In the windswept forest of ice and snow,
in the mountain blizzard and the winter's cold,
a spectre of stripes glides through the tundra.
Other creatures clear the way for her,
the terror of the northern reaches.
Her fur a tapestry of tawny and black,
a roaring fire amidst the white haze.
Her den cradled by the roots of an old pine,
the fallen cones scattered outside.
A hare crosses the threshold,
hears a rumbling growl within and flees.
The mother tigress shelters her newborns,
blind and mewling, against the arctic chill.
Soon the hunt will call to her again,
and she will haunt the ice once more.
(Yep, we're off on the NaPoWriMo adventure once more. Who knows where it'll go this year, but we'll soon find out with the next installment tomorrow. See you all there, and to my fellow poets, good luck!)
Monday, 1 April 2019
Thursday, 21 March 2019
Heart of the Rage (Happy World Poetry Day!)
'Where rage consumes, nothing remains.'
The Sunset Vagabond
Some murderers and killers believe
that deep underneath Ragetown,
the stadium of rage and madness,
lies a vault with the strongest locks.
Drums accompany you up the steps
to a molten forged steel door,
sparks and embers
convulsing at the seams.
No one knows what lies behind them.
It may be a brimstone and lava torment,
fire rolling against the roof of chaos,
or maybe the white heat of anger
bursting into a vibrant bloom,
the frozen rage of old grievances,
so old they became crystallised,
fossilised and magnified,
formed over millennia
into the eye of the ichthyosaur,
a rim of untainted insanity
orbiting an infinite void
of eternal wrath.
(Happy World Poetry Day to all you poetry people out there! Hope the world is treating you all reasonably, and for those of you taking part in NaPoWriMo next month I wish you the best of luck. As a precursor to the madness ahead, what better than a poem literally about the heart of anger? Hope you enjoy and I'll see you all on the next poem!)
The Sunset Vagabond
Some murderers and killers believe
that deep underneath Ragetown,
the stadium of rage and madness,
lies a vault with the strongest locks.
Drums accompany you up the steps
to a molten forged steel door,
sparks and embers
convulsing at the seams.
No one knows what lies behind them.
It may be a brimstone and lava torment,
fire rolling against the roof of chaos,
or maybe the white heat of anger
bursting into a vibrant bloom,
the frozen rage of old grievances,
so old they became crystallised,
fossilised and magnified,
formed over millennia
into the eye of the ichthyosaur,
a rim of untainted insanity
orbiting an infinite void
of eternal wrath.
(Happy World Poetry Day to all you poetry people out there! Hope the world is treating you all reasonably, and for those of you taking part in NaPoWriMo next month I wish you the best of luck. As a precursor to the madness ahead, what better than a poem literally about the heart of anger? Hope you enjoy and I'll see you all on the next poem!)
Wednesday, 13 March 2019
Paraceratherium
When nature has day dreams, it goes to town on new designs.
The Paraceratherium, browsing on trees growing in an ancient desert.
Charcoal-plated skin makes it seem a towering, armoured beast,
giraffe neck and legs thick as elms with cloven feet,
rhinoceros face devoid of any horn, top lip grasping at leaves.
A beast destined for the plains mimics its forest-dwelling friends,
over-engineered and feared, no smart hunter will try their luck.
Someway down the line the great-great-great-great grandchildren
of this titan will shed his neck and sprout horns,
content to graze on the plains instead of reaching their ancestor's heights.
The Paraceratherium, browsing on trees growing in an ancient desert.
Charcoal-plated skin makes it seem a towering, armoured beast,
giraffe neck and legs thick as elms with cloven feet,
rhinoceros face devoid of any horn, top lip grasping at leaves.
A beast destined for the plains mimics its forest-dwelling friends,
over-engineered and feared, no smart hunter will try their luck.
Someway down the line the great-great-great-great grandchildren
of this titan will shed his neck and sprout horns,
content to graze on the plains instead of reaching their ancestor's heights.
Friday, 1 March 2019
Happy St. David's Day 2019!
Hello everyone, once again it's St. David's Day here in Wales, and having spent most of the day in Cardiff, it's positively buzzing.
Given our recent success with rugby in the Six Nations, the celebrations this year seem re-energised, with a large parade going back and forth through the city streets. The dragons, daffodils and bake-stones are in abundance. In Frynwys this morning the fields were dotted with patches of daffodils, and it's been one of the sunniest days we've ever had in February. All in all, it seems that this year's St. David's Day has been one of the most colourful on record, but what's happening in the world of Tiger Verse I hear you ask?
Well, things are proceeding at breakneck speed on this blog. Not only have I got another preview from the upcoming Mametz Wood poem to share, but there will also be a few new original poems coming next week. Alongside that, I can also see NaPoWriMo on the horizon again, so it will be all fingers to the keyboard for that.
In the meantime, hope you all have had a happy St. David's Day, and I'll sign off this post with a link to my guitar rendition of the Welsh National Anthem. See you all again soon.
Given our recent success with rugby in the Six Nations, the celebrations this year seem re-energised, with a large parade going back and forth through the city streets. The dragons, daffodils and bake-stones are in abundance. In Frynwys this morning the fields were dotted with patches of daffodils, and it's been one of the sunniest days we've ever had in February. All in all, it seems that this year's St. David's Day has been one of the most colourful on record, but what's happening in the world of Tiger Verse I hear you ask?
Well, things are proceeding at breakneck speed on this blog. Not only have I got another preview from the upcoming Mametz Wood poem to share, but there will also be a few new original poems coming next week. Alongside that, I can also see NaPoWriMo on the horizon again, so it will be all fingers to the keyboard for that.
In the meantime, hope you all have had a happy St. David's Day, and I'll sign off this post with a link to my guitar rendition of the Welsh National Anthem. See you all again soon.
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Narrowboat Hootenanny
Roving Otter knew where
to get a decent narrowboat.
He found one at a lock
by the local pub.
The pigeons did their job,
dive bombing punters
sitting at the outside table.
We took no time in boarding.
I assumed command,
Father Vole was the lookout,
Smoking Gose was our engineer,
and Otter drove the boat.
The badgers, foxes, ducks,
geese, moorhens, rabbits,
even Spencer Swan booked
a reservation on the prow.
But our favourite friend
was Manic Owl.
He brought the instruments,
drums, guitars, and saxophones.
The man arrived in time
to see us waving from the stern.
Turns out cruising's all
a narrowboat's good for.
We set up our instruments.
Otter had his bass,
Vole was on the drums,
and Goose had a piano.
Manic Owl had a saxophone,
faded gold and battered,
but it produced sweeter notes
than anything on the water.
I had my old guitar,
an archtop with a red finish.
It was the lead in a jam
with a most ear-raising tune.
Our party went on into the night,
rhythm after rhythm buzzing
off the boat and across the water
to disturb slumbering cows.
Ducks danced with rabbits,
badgers danced with geese.
Spencer Swan demonstrated
the arm-breaker swing
for a group of astonished teal,
while Owl blistered solos
on his saxophone, and we
kept the beat of our hootenanny.
to get a decent narrowboat.
He found one at a lock
by the local pub.
The pigeons did their job,
dive bombing punters
sitting at the outside table.
We took no time in boarding.
I assumed command,
Father Vole was the lookout,
Smoking Gose was our engineer,
and Otter drove the boat.
The badgers, foxes, ducks,
geese, moorhens, rabbits,
even Spencer Swan booked
a reservation on the prow.
But our favourite friend
was Manic Owl.
He brought the instruments,
drums, guitars, and saxophones.
The man arrived in time
to see us waving from the stern.
Turns out cruising's all
a narrowboat's good for.
We set up our instruments.
Otter had his bass,
Vole was on the drums,
and Goose had a piano.
Manic Owl had a saxophone,
faded gold and battered,
but it produced sweeter notes
than anything on the water.
I had my old guitar,
an archtop with a red finish.
It was the lead in a jam
with a most ear-raising tune.
Our party went on into the night,
rhythm after rhythm buzzing
off the boat and across the water
to disturb slumbering cows.
Ducks danced with rabbits,
badgers danced with geese.
Spencer Swan demonstrated
the arm-breaker swing
for a group of astonished teal,
while Owl blistered solos
on his saxophone, and we
kept the beat of our hootenanny.
Thursday, 31 January 2019
Frynwys Features #5: Wandering Policemen and Missing Moons
It's been a while indeed. Not that Frynwys has changed much since the last bulletin, but there have been a few small developments since the never-ending winter in June of last year. My home village is so small that the minutest of changes is headline news, and fortunately for this next installment of Frynwys Features there have been a few of them over the autumn and the Christmas period for me to jot down here.
The first item on the Frynwys grapevine this time is that the council have renovated all of the footpaths through the fields, a step up from the gravel path that was laid three installments ago. It seems that they've been getting help from some schools in the nearby towns. I've seen several groups of primary school children being led through the field at the bottom of the village to help with laying a new gravel path. They've also been helping with constructing timber benches on the other side of the fields and decorating a new flight of steps leading down to one of the more inaccessible streams in the area. Before this the paths through the nature reserve were all mud and were being slowly worn away. Hopefully now that half the village seems to be involved in their renovation, all the local dog walkers won't have to worry about traversing the marshes anymore.
In slightly more worrying news, there's been a stronger police presence in Frywnys over the last few weeks. There's been a few police helicopters flying overhead, and I've often seen them circling across the village before heading off to the south. Whether it's to do with missing people or criminals on the run, I'm not sure, but it seems they're stepping up their efforts if my latest encounter is anything to go by. As I was walking towards one of the village's smaller parks the other day, I spotted the unmistakable yellow high-visibility jacket of a policeman, complete with the hat and badges. He appeared to be looking for something, as he peered around the side of one of the climbing frames and then headed up to the kissing gate at the top of the field. The policeman was unaware of my presence until he was just about to step through the gate, at which point he turned, looked at me, and then exited the park. Whatever interest the police have in Frynwys, I doubt they'll find what they're looking for on a climbing frame.
Meanwhile, in the gardening section of this bulletin, it appears that the local daffodils are once again rearing their yellow heads. There's a cluster of them up by the old nursery, huddled on a bank at the side of the road, and despite the wintry weather Frynwys is currently experiencing, a few green shoots have already appeared. This is highly unusual as the first daffodils generally don't start appearing here until around the end of February, but it seems a few of them didn't get the memo about spring and have popped out early. I suspect it might have something to do with the aftermath of the Beast from the East from last year, where snow enveloped the village just as it seemed spring was about to arrive. Perhaps the daffodils reset their photosynthesis clocks for this year to avoid another scheduling issue, but this is of course speculation from somebody who has no botanical credentials. If any botanists are reading this post, please comment below and tell me what an idiot I am for suggesting plants can talk to each other.
In more recent phenomena, you may or may not have been lucky enough to witness the super blood wolf moon which appeared in the sky early in the morning on the 21st of January. I myself was hoping to witness the enormous red moon, but it turned out to be a classic case of the British weather conspiring to thwart me once again. Last year I had tried to see a similar moon, but just as the moon was rising a thick bank of clouds smothered the sky and I saw nothing. What made it even more frustrating was that the the moon behind the clouds caused them to glow red. I had hoped to overcome the weather itself this time and catch a glimpse of this solar marvel, but unfortunately I had to resort to looking at photographs on the news that people with clearer skies had taken. Apparently the next super blood wolf moon won't be around for at least another three to five years, so I'll be waiting for a while before I try and outwit the clouds again.
That brings us to the end of another installment of Frywnys Features, but don't worry; if anything changes even in the slightest around my home village I'll be sure to make a note of it. In the meantime, stay tuned for more poetry and possibly a few tigers as well.
The first item on the Frynwys grapevine this time is that the council have renovated all of the footpaths through the fields, a step up from the gravel path that was laid three installments ago. It seems that they've been getting help from some schools in the nearby towns. I've seen several groups of primary school children being led through the field at the bottom of the village to help with laying a new gravel path. They've also been helping with constructing timber benches on the other side of the fields and decorating a new flight of steps leading down to one of the more inaccessible streams in the area. Before this the paths through the nature reserve were all mud and were being slowly worn away. Hopefully now that half the village seems to be involved in their renovation, all the local dog walkers won't have to worry about traversing the marshes anymore.
In slightly more worrying news, there's been a stronger police presence in Frywnys over the last few weeks. There's been a few police helicopters flying overhead, and I've often seen them circling across the village before heading off to the south. Whether it's to do with missing people or criminals on the run, I'm not sure, but it seems they're stepping up their efforts if my latest encounter is anything to go by. As I was walking towards one of the village's smaller parks the other day, I spotted the unmistakable yellow high-visibility jacket of a policeman, complete with the hat and badges. He appeared to be looking for something, as he peered around the side of one of the climbing frames and then headed up to the kissing gate at the top of the field. The policeman was unaware of my presence until he was just about to step through the gate, at which point he turned, looked at me, and then exited the park. Whatever interest the police have in Frynwys, I doubt they'll find what they're looking for on a climbing frame.
Meanwhile, in the gardening section of this bulletin, it appears that the local daffodils are once again rearing their yellow heads. There's a cluster of them up by the old nursery, huddled on a bank at the side of the road, and despite the wintry weather Frynwys is currently experiencing, a few green shoots have already appeared. This is highly unusual as the first daffodils generally don't start appearing here until around the end of February, but it seems a few of them didn't get the memo about spring and have popped out early. I suspect it might have something to do with the aftermath of the Beast from the East from last year, where snow enveloped the village just as it seemed spring was about to arrive. Perhaps the daffodils reset their photosynthesis clocks for this year to avoid another scheduling issue, but this is of course speculation from somebody who has no botanical credentials. If any botanists are reading this post, please comment below and tell me what an idiot I am for suggesting plants can talk to each other.
In more recent phenomena, you may or may not have been lucky enough to witness the super blood wolf moon which appeared in the sky early in the morning on the 21st of January. I myself was hoping to witness the enormous red moon, but it turned out to be a classic case of the British weather conspiring to thwart me once again. Last year I had tried to see a similar moon, but just as the moon was rising a thick bank of clouds smothered the sky and I saw nothing. What made it even more frustrating was that the the moon behind the clouds caused them to glow red. I had hoped to overcome the weather itself this time and catch a glimpse of this solar marvel, but unfortunately I had to resort to looking at photographs on the news that people with clearer skies had taken. Apparently the next super blood wolf moon won't be around for at least another three to five years, so I'll be waiting for a while before I try and outwit the clouds again.
That brings us to the end of another installment of Frywnys Features, but don't worry; if anything changes even in the slightest around my home village I'll be sure to make a note of it. In the meantime, stay tuned for more poetry and possibly a few tigers as well.
Tuesday, 25 December 2018
Christmas Updates
Hello again! Sorry for the lateness of this post. I have taken up a seasonal job for the time being, and things are mad as you can probably imagine, especially since Christmas is now in full swing. Now that it's Christmas Day I can take a moment to reflect on what's happened in the year, and what's going to happen next year.
Of course, I'm still working on my Mametz Wood project. Some of you may have seen the small preview I posted a while back, and I'm using that as the basis for the completed work. It's taken much longer than I originally estimated, but I'm much nearer to a concrete plan than I have been for some time. There's also great stuff currently happening on the YouTube channel, with almost all of the old videos remastered and a few new ones thrown in for good measure. My next few challenges in that department will include remastering 'Flying Hare', recording 'The Bear of Mysore', and potentially recording something relating to 'Defenders of the Realm'. That last one may be a bit ambitious, but we'll see.
I've also got more poems headed the way of the blog, and hopefully the next Frynwys Features will be here soon. Speaking of which, Frynwys is looking at its most festive today, despite the fact that there's a thick fog outside at the moment. The village hall has got a lot of lights on it, and the Christmas tree in the park is positively smothered in tinsel. I will say that despite the council's limited budget, they sure know how to save it for Christmas. In case you were wondering, I had a good few socks as presents this year, so when the inevitable blizzard arrives in March I won't have a problem with keeping my toes warm.
There will be plenty of things, poetry-related and otherwise, to look forward to when next year rolls around, but for now, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas! See you in the New Year!
Of course, I'm still working on my Mametz Wood project. Some of you may have seen the small preview I posted a while back, and I'm using that as the basis for the completed work. It's taken much longer than I originally estimated, but I'm much nearer to a concrete plan than I have been for some time. There's also great stuff currently happening on the YouTube channel, with almost all of the old videos remastered and a few new ones thrown in for good measure. My next few challenges in that department will include remastering 'Flying Hare', recording 'The Bear of Mysore', and potentially recording something relating to 'Defenders of the Realm'. That last one may be a bit ambitious, but we'll see.
I've also got more poems headed the way of the blog, and hopefully the next Frynwys Features will be here soon. Speaking of which, Frynwys is looking at its most festive today, despite the fact that there's a thick fog outside at the moment. The village hall has got a lot of lights on it, and the Christmas tree in the park is positively smothered in tinsel. I will say that despite the council's limited budget, they sure know how to save it for Christmas. In case you were wondering, I had a good few socks as presents this year, so when the inevitable blizzard arrives in March I won't have a problem with keeping my toes warm.
There will be plenty of things, poetry-related and otherwise, to look forward to when next year rolls around, but for now, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas! See you in the New Year!
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