big as seagulls, and seeing them foraging in the fields next to smaller birds really highlights this. Also the characteristic rattling call they make is now becoming a semi-regular feature in the skies above Frynwys. Why I never noticed them before is slightly baffling, but alongside the resident jays, crows, jackdaws, magpies and other birds, they make a nice addition to the local ecosystem.

That's all for this installment of Frynwys Features, with my home village more than living up to its reputation. Hopefully by next time something more interesting will have happened, but until then the wait continues.

Happy National Poetry Day!

Hi guys. So it's National Poetry Day once again, and to mark it this year I haven't got much in the way of poetry. At the moment I'm still working on getting the next installment of Frynwys Features and the first installment of Slam Poetry on the Spot finished. Hopefully those will be with you within the next week. However, I can't really mark today without something made of verse, so here's a short poem about that most universal of subjects, a mole trying to find his way home.

Underground Junction

A mole burrows home,
side to side like a hairy lizard.

He approaches a junction,
dank soil and worms.

Light is unknown to him,
whiskers are his guide.

They hit a worm on the left,
chilled soil on the right.

The mole scurries down the left tunnel,
the promise of a banquet awaits.

Wildfowl

On a Wednesday, bleak and drizzly,
the pond surface hardly sizzly,
ducks dabble and watch as the world
goes by with the speed of a snail.

Not a single thing disturbs them,
yet the dawn of night rouses them
to prepare for the evening's rave,
for the evening's great pond rave,
a rave all the wildfowl crave.

They line the waters in their droves,
led by the Mute Swan Club of Stow,
with geese, grebes and moorhens galore.
A moulting mallard emerges from reeds

to begin his set intended to please
birds from Cardiff to Tennessee
who gather near the shallow shore
to hear what tunes the duck has in store,
sounds not heard on the pond before.

The mixer rises from the depths
where the sticklebacks would have slept
had it not been a Wednesday night.
Distorted honking and quacking,

with feathers ruffled and scratching,
the rave rages and rages all night
'till the return of the sunlight
and all the wildfowl take flight.

Opening Doors

Just two quid on the counter.

The key to elusive peace
and eternal happiness.

One pint please.

Beyond the gates of heaven
the rivers flow down the steps,
and you can swim in them forever.

Two pints please.

Armour forms around the feet and arms
as the fire erupts in the bowels.
The walls high, stout, unassailable.
Flames melt the stone into a broth,
the fire becomes an inferno.

The rigours of the day
melt on sight when the king
sits half-on-half-off his throne.

A golden glass is his sceptre,
white froth forms his dripping crown.
Not so much riding as staggering into town,
throwing the gates open, claiming them
as his own.

Bouncers descend on his grace,
the king of the world never backs down.
He ends it face down on the concrete,
his liquor spilling from his can
into the cold gutter underfoot.

The fire burns out,
leaves its cinders behind.
They smoulder in the morning
and the world goes up and down.

Therizinosaurus

'Scythe Lizard'

Twenty eight inch claws on enormous hands
dug up from the depths of the Gobi sands.
Flat, thin, like blades swung through fields of hay,
yet the beast they belonged to had no name.

A turtle perhaps would have need of these
claws to help sate its hunger for seaweed,
such a thing never seen on the earth before,
bigger than leatherbacks laying eggs ashore.

Then the arms emerged, as long as pythons,
what beast used them was undecided on.
Such weapons swordsmiths would envy,
such a brute would cause panic on entry.

Yet its teeth held a contradiction,
they proved the creature's valediction.
Not raptor knives like most expected,
but leaf-shaped pegs had the record corrected.

The neck of a swan, with a small deer-like head,
a pot-belly with the girth of a bulkhead,
and the scythes on its hands preceded it,
shredding leaves off branches in front of it.

Such was the nature of the strangest dinosaur,
an eccentric herbivore disguised as a carnivore.

Ballad of the Coffee Bandits

There was a shop on the old town road
which sold nothing but coffee,
and many came to stop and behold
the wonders of cups of caffeine.

All that is except two cleaners,
tea drinkers through and through.
They both loathed all things coffee
and what its drinkers aspired to.

That coffee could eliminate falsehoods,
cure poverty and war,
that it held the font of all things good,
was what coffee stood for.

And so the tea maestros simmered,
their anger just about restrained
until some friends invited them to coffee
and they laughed through their pain.

So they went down to the coffee shop,
and raised it to the ground.
They fled with every bean in the place,
gone, never to be found.

The Tiger Poet vs. Owen Sheers - 'Mametz Wood'

For a long time, I've heard it said that Owen Sheers is a bit of a prodigy. He excelled at poetry at a young age, and his skills have only improved over time to the point where he is one of the strongest voices in Welsh poetry. His work tackles a variety of subjects, including love, farming life, landscapes, and the effects of war as demonstrated in his verse drama Pink Mist. For me though, Sheers will prove especially helpful as a source of inspiration in my attempt to tackle Mametz Wood, a defining moment for Welsh soldiers in the First World War.

Sheers is no stranger to Mametz, having written about the battle in verse and staged a play to mark the centenary of the action which took place during the Battle of the Somme. So now, in my own attempt to tackle the subject, let's see what Sheers makes of it in his eponymous poem 'Mametz Wood'. Written in 2005, the poem is comprised of seven tercets with a fairly regular pattern of ten to twelve syllables per line. Without making this sound too much like an A Level English Literature exam, this meter gives 'Mametz Wood' a similar feel to the poems of Shakespeare written in iambic pentameter. This structure gives the poem an almost elegiac feel, and it becomes very effective when it delves into the aftermath of the action at Mametz Wood.

The poem opens with Sheers describing farmers discovering the remains of fallen young soldiers as they plough their fields. The last line of the first stanza is particularly effective as it conjures up images of the devastation inflicted upon the landscape during the war, and conveys the struggle to return to normality for years afterwards. From this Sheers moves into describing the soldiers' remains, delivering some potent imagery by using alliteration, particularly with comparisons to china plate and how a damaged skull resembles a shattered bird's egg. Such remains are still being found at Mametz Wood today, and such discoveries highlight the senseless brutality of war.

The combination of human tragedy, precise metaphor and terrific imagery hammers home the true cost of the battle. Sheers momentarily describes how the Welsh soldiers were ordered to walk towards the wood while facing heavily fortified machine gun positions, conveying an accurate representation of the layout of the battle, before seguing into perhaps the poem's best metaphorical imagery. Here, Sheers describes a land still recovering reminders of what happened, which he compares to a foreign body being dredged up from a wound in human skin.

This one stanza encapsulates the aftermath of the First World War better than any epitaph I've read. Many thousands of soldiers perished or went missing in the chaos of the war, and every now and then skeletons are discovered on the old battlefields across France and Belgium. My own experiences travelling to Ypres in Belgium to visit the Tyne Cot Cemetery and the Menin Gate have given me a clear picture of the sheer scale of the casualties, and the sense of an entire generation being wiped out. While this seems more abstract in poetic form, Sheers gives us a concrete image to exemplify the reality of Mametz Wood.

He describes the discovery of twenty men buried together in a grave, which he describes as something similar to a 'dance macabre', as the skeletons have their arms interlinked. Such vivid imagery, coupled with the rhythmical meter of the poem, evokes paintings of the battle such as the famous one by Christopher Williams, which depict similar scenes of Welsh and German soldiers alike trapped in a strange, horrific death dance. This imagery, although somewhat abstract, conveys an eerie atmosphere, further reinforced in the following stanza, which adds to the previous description by including visceral detail. Sheers describes the remains of the soldiers boots, their skulls and in perhaps the most disturbing image in which he mentions that jaws are dropped open on the soldiers who still possess them.

Having maintained the rhythm and structure of the poem, filled with a balanced mixture of abstract and concrete imagery, with a clear metaphorical line running through it, Sheers ends by finding poignant meaning in the open jaws of the soldiers' skeletons. He posits that it is as if notes sung by the soldiers are only now slipping from their tongues after having been buried for so long. It strikes a beautiful abstract image against the visceral horror of the mass grave. It drives home the tragedy of the First World War in a relatively simple yet effective way, in how the mass slaughter of industrialised warfare destroyed millions of lives and the potential within them.

All in all, it's safe to say that now having analysed 'Mametz Wood' from beginning to end, Sheers more than lives up to his reputation. As a poem encapsulating the battle, it's a terrific piece of work, and there's a lot I can learn from it in my attempt to write my own Mametz Wood poem. If it will be anywhere near as good as Sheers' effort, we shall wait and see, but  if you want to read the entirety of Mametz Wood, go and check it out.

New Feature Announcement: Slam Poetry on the Spot

With so much going on right now, it may seem foolhardy of me to be announcing another feature, but that's exactly what this post is about (if you didn't already guess by the title). As my second new feature on this blog, I'm pleased to announce the first installment of Slam Poetry on the Spot will be up in the next week or two.

On my YouTube channel I have a playlist consisting of who I consider to be the best British slam poets working today. There is a thriving slam poetry scene in America where poets are doing lots of great things, and I have covered the topic of spoken word and performance poetry before. So, for the foreseeable future, I will be analysing a slam or spoken word poet and one of their poems (or several), looking for what makes them great at their work.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, then stick around and check it out. Seeing as I talk about written poetry quite a lot on this blog, it will be fun to discuss performance poetry again, especially as it appears to be taking off and growing into a larger community by the year. The first installment will be focusing on spoken word poet Suli Breaks, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, coming up next is my long awaited analysis of Owen Sheers' poem 'Mametz Wood'.

Hope you're all enjoying the summer, and see you again soon.

Trials of the Fennec

Desert sands hide many things.
The roots of heat-withered grass,
the coils of fierce-eyed vipers
and the prey of the Fennec.

A fox with satellite-dish ears,
its fur the colour of the sands,
a buccaneer of the dunes
on an endless trek.

Anything goes on the Fennec's palate.
Bird eggs, shelled treasure chests,
unwary rodents, luscious carveries,
scorpions, refreshing yet barbed cocktails.

Then there are the Fennec's foes,
the beasts which lurk by day and night.
The devious caracals, the fearsome hyenas,
even the death shadows of owls on the air.

And yet this little fox pressed on,
prowling the crest of the dunes
across the driest of oceans
on to find its bounty and a place to rest.

The Tiger Poet Goes on Holiday

Everything's been quiet for a while, and I owe an explanation. For the last week, I've been on holiday in Italy, which is an unusual occurrence for me as I rarely go on what one might call a standard holiday anymore. Specifically, I went to Limone sul Garda, a small village on the shores of Lake Garda near Verona, and sandwiched in-between the lake and the mountains around it. So, as a way of apology for the lack of activity on this blog, here's a run-down of my experiences holidaying on the shores of Lake Garda.

Limone is quite a small town, which is understandable when you consider that it has its back literally against the wall. The hotel I stayed in had parts of the mountain behind protruding through the walls where the normal walls ended. Its two biggest exports are lemons and fish, not surprising as Limone was fairly isolated for much of its history. However, despite the obvious similarity, the town is not named after its lemons, but instead derives its name from the Latin word "limen" meaning "border". Nevertheless, the lemons are impossible to avoid when staying in Limone. All of the buildings carry a number on a lemon-emblazoned plaque, and one of the groves stood directly beneath my hotel. The tiny harbour which was also below the hotel stands as a reminder of how isolated Limone was as a small fishing village before a road was built in the 1930s.

In many ways, I was quite reminded of my home village of Frynwys. Although neither Limone nor Frynwys are completely isolated today, they both share the same common past of having gone from a state of isolation to one of contact with the wider world. However, in Frynwys's case, the most it has provided to the world was coal from the old mine which has long since closed, but Limone has provided something quite remarkable. I spotted an old newspaper article written in English in the hotel lobby, which detailed how it was discovered by accident that the residents of Limone possess super-scavenger genes which prolong their lives. Many of the residents live to ninety or beyond. There are still ongoing attempts to use this gene, known as ApoA-1 Milano, to help prolong lives across the world.

Aside from that, Limone is pretty quiet. That is why I took several trips to other towns on Lake Garda's shores, such as Riva del Garda, Malcesine, and Sirmione. Each of these towns has its own distinct character. Riva is a sporty, active place, full of modern buildings but with an emphasis on outdoor activity. Malcesine is a network of cobbled streets and small piazzas, sitting in the shadow of Monte Baldo, which I visited via cable car. On the top of the mountain the air is a lot fresher, with an altogether more alpine feel, along with several handy refreshment stops. Meanwhile Sirmione, situated on a peninsula on Lake Garda's southern end, is more Mediterranean, with several high-end shops contained within the narrow streets. It is also where Gaius Valerius Catullus, a Latin poet who lived and wrote during the days of the Roman Republic, lived in a villa along with his family, which proved a nice surprise to a visiting amateur poet such as myself.

Add to this a visit to Verona (which requires a week of exploration for itself), during which I spotted the balcony featured in Romeo and Juliet, and it made for an interesting week. Aside from relaxation and the occasional bit of excitement, I purchased a lemon-themed notepad in which I attempted to write a poem about Limone. It needs quite a bit of work, but it is still in the early drafting stages, so it will appear on the blog in due course.

In the meantime, now that my holiday is over I am getting back to work on my outstanding commitments. My analysis of Owen Sheers' poem 'Mametz Wood' will be up very soon, along with several other new features. Hope you're all enjoying the heatwave, and see you soon.

Cryogenic Foetal Lizard

One silver tadpole,
encased, embalmed,
caught mid-fall
from an oasis
in the branches.

A lizard, curled up,
almost foetal,
scales and claws
preserved, pristine,
by cryogenic sap.

A midge, taking off
from a petrified perch,
framed, glistening,
wings rendered still,
yet in permanent flight.

A red ant, crooked legs,
frozen in its prison,
a bulging abdomen,
a honeypot,
a golden bubble.

(This poem was inspired by a documentary about amber presented by Sir David Attenborough back in 2002. Check out The Amber Time Machine if you get the chance, it's really worth a watch.)

Y Ddraig Goch (The Red Dragon)

A scream is all it takes
to introduce a legend.

A clash of winged beasts,
red against white scales.
The scream wreaks devastation
on all who hear it.

Red against white scales,
the scream brings misery
on all who hear it,
till a bold prince silences it.

The scream brings misery,
no end is in sight
till a bold prince silences it,
with the dragons underground.

No end is in sight,
but now the old feud slumbers,
with the dragons underground
till a wayward king wanders.

So the legend is born
and so it spreads,
till the heat of its flame
graces green and white banners.

(This poem was inspired by the story of Llud and Llefelys, the earliest known reference of the Welsh Dragon. It can be found in the Mabinogion.)

New Osmosis

Photosynthesis
has never been
so toxic.

The tree is cloaked
with rusted steel.
Oil trickles
from wounds
in the metal,
congealing,
clotting.

The leaves reek
of petrol fumes,
the withered branches
droop from the heat
of leaded starch,

piston-roots thrumming,
powering the engine
beneath the trunk,
pumping up oil
which soaked in
when it fell from
soot-infested clouds.

Memoirs of a Galápagos Tortoise

I am the remnant.

The last time I saw
the seafaring apes of old,
they were lugging
my cousins in crates
onto their oak vessels
to become living larders,
till there was just me
and no others.

The goats, the goats,
of all the creatures
to pilfer my own larder.
Servants of the seafarers,
they pillaged the green,
everything above shell height.

So I wallow in my pool
on the isle of Santa Cruz,
the last of the Pinta Island tortoises,
but not entirely alone.
They gave me two companions
with dome-shaped shells
instead of a saddle like mine.

Every egg they've collected
was a hollow curiosity.
I hid from them for decades,
now here I rest, diminishing
into a monument to something.

I'm just content
to drift into sleep.

(This poem was inspired by the story of Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island subspecies of the Galápagos giant tortoises. Stay tuned for more poetry coming soon.)

Frynwys Features #2: Labradors and Lamborghinis

I feel I've said it enough times on this blog to make it redundant, but Frynwys, as a centre of activity, is often as silent as a church. Still, as I demonstrated in the first installment of this recurring feature, things do happen in the village from time to time, and since my last bulletin a few more interesting things have occurred. Mind you, when I say a few, I mean it in the literal sense because it was hard to find enough to fill this segment.

So what's the most striking thing that's happened in Frynwys of late? Well, I suppose there's been an improvement of sorts to the infrastructure, though not in the way you might think. It seems that local volunteers working with the wildlife wardens have dug up a new gravel path on the field near the pond. The path is usually been in mud which takes ages to dry once it gets soaked by a rainstorm. Now with the new gravel in, traversing it is a bit easier. I've noticed in recent weeks that local schools are sending kids down there with their teachers, armed with spades, shovels and the like; presumably to help the wardens with maintaining it. It is quite strange to see entire classes of school kids trapesing through the fields, but at least the community is getting involved with something in the village.

In other news, there's been a rare car sighted on the village hall road; rare in the sense that the car in question is of the expensive kind you don't see in Frynwys at all. As I was walking past the road leading to the village hall and the shop, I caught sight of an orange Lamborghini turn to the right and roar off with a loud blast of the exhaust. I'm guessing it was a Gallardo judging by the shape of the taillights. I know for a fact that no one in Frynwys owns a supercar; the closest is probably the old Lotus on Taliesin Close. Whoever owned the Lamborghini probably came from one of the outlying towns, maybe Pontypool or Caerleon, and stopped by the shop to pick up some milk. I am of course speculating; any self-respecting Lamborghini owner probably has a fridge stacked with milk. Still, it was quite nice to see a car painted in orange for a change.

Speaking of bright orange, we move up one space in the colour spectrum to red, as the local Labour councillor campaigned in the village ahead of the council elections. They arrived on my street with a couple of campaigners to try and spread their message, but when they arrived at my house my mother answered the door. She has been less than impressed with the local council's record, especially on education, and she let the councillor know it. The councillor responded with the same question-dodging tactics most (if not all) politicians use, pointing out that improvements had taken place without providing concrete examples. Needless to say, my mother was less than impressed, and I think you can guess who she didn't vote for at the election.

For the final bit of news, I've also noticed an increase in the number of dogs in the area (pets, not wild ones, obviously). Like many villages and towns in South Wales, Frynwys already has a lot of dog owners amongst its population, but it seems that more people than ever now own a dog judging by the number of them I've seen walking around. The most notable additions have been Labradors and spaniels of varying shades, but there are several other breeds, most often terriers. Due to the fact that Frynwys is quite rural, it's a great environment for dogs, as they have plenty of fields and small wooded areas to run around in, although the recent outbreak of Alabama rot is a real cause for concern. Although rare, there have been an increasing number of cases across the UK, and the most recent case in Wales happened in Magor, Monmouthshire. The cause is as yet unknown, but hopefully vets can find a way to treat it soon and bring a halt to the casualties this terrible disease has already inflicted.

That's it for this installment of Frynwys Features. As I speak the village has returned to being its usual quiet self, but if anything out of the ordinary happens I will cover it in a future installment. Keep an eye out for incoming poems in the next few days. Hope you're all doing well and I'll see you again.

New Poetry Video Live and Other Updates

Hi guys.

Just wanted to let you know that a video version of 'Sonnet from Stratford', a poem I wrote for NaPoWriMo, has just gone live. Click on the link here to watch it. I hope you enjoy it.

In other news, I have almost completed the next installment of Frynwys Features, which is a fairly tricky task due to the slow nature of news in the village. Still, despite the rather dull pace of life here, there are still stories to be found and you'll be finding out what those are in due course.

I can also confirm that more poetry is in the works, along with an analysis of Owen Sheers' 'Mametz Wood', in preparation for my own poem about the battle. I'm hoping to do more features about individual poets on this blog so be sure to stick around for that.

Those are all the updates I can think of for now, but if there are any more I'll be sure to let you know.

Anyways, enjoy the new video and I'll see you all soon.

The Tiger Poet vs. Bicester Village

Hi everyone, how's it going? It's been more than a week since the end of NaPoWriMo and I, like probably most aspiring poets out there, have been taking some time off. On the day after NaPoWriMo officially ended, I set out for the Cotswolds with the family, and spent a few days checking out village after village before heading further east where I stumbled upon Bicester, a town in between Oxford and London. I followed signs for an outlet called Bicester Village, and what I found required a blog post of its own.

I realise that what I'm about to say is probably redundant. It's not exactly original to express amazement at the affects of consumerism, but since I come from a village which has only one shop, I feel that I have to address it for my own sake if not for the wider world.

So what is Bicester Village for those who haven't heard? In short, it's a village outlet in the centre of Bicester itself, complete with its own railway station. I was later told that it's the second biggest outlet centre in the UK, the first being Oxford Street in London, which is in itself an achievement. You can calculate the scale of my ignorance when I tell you that I thought that Bicester would be a small place with a high street or two, not a town with an entire outlet complex. Equally ignorant of me was my assumption that Bicester Village would be similar to the shops at Centre Parcs. When we arrived, my assumptions were blown clean out of the water.

I have seen places like Bicester before, namely when I went to Florida as a child and walked through the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. The outlet has a distinctly American-style design and layout, with long streets packed to the brim with every brand imaginable, some of which I'd never heard of before. Indeed, there are so many brands I wouldn't be surprised if they have a greenhouse in which they grow new ones. It reminded me of the titular park in Jurassic World, which attempted to satirise the ever-increasing consumer culture which pervades modern society, while also contributing to it because of the huge amount of product placement.

For a poet from South Wales, this was all a bit overwhelming. When you arrive at Bicester Village, you don't have time to notice the rows of daffodils and bamboo lining the path at the entrance, because you become mesmerised by the sheer volume of money and products on display. It turns out the railway station is specifically designed to cater for the large number of tourists who come to shop at the centre, many of whom are Chinese. Apparently, after Buckingham Palace, the outlet centre is the most visited location in the UK by Chinese tourists. Given the glossy sheen of the place, the abundance of stock on display, and the five-star-hotel style of service, it's easy to see the attraction. Some of the cars in the car park even carried diplomatic number-plates, so the embassies clearly enjoy Bicester as well.

But for someone like me, the whole enterprise smacked of artifice. I completely understand why many people buy into (literally and metaphorically) the brand idea, as they are often quality goods which carry with them a level of prestige. However, in the end it is a triumph of presentation over substance; a bit like the many attempts to regenerate Newport. The moment everyone starts buying from expensive brands in an attempt to seem trendy, you end up in a situation where you can't distinguish one jacket or pair of jeans from another. It's a trick, one which convinces you that you need to own many things to be content. As many people have said over the years - much more comprehensively than me - the reverse is often true.

I'm aware I sound like someone who's just realised that the sky is blue, but after so long away from the kind of consumerism which abounds in Bicester Village, being exposed to it again was quite a shock. Still, having recovered from my brush with wealth and having returned from the Cotswolds, I can now get back to the business of poetry. Keep a look out for new features on Mametz Wood in preparation for my upcoming poem on the subject, as well as a new installment of Frynwys Features which will be on this blog soon.

Hope you're all having a great start to the summer!

NaPoWriMo 2017 Completed

So that's it. After thirty days' ceaseless formulating and writing poems, I've finally completed NaPoWriMo 2017. It's been a long challenge indeed, but looking back on what I've written this last month, I can safely say it was an unqualified success (unqualified due to my inexperience at this kind of challenge).

What strikes me looking through my NaPoWriMo catalogue is how the challenge forces you to think on your feet while writing and searching for ideas. While I had my usual tropes to fall back on - tiger poems, animal poems, poems about Wales - I've branched out into new territory with some of the other poems I've done. We've had poems about catfish, we've had poems about chimpanzees, we've had poems about worms, we've had poems about Bugatti, we've had sonnets, and we've had poems written in trochaic octameter. All in all NaPoWriMo has forced me to go outside my comfort zone a bit, which is a great stage of development for any writer.

Due to the fact that NaPoWriMo isn't so much about quality as about quantity, the constant demand to produce a poem a day for a month has been a bit tiring. Still, I think it has strengthened my writing abilities, as it has with many others whose work I've been seeing. For my first completed NaPoWriMo, it's been quite a good ride and I look forward to taking the challenge on again when it comes around next year.

In the meantime, I've got a few things approaching fast on this blog. There will be more poems as usual in the next week or two, another instalment of my newest feature, Frynwys Features, and more updates on the long-gestating Mametz Wood project.

To all of you who participated in NaPoWriMo 2017, well done and good luck for the future!

NaPoWriMo #30: Tiger Fire

And so, it has come to this; the final day of NaPoWriMo. How better to see off this year's event than with a recurring theme which lent this blog its name?

Tiger Fire

On the edge of a lake in Northern India,
where crocodiles gather and bask in the sun,
the way chital and sambar are restless
as the sun is directly overhead
and the grass is as dry as sand.

A fire crackles into life
and rages across the meadows,
flushing unsuspecting creatures
from their hiding places
and into the blaze's lethal path.

A tiger, resting under a sal tree,
feels the heat of the fire's hunger
and flees towards the lake,
flanked by the langur monkeys
and wild boar following in his wake.

At the water's edge, the tiger halts.
The flames cut off paths of escape.
The forest across the water remains unburned.
The tiger spies the chital running,
running to the lake to save their hides.

At last, the fire claims the shore,
but the tiger fears it no more,
for he alone amongst cats
masters the waters of the lake,
and tears past the crocodiles
to reach the opposite shore.

NaPoWriMo #29: Sheriff of the Savannah

Two days to go, and here we have the most unusual poem I've ever done for NaPoWriMo. Having read a bit of Edgar Allan Poe recently, I decided to write a poem set upon the African savannah in the same distinctive style (known as trochaic octameter) which he uses in 'The Raven'. So, here it goes.

Sheriff of the Savannah

Upon a hot savannah day the hyenas rest in the shade,
while a lone bull buffalo grazes in the long grass up to his knees.
His herd have moved on to safety, together they number eighty,
while the bull stands far from hasty in the grass up to his knees,
facing the danger approaching through the grass with greatest ease.
He will not run for the trees.

His opponents are no less bold, but he refutes their mighty hold
on the dried up river to the east and bush fires billowing west.
A pride of ten lions stalking while the buffalo starts walking
up to his fierce foes, un-balking, with sizable bovine heft,
not noticing a lack of friends to help in his lonesome quest
he stands firm against the test.

Three at a time they attack him, they try to bite or throttle him,
one lioness jabs from the front, her sisters lunge at his rear.
With fearsome horns he battles them, but his strength fails to scatter them
as they bite, claw and batter him, try to force him to his knees,
force the last great strength out of him and force him onto his knees
slaughter however they please

Yet the lions have not thought it, but the old bull will not forfeit.
He thrusts with his embattled horns and he holds back the onslaught.
At last the lions are tired, but the bull is still battle fired,
and the pride turn to retire to the shade beyond the trees,
leaving their opponent standing in the grass up to his knees,
watching as the lions leave.

The herd returns to greet the bull, the calves proving a small handful
as they jostle round him and stare at the deep wounds on his back.
His hide has withstood the battle, and the bull is hardly rattled
as the mightiest of cattle that roam the savannah track,
roaming across the endless grass along the savannah track
with new scars upon his back.

NaPoWriMo #28: Walking Catfish Wanderings

As the finish line of NaPoWriMo looms near, it's time to tackle another of their optional prompts. This time, the challenge is to use Skeltonic verse, pioneered by the fifteenth century English poet John Skelton. Put simply, it involves the use of short stanzas mixed with a vague rhyming scheme and two strong stresses per line. Here it goes.

Walking Catfish Wanderings

A catfish goes walking
and without talking
ponders life on the jungle floor
which it has not seen before.

Its pool is dry
and it must try
to search for new pastures
and squirm a bit faster

with spines on its gills,
with which it could climb hills
as it wills itself across
the land of twigs and moss

to find a small stream
with just a gleam
of light through the leaves
and finally it heaves

itself into the flow
where no other fish can go
and submerges below the surface,
having travelled the furthest

of any fish across land,
done without any hands,
a fish with instinct so strong
its journey did not go wrong.

NaPoWriMo #27: Cormorant Gang

It's another animal poem for day twenty seven of NaPoWriMo, and this time we meet a bird which is famous for being semi-aquatic and is found all over the world, including the banks of the River Ganges.

Cormorant Gang

We take to the water in gangs
up and down the Ganges,
swimming in great processions
as we search for shoals.

The fishermen call us water crows,
apt indeed, for with our hooked beaks
and oily black feathers, we are
their underwater cousins.

We find some unfortunate fish,
and flanked by a clan of otters
we surround them and dart
through the mirk of the river.

The fishermen take their share.
We squabble with the otters for ours,
but our gang leaves with silvery prizes
squirming in our beaks.

NaPoWriMo #26: Watchmen of Mull

Continuing the animal theme for the last few days of NaPoWriMo, I give you a poem centering on birds which went extinct in Britain more than a century ago, but were successfully reintroduced on islands such as Mull in the Inner Hebrides.

Watchmen of Mull

They sat on the clifftops
surveying the Firth of Lorn
in the days when the raptors
ruled the skies above the isles.

The sea eagles fished alongside
the humans on their vessels.
Myths of their viciousness
spread across the isles like rot,

and so did the hunters and trappers.
They purged the land for miles
of the kings and queens of the air,
until their sympathetic descendants

facilitated the eagles' restoration
to their old thrones on the cliffs.
Now the eagles soar over Mull,
snatching fish from the bay,

following their fishermen friends,
raising chicks in the old pines
and watching over their kingdom
should the old threats rear their heads.

NaPoWriMo #25: Jackal Sunset

It's time for another animal-themed poem for day twenty five of NaPoWriMo. The animal in this poem is a predatory creature from India; the rest is fairly straightforward.

Jackal Sunset

It darts across the grasslands
under the shadow of green hills.
The golden jackal searches
for food, living or not.

It chases the trails of the wolves,
leopards and the bloodthirsty dhole,
and will sometimes push its luck
when it spots a tiger on a kill.

The jackal's persistence is rewarded
as the night descends on the teak forest,
a leopard throttling a chital doe.
The jackal must wait to be served.

NaPoWriMo #24: Transformation

So, just six more days to go until the end of NaPoWriMo 2017, and it's left a trail of poetry in its wake. With that in mind, here's another poem about South Wales, and about one city in particular which has a strange habit of remaining aesthetically consistent no matter what new development happens.

Transformation

A train station,
Newport railway Station.
Standing since the days
when Queen Victoria
tried to be most amused
and failed.

It's barely changed since then,
save for one illustrious addition,
the segmented silver concourse
with translucent domes at both ends,
joined by a footbridge strung out
like an enormous grey millipede.

The future, they said.
Modernisation, they said.
Newport is ready
to welcome the world, they said.

The same brown soot cloaks it now.
The old platforms lie in its shadow,
still Victoria, still drab and paint-chipped,
just like everything else.

NaPoWriMo #23: Sonnet from Stratford

It seems the end is in sight for this year's NaPoWriMo, but there's still a fair way to go. I've just returned from Stratford-upon-Avon where I visited William Shakespeare's birthplace and his new place. Seeing as today is his 401st birthday, here's a sonnet about how I felt while wandering around his garden.

Sonnet from Stratford

I find myself in a poet's garden,
a vibrant and complex oasis
where every flower is as ardent
as the meanings they gifted to this
poet of poets who heard the dawn lark
and decided that one could not face it,
the morning arrived to cast out the dark,
the grasp of the mortal coils which trace it,
a strange world where all who seek to explore
and profit from its bounty, the question
for the poet sat outside his back door
to answer in words with no digression.
  Now I hear those words as spoken today
  and seek for answers lest they go astray.

NaPoWriMo #22: Manta Flotilla

Okay, this is a bit earlier in the day than usual, but since I'm on a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon this weekend, I thought it better to release this poem earlier. Featuring one of my favourite settings for poems, the animal in this one is a bit more off-kilter than usual.

Manta Flotilla

The Indian subcontinent
reaches out into the ocean,
a current caressing its coast.

Sometimes the current
carries creatures with it,
creatures on a journey.

Out of the endless blue
a manta ray appears,
the eagle of the waters.

Then two, three, six
follow their leader
with great sweeping fins.

They follow the highway
around the southern coast,
heading for the Bay of Bengal,

where the flotilla will find
the reefs to raise their young,
and the current goes on its way.

NaPoWriMo #21: Village Grapevine

It's been a while since I've taken up any of NaPoWriMo's daily prompts, but here we go. For my twenty first poem, I've followed NaPoWriMo's prompt to incorporate overhead speech, in this case overheard throughout my home village of Frynwys.

Village Grapevine

There's a lot of knotweed
down by the stream.

Is there really?
Better sort that out at some point.

Just moved up here from London,
getting my bearings you know?

Nice to meet you, don't worry,
this place is really quite small.

It's gone chilly all of a sudden,
it was sunny this morning.

You know what that is?
That's the cold front that is.

A blackbird chirps to a goldfinch.
I wish I knew what they were saying.

Oi, finch! Will you shut up?
You're doin' me head in and all!

NaPoWriMo #20: The Tale of Hannah Twynnoy

On the twentieth day of NaPoWriMo, my poetry said to me: "How about another tiger poem?". Well, I'm only too happy to oblige, so here's a poem inspired by the apparently true story of 18th Century barmaid Hannah Twynnoy. Where's the tiger in this? Read on and you'll see.

The Tale of Hannah Twynnoy

A long time ago, three centuries ago,
in the town of Malmesbury,
there lived a barmaid
named Hannah Twynnoy.

Now the pub Hannah worked at
was called the White Lion.
Such a name could have been a hint
of how things would transpire.

One day some animals came
to live in the pub's back yard.
Hannah spotted a tiger amongst them,
never had she seen a cat so large.

So fearsome yet held behind bars,
she saw no harm in provoking the beast.
She overestimated the patience of tigers
and things went more than a bit too far.

Now Hannah lies in the grounds of the abbey,
her headstone recording her last day alive,
when the tiger's patience finally snapped
and there was nowhere left to hide.

NaPoWriMo #19: Spitfire Swing

He's done it ladies and gentlemen. After nineteen days I've finally broken my record from the last NaPoWriMo two years ago. To mark the occasion, I present another car poem, this time about a classic British sports car.

Spitfire Swing

The older cousin of later Triumphs,
yet overshadowed by its relatives
both older and younger.

Low slung, bulging headlights,
narrow grill, flared curves
along its back wheel-arches.

Not as fearsome as the Stag,
not as refined as the 2000,
Not as alloyed as the Dolly Sprint,

yet as swift as a gazelle
when it meets a turn in the road
and as fast as the best of its league.

NaPoWriMo #18: The Beast Beneath the Coal

And so I've matched my previous NaPoWriMo record on day eighteen. With this in mind, here's a poem straight from the South Wales Valleys.

The Beast Beneath the Coal

Hills of coal in the southern valleys,
where miners made their homes,
the old ruins of their industry
scattered across the snow-swept slopes.

The beast dwells in the deep caverns
which the miners didn't reach.
Slumbering on a bed of coal
lined with slivers of gold,

no colliery knew of it,
no cavers ever stumbled on it,
and yet the scaly wonder
draws on the warmth
from the rocks above its lair,
waiting for the day
to erupt out of the valley
in a cloud of soot and flame.

NaPoWriMo #17: Cats in Trees

It's another India-themed poem for day seventeen of NaPoWriMo. This time, it features two of India's top predators in the vicinity of a single tree.

Cats in Trees

A teak tree in central India,
one of many in a deciduous forest.

A leopard with its kill on a branch,
its spotted fur blends into the bark.

A tiger prowling below,
unaware of its rival watching from above.

NaPoWriMo #16: Easter Jamming

It's been a long time coming, but to celebrate Easter I've brought Flying Hare and the River Band out of retirement to play a suitably off-the-wall NaPoWriMo gig.

Easter Jamming

The band gathers in a field
just outside a market town,
Flying Hare, Roving Otter,
Father Vole, Smoking Goose,
joined by Manic Owl.

They go looking for eggs,
which an industrious bunny
had hidden the grass.
Goose finds his first,
Otter second, Hare third,
Owl fourth, and Vole last.

With the sun in midday zest,
the man grabs their instruments
and plays a grooving, mellow tune.
A tribute to the egg hunters
around the countryside
who are taking a break at noon.

Hare flies into rapid-fire
on his blistering archtop guitar.
Otter thrummed on his shimmering bass,
Vole rattled his drums,
Goose trumpeted like a wild fowl,
and Owl played his sax all over the place.

At sundown the animals go home,
bags full of chocolate eggs,
their instruments well-played.
They feast on the eggs till midnight
and go to bed with full stomachs,
ready to start jamming the very next day.

NaPoWriMo #15: Hunters Return

It's finally happened. I've reached the half-way point of NaPoWriMo, and to celebrate this milestone, I present a poem which was inspired by a story I've been following recently.

Hunters Return

A young chimpanzee
sits beneath a tree
in the Ugandan jungle,
his brother lounging
in the branches above.

They had considered
shadowing the hunting gang
when they left,
but given their mob mentality
the brothers decided better.

Suddenly a clamour strikes up,
the jungle canopy explodes
into a frenzy of shrieks.
The youngsters recognise
the work of their older kin.

The hunters return
with dismembered red colobus
to satiate their bloodlust.
Maybe a morsel or two
will be left for the brothers
if they ask nicely.

NaPoWriMo #14: Early Spring

For today's NaPoWriMo poem, I've chosen a favourite topic of poets through the years: the seasons. More specifically, the early spring which we're currently experiencing, and the title of this piece is pretty self-explanatory.

Early Spring

Spring, that time of year
when grey becomes a memory
not so distant, close enough
to remember the bitter cold,
and green starts to assert itself.

Trees, skeletons of bark and timber,
their branches dotted with dormant alveoli,
return to their former selves
week after week till the green
blossoms into a swaying canvas.

Hidden away inside itself,
frozen by the frost and vice-grip
of the last winter's cold,
a yellow rose bud sprouts
and transforms into an amber altar.

NaPoWriMo #13: Chrome

Yet another car themed poem graces the blog today for NaPoWriMo. This time, I talk about a feature of classic cars which is not seen often on today's vehicles.

Chrome

There was a time when chrome
caressed the curves of cars.

The bumpers, the doors, the headlights,
those vehicles were adorned
with mirror-metal.

Prestige, that's what those
silver trimmings meant,
and still mean after forty years
of sitting in someone's garage.

Then the plastic and fibres arrived,
and chrome faded into dull metal,
the polish set aside
for sunny Sunday afternoons,
to see the sunshine once in a long summer.

NaPoWriMo #12: Severn Blues

Today's poem is inspired by NaPoWriMo's daily prompt, which asked for a poem with a lot of alliteration and assonance. I have to say, having read this back, this poem contains a lot more of the former than it does of the latter.

Severn Blues

A river emerges from the lowlands,
swallowing another as it swirls
its way to the sea
in a sumptuous symphony.

Bridges that bind the roads
in a bilateral bond
brace themselves against the barrage
of the brutal channel wind.

Across the flow of the rolling Severn,
a lammergeyer flies higher than gulls
inland across grass fires to a new roost
somewhere on a drier mountainside.

NaPoWriMo #11: Flight of the Veyron

It seems cars are becoming a regular feature of my NaPoWriMo journey. We've already had one poem about the legendary Jaguar E-Type, so here's one about the equally majestic speed king itself.

Flight of the Veyron

A thousand horses
imprisoned in sixteen cylinders,
released at the press of a foot
on the throttle.

From the horse and cart
to a car with the face
of a big cat in a trance,
fixated on the track,

on moving in a straight line
faster than any speed warrior
has travelled before.
Hugging the tarmac,

retracting its rear spoiler
like a peacock's train
and tearing down the road
in a blur worthy of hyperspace.

NaPoWriMo #10: A Worm Wakes Up on a Monday Morning

Okay, so things may have taken a surreal turn on the blog. For the tenth NaPoWriMo poem, we have the familiar tale of a homeowner struggling to cope with noisy neighbours.

A Worm Wakes Up on a Monday Morning

Just under the grass
of a spring-drenched lawn
an earthworm rests
in his one room flat
next door to an ant nest.

His neighbours went out
the night before last,
and it had been quite a party
on the surface as the ants
gathered their crops.

The worm is still recovering
from that bombastic disturbance
when a spade caves in his ceiling
and baths him sunshine
while a blackbird eyes him from the trees.

NaPoWriMo #9: Waters of the Usk

A bit of an unusual subject for today's NaPoWriMo poem, but it fits with the current theme of experimentation so why not? The subject is the River Usk, a river which flows through South Wales and out of Newport, and is famous for having the second widest tidal range of any river in the world.

Waters of the Usk

A slick of mud and soil
drained from the riverbanks
cascades from the hills
down to the wetlands,
the coils of the River Usk.

Cormorants patrol its waters,
diving for fish and eels
along the immovable mud-banks,
while terns and seagulls cruise
above the capricious tides.

NaPoWriMo #8: Streets

And so we've reached day eight of NaPoWriMo, and today's poem is inspired by their daily prompt which suggested that participants write a poem featuring repetition of a single word, similar to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells" or Joy Harjo's "She Had Some Horses.

Streets

Streets of shops,
streets of houses,
streets of shops and houses,
the town is lined with streets.
The streets form the arteries,
the veins, generate the circulation
to the town's heart.
The streets are lined with cars,
either parked on the kerb
or clogging up the road,
they choke the streets
leading into town,
the labyrinth stretching out
to meet streets bordering the green
of the shrinking countryside.

NaPoWriMo #7: E-Type

So this is a bit later today than usual, but here comes a short poem inspired by one of the greatest British sports cars of all time.

E-Type

Who would have thought
that so much elegance
could be encapsulated
within sheets of metal.

A long, sloping bonnet,
oval feline headlamps
and shimmering chrome
illuminate a sea-coloured car.

When such a car is flying
down the twistiest of lanes,
one can hear its namesake
thundering within its cylinders.

NaPoWriMo #6: Chameleon

And so we arrive at the sixth day in this poetic odyssey. Today's poem is inspired by that famous lizard which can not only camouflage itself, but can move its eyeballs independent and catch prey with a sticky tongue.

Chameleon

It dwells on low hanging branches,
still until a passing insect
lands within its range.

Creeping forward amongst the leaves
with the precision and stiffness
of a clockwork doll,

the chameleon eyes the bug
with pin-point pupils,
the reptilian sniper's sights.

A flash of red ribbon,
the jaws snap shut,
and the waiting begins again.

NaPoWriMo #5: King of Cats

It's time for another tiger poem. This one was inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo site, which encouraged participants to write a poem based in the natural world, in line with the work of Mary Oliver. It could be about a plant, animal or location and preferably one you have experienced often. So here's my attempt.

King of Cats

The last vestige
of a bygone time
when beasts still ruled
and humans huddled
around campfires,
telling stories
of the tiger.

The golden eyes of authority,
the only source of it
in the entire jungle.
No leopard or sloth bear
can match its grace
or the power with which
it pulls down a sambar stag
or duels with a bull guar.

Stripes, oily black,
on a burning coat of fur,
the emblazoned symbol
of an entire nation.
Humans appropriate its image,
worship its primal majesty,
fear its savagery when they step
into its isolated domain.

Yet in the face of a tiger
rests hopes for the future,
a future devoid of fear
of man-made extinction.
All things have their time,
but theirs is approaching sooner
in the form of snares, traps
and the weaponry of man.

Poets attempt to encapsulate
the tiger's immortality,
yet it is a construct,
a poetic device disguising
the battleground of the old jungles,
the trails of skins
leading across Asia.

A tigress sits in her den,
tending to her mewling cubs,
their young stripes help light the flame
which burned for millions of years,
faced with being extinguished
before its time.

NaPoWriMo #4: Differences

Today's poem was inspired by a prompt from NaPoWriMo, which challenged participants to write a poem with a secret. The guidelines were that the poem should contain an idea or a subject that isn't expressed outright. This is my attempt, and I suspect that you will probably guess what it's about pretty quickly.

Differences

Sitting in the shadow of a cactus,
a man with bushy sideburns
draws sketches in a journal.

A mockingbird sits in a bush
and jumps onto the soil
to catch a beetle.

The slim, curved beak,
grey and white feathers
and large brown eyes
seem familiar yet dissimilar.

Compared with the sketches
of its relatives, the man
discovers differences so small
yet they begin a revolution.

Frynwys Features #1: A Fishy Engagement

If you're one of the extremely few people who've been following this blog for some time, you'll be aware that I live in a very small village called Frynwys in South Wales. It has few places of note; a village hall, a shop, some wild land on its southern edge, a pub and a couple of small parks. Because of this, Frynwys is pretty much dead in terms of excitement or adventure. In fact the most activity we've had recently has been the restoration of a path which took shorter than expected.

That's not to say nothing of note ever happens here. I've previously mentioned the incident in which a terrapin was released into the local pond, and before that a Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey flew over my house during the NATO summit in Newport back in 2014. With this in mind, I think it's time I covered all the interesting and positively riveting goings on of Frynwys in this new feature.

So what's been happening in Frynwys recently? Let's start things off with a familiar theme. It seems the pond has become a hive of activity over these last few weeks, especially since the frogs have spawned and their eggs are frothing in clusters on the banks. Then, as I was walking past the pond the other day, I noticed some large orange shapes moving close to the surface. It took me a second to realise that they were carp of some kind, and that yet again someone had released fish into the pond. The last time this happened the fish were removed by the warden in charge of looking after the village's wild land, and a sign was put up explaining the effect of the fish on the pond's ecology and asking for the perpetrator to come forward. I wonder if they'll do the same when they discover several large carp in the pond. The frogspawn will certainly provide them with an easy food source, which will lead to an angry warden indeed.

Elsewhere in Frynwys, I encountered a strange situation by the park at the bottom of the village. I was walking past there headed to another street, and saw a woman and her two children (who I estimate were about four or five years old). The children were swinging on the swings as children that age do, but as I walked past them they suddenly started screeching the chorus to the song 'Heathens' by Twenty One Pilots. The opening lyric of said chorus startled me, but I didn't expect them to launch into the rest of the song, which they proceeded to do. I take it most people by now are familiar with the film Suicide Squad, and that 'Heathens' is a song written for and closely associated with said film. Thus the lyrics are to do with psychopaths, murderers, and is general a gloomy song which nonetheless I think is quite a good one if a bit overplayed during 2016. As I left the kids were still singing it, and their mother seemed completely oblivious. Not that I have anything against children singing 'Heathens', but I couldn't help but be surprised that the parent didn't seem to notice the song's content.

Closer to home, my street to be exact, some of our neighbours have moved out. They were the longest resident homeowners on our street, with my family not far behind in second place. Now, since one of them has retired, they decided to move with their two cocker spaniels to a house in Cornwall. It makes perfect sense; I've often thought about retiring to the coast in the future, although that is an incredibly long-term plan since I'm nowhere near retirement age. Still, their departure now leaves my family the longest-serving residents on our street, which is a bit of an odd feeling.

And finally, in the only other noteworthy bit of news I've managed to accumulate, a friend of mine is getting engaged. This is particularly noteworthy to me at least, because this is a friend I went to primary school with in the nearby school. We parted ways after I was sent to a school in Newport and he was sent to the local comprehensive, but we've kept in touch over the years. Now that he's engaged, the passage of time has suddenly become clearly evident to me. I can remember most of my school days with precise clarity, and it only feels like we were there just the other day. Funny how everyone grows up.

That concludes this first installment of Frynwys Features. I suspect there will be more to come from this segment, but given the slow and quiet nature of life in this little backwater, it might take a while.

NaPoWriMo #3: Microraptor

For day three of NaPoWriMo I'm attempting to push the boat out a bit. Today's poem centres on a tiny dinosaur discovered in China at the turn of the millennium. Anyone who's familiar with dinosaurs or indeed the work of James Gurney will recognise this animal.

Microraptor

A flat splayed skeleton,
a bird's long-lost grandfather,
a tiny skull, like a robin with teeth
and four feathery wings.

Spider fingers hooked with claws,
feet clutched like those of a crow,
a tail lined with wafer-thin plumage
and four feathery wings.

The transition is clear,
yet the differences clearer,
a creature of two lineages
with four feathery wings.

NaPoWriMo #2: Home at the Dawn Chorus

For my second poem in this thirty day odyssey, I present a tale of the dawn chorus as seen from the perspective of an inebriated blackbird. Whoever said poetry needed to be about deep themes?

Home at the Dawn Chorus

A blackbird flutters back to his roost
after a night down the garden
dining on seeds
from an immaculate green feeder
with several perches
wallowing with other birds
in a stone bird bath
after which he clambers into his nest
to sleep off the gorging
and the guzzling
and the slurred singing of Wren of Harlech
only to hear the robin in the next tree
belting out a tenor solo
as the sun rises
and the blackbird curses
the chorus which greets his ears.

NaPoWriMo #1: Victory

And we're off. For the first day of NaPoWriMo we have a poem about a famous flagship of the Royal Navy. Seems an odd choice for April Fool's Day, but here we go.

Victory

A beast of the waters,
a hundred cannons lining its hull,
the flagship of oceanic warfare.

The Victory bristles with guns,
hairs which stand on end
at the sight of an enemy armada.

They bristled at Ushant, twice.
They bristled at Gibraltar,
and at Cape St. Vincent,

opening fire each time bar one.
Then came Cape Trafalgar.
The old warship charged

at the enemy fleet across the water,
a bloodthirsty hound of the sea.
That fight nearly proved its last,

duelling a fearsome opponent,
a fight in which it lost its commander
but from which it emerged a scarred veteran.

NaPoWriMo 2017 Begins

And so we arrive at the start of National Poetry Writing Month.

Tomorrow the start gun will be fired on a thirty day race towards the end of April with (hopefully) thirty poems to show for it. As I've previously discussed on this blog, the goal isn't to produce collection-worthy poems, but to produce the highest number of poems. Whether I'll achieve it this year remains to be seen, but work has already begun. As I write this post I'm contemplating subjects for the first poem which will be posted tomorrow.

Writing a poem a day can be troublesome at the best of times, and if like me you try to add some variety into your output, it can become tiring as well. I found that out two years ago, but this time I have a feeling things will be different.

If anyone else out there is taking part in NaPoWriMo, I wish you the best of luck. See you tomorrow for the first of many poems to come.

Snow Leopard

A stream in the highest valley,
a glacier of the Himalayas,
frozen yet still running
thanks to a conscientious spring.

Prints in the snow betray
the path of a snow leopard
prowling along the valley
towards an intended victim.

A markhor buck drinks at the stream,
a lord of mountain goats,
coiled corkscrew snake horns
and a man fit for a horse.

A pale ghost, the spotted shade,
slinks along the rocks,
and surprises the thirsty goat,
chasing it headlong up a ridge
till claws and teeth seize it
just as it leaps from a ledge.

And he sits on his illustrious throne

And he sits on his illustrious throne,
fashioned from the great jungle cats of old,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

Bought by the hands of the rich city men,
built by men sheltering from the night's cold,
and he sits on his illustrious throne.

Those eager to leave their village and send
spoils from the jungle to the mountain fold,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

Snares, traps, guns, the tools of desperate men,
the buyer ensures his foes are not told
how he sits on his illustrious throne.

From Ranthambore to Pench and back again,
the flow of pelts and corpses always sold,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

The last tiger hides in his bamboo den
until taken to the rich man's stronghold,
and he sits on his illustrious throne,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

NaPoWriMo Approaches

So, it's that time of year again. National Poetry Writing Month, abbreviated to NaPoWriMo, is pretty much what its name suggests. It's similar to National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo, which takes place in November and challenges people to write a fresh draft of a novel in thirty days. In this case the challenge is thirty poems in thirty days.

I attempted NaPoWriMo in 2015, and reached the eighteenth day with a poem about a snail crossing a road before being defeated. The main point of the challenge is not to write exquisite verse on the level of Wordsworth or Plath, but just to write as much poetry as you can within the month of April. Most poets go for the write-a-poem-a-day option, which is what I did two years ago, and it's safe to say I wrote some really bizarre poems which don't really stand on their own very well. Aside from the aforementioned poem of the snail crossing the road, there were others about kaiju, witch's pools, a guide to make a cup of tea, and one about gray langur monkeys which was later turned into a video and posted on my YouTube page.

Will the quality be any better this year? I can certainly hope. In reality though, the chances I'll be able to edit and thoroughly check my work will be slim. Since the whole idea is to produce as much verse as possible, I'll be going through ideas faster than I can quality check them. It should make for some interesting reading either way.

Safe to say, I'm quite looking forward to it this year. NaPoWriMo starts on 1st April, so look out for the first of many poems to come. Also coming up I've got a few more poems before the start date, and another exciting development which I'll talk more about in the near future.

Hope you're all having a good week, and see you soon.

Dead Earth Sunrise

Seconds before the dawn,
the cool of the night
is still a simmering furnace.

The crest of the sun,
a red colossus of violent rays,
eliminating anything
with the will to survive.

The trees, the savannahs,
the tundra, the ice fields,
they all submitted to the genesis
of a global carbonised desert.
Lava seas destroyed what was once
a green a blue orb
on a vibrant solar chain.

The sun expands to engulf the sky,
the heat stirring the flames
as it swallows the atmosphere,
the last morning of a silent earth.

The Life Choices of Ming

Fun fact about being born in captivity,
you don't choose where you go next.

As it happens I left my cage
when I was still a mewling cub.
Somebody from the city thought
I'd be the perfect living decoration
for his flat twenty one stories up.

It wasn't as if I was along up there;
my alligator flatmate shared the space,
we even had our own bedrooms.
Al didn't get much exercise though.

Frozen chickens taste great in abundance,
and our keeper had plenty of those.
Sometimes he'd bring friends with him.
I'd introduce myself
regardless of their expectations.

Then that housecat arrived.

Clearly our keeper had forgotten
I had paws the size of plates.
It's a shame he got in the way,
otherwise I wouldn't have bitten him,
he wouldn't have gone to hospital,
a policeman wouldn't have tried to
parasail into the flat,
and I wouldn't have given him
a burglar's welcome.

My cage now is quite nice actually.
I get on well with the other tigers,
and my keepers feed me
more than chickens these days.

(This poem is based on the real-life story of Ming of Harlem. For further reading check out this New York Times article and this interview with Antoine Yates, Ming's owner.)

Desert Rains

Rain falls on the wastes
of the vast Rann of Kutch.
The dead salt flats become
a living marsh once more.

The empty land of salt and sand
sprouts the year's first green.
Trees and grass spring up
and line the new waterways.

Water floods the desert.
Its heart blossoms into pink
from the flamingoes gathering
on a newly formed lake.

Their ankles flex and bend,
their knees forever invisible.
In the humblest of nests
the eggs begin to hatch.

Happy World Poetry Day!

Indeed, I almost forgot that it was World Poetry Day today, but hope all is going well with all my fellow poets out there. I suspect some of you will be taking part in NaPoWriMo this year, so I wish you all good luck with that too. It seems to me, having watched performance poetry, spoken word and having read new poetry, that poetry is more vibrant than ever in modern times. With such an array of variation it looks as if poetry is undergoing a new stage in its evolution which will be interesting to watch over the next few years.

In other news, you can expect more poems on this blog in the next few days, including some more poems related to India's wildlife. Also I'll be posting a new feature regarding my home village of Frynwys next week.

Anyways, Happy World Poetry Day everyone!

Champawat

after Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon

In the jungles of Kumaon
a darkness descended
in the form of a tigress.

She came from the windswept
forests of Nepal, having taken
two hundred lives.
Soldiers hunted for her,
and she fled to find a new kingdom.

She prowled the fields
around Champawat,
stalking those who strayed
too far from their homes.
She pounced on them
while they gathered dried leaves,
to drag them off into a ravine,
leaving trails of crimson in her wake.

Her roars rumbled
along the road at night,
and her prey shivered in their huts.
The tigress grew bloated
on human flesh,
but another two hundred lives
could not satisfy her.

A pool of fresh blood,
a shattered blue necklace.
The tigress drags her newest kill,
a girl of sixteen,
into the forested ravine.
A severed, abandoned leg
turns the water red.
A rustling in the scrub.
She growls, snarls, retreats into the brush.
She can smell a man's scent.

She follows a stream to the ridge,
but her hunter is persistent.
That night she feasts,
but come the morning drums echo
from the trop of the ridge.
She awakens to see
her pursuers in the marsh.

Two rounds from a shotgun,
and one round from a rifle
send her tearing up the hill.
The drums beat louder,
voices chanting in a frenzy.
She rounds on her enemies
and charges her undaunted pursuer.

A blast, and the tigress stops.
A second blast and she flinches,
ears flattened and bared teeth.
She flees for a rock,
but her hunter is not deterred.
He is the last thing she sees
before the final blast.

The drums turn silent,
the chanting reaches fever-pitch,
and the tigress lies still,
staring up at the hunter
with lightless amber eyes.

The Tiger Poet vs. Mad Max: Fury Road

In 2015 I went to see Mad Max: Fury Road at the cinema with a friend of mine who also happens to be a poet. I was fairly familiar with the Mad Max franchise beforehand; I distinctly recall watching The Road Warrior at some point although I didn't really understand what the film was all about. This time, with a bit more knowledge of George Miller's post-apocalyptic world, I was able to appreciate the artistry of the wasteland even more.

What followed was one of the most spectacular and operatic action films I've ever seen. Praise for Fury Road is nothing new; indeed, it seems every major publication felt the same as me back in the summer of 2015. Everyone was singing the film's praises as an operatic work of action and chaos on a scale nobody had ever seen. It was extraordinary how George Miller had been able to return to Mad Max after more than two decades and revive the franchise in tremendous fashion.

Of course, as with every great success, there were some detractors. There were those who felt Fury Road was more style over substance, substituting over-the-top action for complex plotting, and there was also a boycott by those claiming the film was a feminist propaganda piece. I'm not too bothered about the latter criticism, as having watched Fury Road a few times now I feel the feminist aspect of the film forms a strong background theme. It feels organic to the story rather than something forced upon an old franchise as the boycotters claim.

It goes without saying that Furiosa, as played by Charlize Theron, is one of the best action heroines of recent times. The fact that she is the real main character of the film is testament to how much thought George Miller and his co-writers put into her role. Although Max Rockatansky is still the central figure of this tale, his role as an observer to the events in the wasteland allows Furiosa to take much of the narrative heft, giving the film a strong emotional center. The character Nux, played by Nicholas Hoult, is also part of this, providing a great deconstruction of the redshirts often seen in franchises subservient to the main villain.

Speaking of which, what villains Fury Road has indeed. Immortan Joe, the tyrannical warlord of the Citadel, is likewise a great deconstruction of villain archetypes. While he is certainly fearsome and imposing, it is mostly a front to disguise an aging man suffering from disease who retains control by maintaining a ferocious façade. His two lieutenants, the Bullet Farmer and the People Eater, add terrific character to the proceedings, with the former having a particularly memorable scene when he attacks the War Rig by himself. Nux's aforementioned deconstruction of the foot soldier is further highlighted when contrasted with his lancer Slit, who has fully embraced the War Boy philosophy yet is spiteful and bitter compared to Nux's wide-eyed, child-like innocence.

It's this attention to strong themes and a straightforward narrative that elevates the already ballistic action-scenes. Most of the film is an extended car chase with a few pauses for breath, with an attitude that tells the audience to join the ride or step off if they can't keep up, an attitude conveyed by the terrific editing by Margaret Sixel. The cars themselves are in many ways the true stars of the film. The War Rig is the most important of these, a fearsome beast of burden which acts as a mobile fort for Max, Furiosa and the Wives. The two-tiered Gigahorse is a monstrous engineering achievement, as are the People Eater's limousine and the aptly named Peacmaker. However, the most striking of the vehicles is the Doof Wagon, a lorry slash mobile music stage carrying drummers on the back, and the Doof Warrior on the front. Playing a flame throwing double-necked guitar, he provides a constant heavy metal soundtrack to the chase and is quite possibly the greatest side character ever put to film.

I think by this point it may seem like I'm gushing about Fury Road quite a bit. It's true that the lack of a complex narrative is likely to put some people off, along with the lack of explanation for the film's mythology. Also, having seen the film with my parents, I can say that the onslaught of never-ending action could do a few people's heads in, but that's what's great about Fury Road. It's an brilliantly constructed opera of mayhem, and not a lot of films are that.

Stork Village

Openbill Storks,
nesting in trees above a small village.
Their beaks shaped
like scissors, they cluster
over thatched houses below.

Three chicks sit stiff
where their nest landed
after jostling for space.
White feathers tucked up,
but they do not go unnoticed.

A new home awaits
in the sanctuary of the village,
with bowls of snails
to fuel growing wings.

Untouchables

Vultures huddle in their roosts
inside the Mehrangarh Fort,
resting in the barracks
of the maharajah's army.
The fort casts its shadow
over the streets and the dunes beyond.

Vultures gaze at the seething chaos below.
Cast out from the city, ruling
the fort is their reward.
They frown at vegetarian scruples
when there is so much meat on the streets.
One spots something on the city's edge.

King vultures lead the rest
as they take off,
circling figures in the sand.
One is a cow, freshly dead;
the other is a man, a chamar.

They form an aerial wake
as the man removes the biggest
obstacle to their feast.
The man leaves with a
drum skin as the vultures
drop out of the sky and gorge
upon the reeking corpse.

Beaks tear muscle and flesh,
until the rag-and-bone birds of the desert
fly back to their fort
before the sun disappears.

Singing Apes

A brown ape stops at a gap
between branches and spies another bough.

Whooping, the gibbon flies out of cover,
landing on the next branch.
Hornbills take off in fright,
and a giant squirrel retreats.

The gibbons swings across the spur,
her feet dangling.
Sighting her black-haired mate,
she swivels her wrists and leaps.

He begins to sing.
His throat resonates to his tune,
a deep-chested bass which turns
into a shrill cry and back again.

His song floods the forest,
echoes through the mist,
joined by his mate's chorus.
The singing apes meet
at the top of the tallest tree.

They survey the Himalayas
sheltering the rising sun.
Their calls forming a duet, they swing
through the canopy together.

Updates: Mametz Wood, NaPoWriMo and More

Hi guys. It seems the last two months have disappeared too quickly, but fortunately I've got a lot to look forward to in March.

The Mametz Wood project is still ongoing, and I'm currently in the process of reading other poets' work on the subject to give me a grounding in how to write about the battle. First on my list is Owen Sheers' take on the battle, with his eponymously titled 'Mametz Wood'. It mainly deals with the aftermath of the battle, but it's still a haunting portrayal of the long-term consequences of the First World War. There is of course David Jones' In Parenthesis, considered the definitive and best work on Mametz Wood, which is the go-to source when researching the battle. Hopefully, with such a precedent for work about this key event in Welsh history, I will have a good chance at formulating my own take on it.

In other news I'm planning to take on National Poetry Writing Month this year. I'm hoping this time I can actually reach the end of the month with a poem each day, especially after I failed two years ago. Due to the fast writing schedule, it's a given that most poems written during NaPoWriMo aren't great, and having read through some of the poems I wrote last time I can see I've got a lot of room for improvement. We'll see how I do when April arrives.

Aside from NaPoWriMo, there's plenty of poetry to come in the next few days. I've got a couple of animal-themed poems on the go at the moment, as well as an experimental piece which is taking a bit longer than I thought. Hopefully it'll appear on this blog before April, but if it doesn't then it will probably be finished before the summer at the latest.

Anyway, hope you're all having a good week, and to any Welsh readers I wish you a belated Happy St. David's Day!

Saltpan Blues

Dried, encrusted,
kin of a seabed,

fried fish skeletons,
bones of sea monsters,

snakes slither sideways
across the salt desert

feeding off flies,
dazed and sun-mad,

scales fuelled by rays
intensified.

The islands left behind
in the great retreat

of the waters, stand
as wasteland outcrops.

The Tiger Poet vs. a Terrapin

So Frnywys has been livelier than usual. Last weekend I got involved in a strange incident, which is saying something as strange incidents in Frynwys often equate to really trivial things. However this time it was truly strange, as it involved a terrapin.

Frynwys has a small area of wild land at the bottom of the village. It's not enough to warrant reserve status, but it's home to some wildlife including a pair of buzzards which nest in the nearby trees, fish, frogs and the occasional heron. Given this is fairly typical fauna to find in an area like this, you can imagine my confusion when I spotted a terrapin in the pond.

It was swimming in amongst reeds and pondweed, and when I saw frogspawn near the bank I wondered momentarily if the terrapin had been attracted to the pond by the prospect of a feast. Whatever frogs were in the pond at the time disappeared when I approached but the terrapin stayed. In fact it swam up to me and poked its tiny head out of the water to stare at me. I asked it (which seems a self-defeating exercise) what it was doing in the pond, and then it dived and its brown shell blended in with the muddy water.

After a few minutes of deliberation, I came to the obvious conclusion that someone had released the terrapin into the pond. It wouldn't be the first time; there was a previous incident where someone had released fish into the pond which proceeded to consume the tadpoles, but this was something else. The fact that the reptile had approached me indicated that it was familiar with people, but there wasn't a lot I could do. I thought about trying to capture it so that I could take it home and look after it until someone came to collect it, but I had nothing on me useful to catching terrapins.

So I left. When I got home I told my father about it, and we realised that if we left the terrapin in the pond it could potentially freeze. We're not quite out of winter yet, and I was not confident about the cold-blooded animal's chances when the temperature dropped. With this in mind, we grabbed a bucket and a long pole and headed back to the pond. Just as we were about to reach it, we spotted three teenagers, equipped with small fishing nets and a box, coming the other way. When they saw us they attempted to move out of sight, but we approached and asked if they had caught a terrapin. They told us that they had, albeit it somewhat tentatively, and then we explained the situation. It turned out they had the terrapin in the box and were taking it back to its home; one of the houses in the street behind the forest. Satisfied that the matter was resolved we left.

Is there a moral to this story? Not from a poet's point of view maybe. We deduced afterwards that the terrapin had been released into the pond during the day, if not by the teenagers than by one of their relatives, and they had set out to retrieve it when they returned home after school. I suspect that the teenagers had tried to hide from us because they thought we might have been nature reserve officials. The people in charge of looking after the wild land had acted when fish were released into the pond, putting up a sign explaining the damage and asking for the perpetrator to contact them. Maybe the teenagers were worried about reprisals from wildlife officials and decided to remove the terrapin before any lasting damage was done.

All this resulted in was just an unusual break from the daily pattern of life here in Frynwys. From a purely practical standpoint, the lesson to take away from this strange incident is obvious. Don't release pets into the wild. Not just terrapins, but any domestic animal really. Fortunately, the frogs didn't appear to notice, and the pond can go on being undisturbed. At least until a heron shows up looking for a free lunch.

Iguana Nostradamus

Algae going

I was basking on the rocks
on the shores of Fernandina
with half of my colony
nestled together, a scaly thicket.
Then it occurred to me.

Algae going.

The sea is warm of late,
the greenery on the rocks
battered by constant surf
is withering of late,
and I see less of the penguins.

Algae going.

I foresee thunderstorms
as heralds of the warming,
lightning, twisted and contorted,
flashes above the islands.

Algae gone.

The colony is withered,
husks of lizards litter
the petrified beaches
and the skeletal reefs.

Night of the Dhole

A whistling scream.

When mist falls on the forest
and the silvery meadows,
deer turn their heads
and dart into the trees.

Peacocks scatter
into the undergrowth.
The last brave sambar
stands in the grass,
spying the forest's edge.

Screams echo.
The sambar takes flight.
A single dhole emerges
from the trees,
with white teeth bared
and a coat of red fur.

The pack scourges the meadows -
infiltrates the forest
as the night draws in.
Wolves flee
from their hungry growls
and voracious yapping.

Somewhere in the darkest tangle
of bamboo thickets, a sleeping tiger
hears the whistling pack
and twitches.

The Tiger Poet vs. Kaziranga National Park

If you've been following this blog for a while, you will know that India is a subject I write about a lot. I've had an interest in the country since I was three years old, having watched documentaries about its wildlife on television, and six years ago I got to visit India in person and visit some of its national parks. I visited Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh, and while the former in particular was a dream destination for me, there was one park I had hoped to visit maybe on a return journey; Kaziranga.

It seems Kaziranga has been thrust into the spotlight in recent years. Situated on the banks of the Brahmaputra in Assam, India's most easterly state, it has become a conservation success story due to its efforts to preserve the Indian rhinoceros. It has since become even more famous due to visits from the British Royal family and as being one of the locations featured in David Attenborough's Planet Earth II. But now Kaziranga National Park seems to be in the news for other, more worrying reasons. The other day, while finishing my last post, I stumbled upon a BBC News article by Justin Rowlatt detailing the current situation between the forest department which manages Kaziranga and the local people who live on the edge of the park.

 In the last couple of years forest guards have been given extraordinary powers to shoot and kill anyone inside the park who they suspect to be involved in poaching. For many years the forest guards have been involved in a long-term battle against poaching gangs, but the BBC reported that while the number of rhinos killed in the last few years has decreased, the number of people shot by the park guards has reached fifty. Compare this to two people prosecuted for poaching in the last three years and only one forest guard killed by poachers in the past twenty years, it seems there is something amiss with Kaziranga's conservation methods. Add to this allegations of torture by the forest department and evictions of villages along the park border and we have ourselves a truly convoluted situation.

So what can I offer to the discussion? I have spoken about the blight of poaching in some of my poetry, most strongly in 'Ghosts of Sariska' which was my attempt to deal with the Sariska Tiger Reserve poaching scandal in poetic form. It was a case in which an entire population of tigers were killed of by poachers due to a combination of poor management and outdated protection methods. That was in 2005, and India has redoubled its conservation efforts since then. According to the BBC article, this new policy which allows park guards to shoot potential poachers came into force following a recommendation after the number of rhinos lost to poachers more than doubled in 2013. However, this leads to cases where local people with no connection to poaching gangs are getting caught in the crossfire, and this is where conservation crosses the line.

I'm all for increased security to protect endangered species from poachers. It has been proved in other cases such as the Sariska scandal that local people often work with poaching gangs due to the high financial gains involved in trading rhino horns and tiger skins. But shooting and killing people indiscriminately, like something out of a Judge Dredd comic, sends entirely the wrong signal to those communities who can aid the Assam Forest Department's efforts. India has a long history of coexistence with the natural world, and these tribal communities who have lived in the forest for centuries are in an ideal place to aid conservation efforts.

That's not to say that humans and animals should be made to share the same space. The establishment of twenty eight Project Tiger reserves in the 1970s involved the relocation of people and villages, which led to a comeback for tigers in the wild. Nevertheless, the expansion of Kaziranga has turned into a human rights issue, with entire villages being evicted and then demolished, leading to clashes between local people and the police. Also due to the fact that the forest guards are protected from prosecution if they kill someone, it seems as if local people have the cards stacked firmly against them.

I won't pretend to have the answers for this situation. On the one hand it's great to see conservation in India strengthening but disheartening to see such brutal methods being employed. Somehow a balance needs to be struck between the needs of people and animals while still maintaining a firm line against poachers. The comeback of endangered species such as the Indian rhino is a triumph of conservation, but when compared with the human cost it seems that a revaluation of the way forward is desperately needed.

The Tiger Poet vs. Guitars

So recently I started trying to learn the guitar. Seems an odd choice of hobby for a poet who specialises in poetry about tigers. Still, having acquired a guitar from a relative last year, I'm giving it a go.

It didn't take me long to work out how to play single notes and how to pick said notes, but at the moment my repertoire is a bit limited. I'm having difficulty learning basic chords as my fingers aren't sticking together to form them, and somehow I'm failing at strumming as well. Still, I have learned a few select tunes, such as the opening riff from 'Pretty Woman', the Force theme from Star Wars, a couple of tunes from The Lion King, the main riffs played by the Doof Warrior in Mad Max Fury Road and the theme from the film Rango. They're not perfect by any means; the Doof Warrior's riffs in particular sound a bit weird when played on an acoustic, but it's a start.

Playing the guitar is an ideal hobby to have in a village as quiet as Frynwys. At the moment we're being constantly battered by wind and rain and there is a perpetual dimness in the day due to the thick cloud cover. At least I have plenty to distract myself from the dreary weather. If I somehow manage to play chords without string buzz (I'm assuming that's what it's called) I might be able to do something with it.

The guitar I'm learning on is an acoustic-electric (Tanglewood to be precise), and it's already broken one string (in fairness, it was my fault). It's not a bad guitar to learn on; after I finally managed to tune it to standard tuning I was able to play recognisable tunes. The top E string is the worst string for buzzing. If I play it particularly fast it buzzes like a wasp's nest, but it's alright when played slowly.

My early forays into playing the guitar have been quite improvised so far, hence the shortness of this post. However I received a guitar magazine for Christmas last year, and I'm using that to help me progress. Hopefully this time next month I'll be a bit better than a beginner.