MaSHed SwEde

Can someone get hold of hedgehog and tell him to send us some of his finest?

The Poems of K.Stockdale

Barry

A one horse two storey town

founded on greed.

Queen of Davies the Coal King

constructed on avarice.

Nearly my Town,

Barry.

Cadoxton Juxta Barry

I have my slice of south Wales.

I keep it in the back garden

part of my Tregatwg rockery

a boulder of black slag from the Rhondda.

Not really coal you see but good enough

to fall from trucks and make up the sidings.

Not good Anthracite but welcome stuff

unearthed from the garden, solid greyblack

pitted by time and memory’s tracks.

80’s&90’s Seaside Town

But there was no one at the seaside,

 it had putrefied in the glow of  

the moon and the lights of ships

the neon lights of entertainment.

  Scores of punters visiting arcadia,

   lives levelled on interactive media

   driving us further into hyper space

 hyperworld, a vapid mission statement.

 Above all, on the brow of the hill,

    the lights of the rich at St Nicholas,

 yet behind a grand front I saw

 an old lady arrange her curtains

 half drawn, to sadly sit

 observing the world as it passed

her window all night, imagining

    something she knew so little about

waiting for the burglar, the young penniless

to beat her, to  rape her, to steal from her

take her hard earned sovereigns to the Arcade,

put some of it up the arm and holiday in Spain.

A steady air bus route, the planes

   trundle over the rock strewn beach

 vibrations dislodging Porthkerry cliffs

  where ice cold snow melted water

gushes from rotten Victorian pipes.

If there was any justice, my Lecturer said

       the pipes of India’s sewerage system,

should be here too, in Barry.

Newcomers, two Oystercatchers,

 Noisy, pushy, like seaside robins, chase 

  Black headed gulls, get the best food,

 wash in clear water, a freshwater shower

fluff feathers, flap wings, clear off pollution

 from Channel waters, turgid with sediment

 turbid with sand as the small brown slugs

slap the beach and rocks, with their bacteria.

 Further up the coast the Sea Empress bestows

a crude cargo on ‘Little England beyond Wales’

 as the chinless, faceless Lord Haw Haw says

‘It’ll be all right, not really a  big problem’.

The Police Helicopter’s here again, tonight

 putting Tregatwg in the spotlight,

neighbours ogling the accustomed sight

of theft  and shameless destruction.

They gather, as the adrenalin runs

   take no prisoners, eat the woundedv

ideo violence infects the minds

 sure of the chase, of action, a resolution.

Blots on the landscape, dross in the forests

 these cars, burnt out left off’s of ignored youth.

In 90’s Barry a whole holiday family is wiped out

Port Road Joyriders crushing them to death.

With fingerprints scorched, they’re left to rot,

 ultimate rejects of our urban malaise

 dumped as in a landfill, burnt like a school blazer

 tossed aside like a used knife or needle.

The political stagnation of our people

continues, in the only Tory Town in Wales.

  Brown clouds settle over Barry Town,

drifting out to the Green Belts, Y Bro,

the smug smog invisible ‘till you glance

 at the pastel shades of pink ribbed clouds

  settling over this Valleys Town by the sea,

yet  still, Oystercatchers appear on the shore

surviving adaptors to our overheated world

seals enter the imagination,

with hopes of sustainability

    of growth, of freshwater, of the east

On Barry Island’s frolicking fifties beach

 before we became mice in our millions,

 we swam with crabs, fish and family

     a toddler’s pool, now washed away by the sea.

  At Lavernock we played on golden sands

   after the turnstile path to the beach now gone

                        Global storms have smashed concrete and steel,                      

 where children plash in mud left by  sand dredgers.

     Now, the Town shifts in it’s uneasy, troubled layers,

   yet after the steel rims of trains have lumbered past

    after engines have spent their air to the stratosphere,

    heating’s stopped humming and the taxi’s are unwanted,

listen through the Town’s sleep, you may hear

a flower closing, you may hear the welcome rain

dropping  crystals through beautiful blackness

 where we rest,  to rise with  morning’s sated blades. 

Barry Birds

At last I behold the beauty

of long tailed tits at close range.

The pink hue of flank feathers

enough to dispel Winter’s gloom

the extension of the Chemical Complex,

the horror of the almost dead river water

below pipelines carrying our doom to the sea.

They’re pert, blind in playfulness, searching

for insects we can’t see, reflected in my eyes.

Spotting their features, small marmoset birds

marvelling at miniature aerobics in flight

above the river’s outlet to the Severn

with ships sailing or moored in the Estuary,

turbid, turgid, brown and cold as ever.

The Preselli stones passed here,

Sulli’s direct Ley Line to Glastonbury.

Romans sailed up to Dinas Powys,

Vikings and Saxons traded at HMS Cambria.

Our Naval Military Base, where we once walked,

is fenced-off, boarded up against people

thanks to Thatcher/Regan Paranoia

Barry has it’s own Greenham Common.

Few fishermen today, despite the sun.

No one diving into the sea.

Not many boats bobbing, mostly commerce.

The conveyor boats, coming in and out

With plastic junk, globalising the Severn,

pouring the world into Avon’s mouth.

Sea Shanty

Off the ship, off the Docks to Barry Town,

 my soles flapping loose, letting in rain.

I sell fake watches from Alexandria

for ten times the price, to wise drunkards.

When they get poetic and try my language,

 I fill their hands with Papyrus from Cairo

increase my profits and drink Infidel beer

 stagger back richer, to my waiting boat.

The Bendricks

The cycling ride to the

soar and surge of the sea

beckoning me to sail away

 bicycle over the sea – sink

into the infinity of elsewhere.

Yet I recall those swarthy sailors

slaves to convenience flags

purveyors of goods from Tunisia,

a range of genuine reproductions.

I remind myself of their fear

of the unknown, of my own

felt fear in foreign places

treading careful past arrests

   in Tunis, Addis, or crossing borders.

Culturally paranoid they like me

 eyes still bright with incredulity

naivette still at our small world,

 impressed with our seaside Town.

 Gibby Girl

She slumped over the stained table

head of black curls trawling the beer

stained table, half feigning drunkenness.

Penniless she bummed a drink, cigarettes,

would show her nipples if wanted,

big and solid, ready for the baby

which would soon burst from her.

She pretended to know me

said she knew I smoked dope.

     Did she know me? It wasn’t my baby.

Under it all she was pretty

out of control, no idea, full of pills

 her smooth brown skin beckoned.

  She walked home alone at midnight,

 I thought of giving a lift

 but the petit bourgeois mind

reeled at the possibility

of the advantages over me. 

A Valleys Town by The Sea

More wonders of the Valley I teach in

discovered today in the sweet,

wide feminine embrace of the Llynfi.

Past the snowline of Coedtraherne, trwy’r Llangynwyd.

Through Garth, trwy’r y Ganol o’r Fairfield,

part of the heart of the Iron Industrial Revolution

which destroys our planet apace. And on to Blaencaerau

where you burn down you own pub, in despair.

Several centuries of industrial hell being cleared up

the valleys greening again, coniferous going to deciduous.

Up to Cymmer, with Council houses perched on perfection

views incomparable, of each Valley side, Maesteg i Gwnfi.

Then down, to Abergwynfi ac Blaengwynfi’s present beauty

 past diminutive workers’ bungalows, bright as jewels.

On, up, to the tortuous Bwlch, to greet the Rhondda.

Then down, skirting rock strewn escarpments

snow slinking away in sheltered hollows

hiding from our biosphere warming asphyxiation

and on to Rhondda Fach, Treorci, Blaencwm

tucked in it’s private Valley, ar yr pen

with seemingly endless vistas of surging rolling hills,

down to the last deep mine in Wales.

FfrosY Fran Opencast and it’s like, the new scars.

The deep coal remains firmly sequestered,

considered too expensive, by future investors.

Past the Colliseum and Parc & Dare of Aberdare,

People’s Palaces once again bulging with pride.

Then back up, admire the broad Cynon

embracing the curves of this valleys sides.

The Fach’s so narrow, Ferndale doesn’t seem as proud

    as the Fawr, the Valley so low and desperate for space.

And on to the confluence of Porth with Pontypridd,

down to the wide Taff, to the other world

feeding streams, arteries, Motorways B&A Roads,

railway tracks, endless lines of a slow moving population

converging on the city of the day – Cardiff.

Then home to Barry, our Valleys Town by the Sea.

Terraces as tight and well lined as the valleys

in a place built badly, on the same greed

being cleared up and cleared off, for development.

Sitting here by the Severn, Ar Hyd y Nos,

waiting for a ship to sail to Dinas Powys,

take my burning remains up the Cadoc.

90’s Barry Bar

Quietly stunned, we stood in the Zoo bar

all time becoming quickly still.

Slow motion tables flew towards us,

no where punches flew as people drifted,

 fell down, collapsed on chairs that were not there.

Some hurt, some traumatised as it ended

there, at last at our feet, as if we were to help

the self inflicted, comatose lying on the floor.

We were lucky yet felt excluded,

left at the edge, unaccepted

by this militant fighting crowd,

of people on people, faces on faces.

A sea of townspeople swimming

in beer, blood and dirt.

The biggest Chemical Complex outside of Texas

Surreal, the Chemical Complex at night, dominating the Townscape

obliterating any Seascape, with it’s myriad of Christmas Tree lights

decorating the Twin Towers of Global Warming, funnels for cancer particles.

They’ve stopped dropping the obvious white dust over the Town,

these days its down to particulates and invisible pollution

PM 2’s, as if we hadn’t noticed concentrated rings of illness.

The Complex lies, a sleeping Goliath,  trembling volcano

venting  bursts of pressure, in clouds of unknown steam.

An industrial shark, it must keep moving forward.

‘Nanny Hat’ turned her ancient head to the hollow glow

of the factory. ‘Is that the sunset?’ she innocently said

confronted by thousands of incandescent lights.

One day the black bird may land not on the runway

but on the Complex and topple the Twin Towers to ground

blowing all our verisimillitudes away.

Keep making Welsh Dollars, with chemicals on the line

where real danger waits, tonight, as the track throws the train

bleeding toxicity onto the line, threatening thousands.

A wounded chemical buffalo lies across the tracks

TV crews unaware of danger on the platforms

give people the story reduced to editorial truth.

It would have been breaking news in Texas,

so now the chemicals arrive by ship, for the Tank Farm

on a Greenwashed and comparatively lifeless sea.

Barry Island

Bruised and battered by wind 

sea sunscorched and blistered

they evacuate the beaches

filling trains fit to bursting

Cwm Cynon ydy’n y gyntaf

arrived early and staked their section.

Extended family groups present

crescent moons of deckchairs

ten twenty or more giving a lie

to the Nuclear family that we are

fudging our way through the beach

driving in our screen to company.

On the beach and remaining neutral

but the kids always want to play,

they draw you in to the ball games

whilst we bury ourselves in sand.

Later, you can breathe the humidity

sticky with thousands of absent voices

as the tired Town falls into sleep,

taste the silence after sirens and visitors

hear the antennae click of bats

feel the enclosing Summer moon

set in perfect semi-circle

smell its shadowy half in space

and easily sleep in this Valleys Town

by the ever rising Mor Hafren, the Severn.

Kings Square

The square is true to it’s name,

Grey and marble, four sided and flat.

Nothing but the Tower, dominates above it

to take away it’s rigid openness.

It has always been this way.

It is as we want it, nothing above

two three or four storeys

in our four square Town.

 Waverley

Lit up like the tree

of Christmases I remember

she steams slipless

over the channel,

a floating haven.

Good times to be had on the Ferry,

the Steamship Waverley.

Coming into Barry Town Asleep

Dark dead of night,

stars  clearly cold.

Squint your eyes to see

them floating, rising

immersing, absorbed

into the all expanding

and embracing all.

And the air so clear

no noise in it

only the hum of the Town

twinkling with chemical lights

resplendently indolent

lying before you,

fingering it’s way into the blackness

a huge growth with a low glow

to guard it’s sleep

against encroachment of light

with her purple and black legions

amassed already, on the hills.

Above the Town they hover

but are tamed by midnight’s show.

You enter the Town on foot

enter the brightness

dim star light, no dark skies

as you wander alone, Down to Town

under Rose, Amber and Yellow light

you walk alone down empty streets

still full of the views, the woods

the sweet ripples of the water,

you amble homeward neon-lit.

Town Symphony

Sirens are our muses

As to fire murder accident they run,

clarion the Town,

wake it from night to day.

Industry and Factories our birdsong

thrice over and thrice again

they sing to drive us to destraction,

to which you become used.

Add to these the ten to ten or 24/7,

cut flowers at all seasons.

They grow. turn Winter to Summer

night to day, time to a continuum.

Then the ubiquitous stimuli,

our heart’s ease and undoing

which isolates, turning mice to men

men to maniacs and on to misery.

Lend to these the voices of anger,

of hatred demanding recompense

for imagined sins. Turn the cheek,

try to understand and tolerate.

It is comfortable no less to hear

the Wren’s vocal battling in joy.

Defending space, fearing no living entity.

It’s hard, when life’s an empty stage.

Barry

A one horse two storey town

founded on greed.

Queen of Davies the Coal King

constructed on avarice.

Nearly my Town,

Barry.

Like a fucking drunk cunt,

don’t you know.

Happy Mike

Twas Christmas Eve in Barry…

(An Ode to Barry Town)

Twas Christmas Eve in Barry, and all seemed pretty sound.

Was in the mood for drinking, so off  I walked down town.

I first called in the Tadross, to start my drunken tour.

I bumped into some ‘roid boys, who warned me of the score!

“We don’t like your sort in here!” They told me, with a frown.

They gave me a good warning! So off I limped down town.

I next popped in the Castle, to drink a pint or two,

This big fat bloke, he gave me, several tablets blue!

“They’re Tidy!” he assured me. “The best you’ll find around!”

I wished him “Merry Christmas!” And floated off down town,

I fell into the Windsor, Those pills were kicking in…

I had ten pints of Stella, My head was in a spin!

I went outside, for some air! I fell upon the ground!

I fell upon some dog shit, and staggered off down town.

But luckily, O’Brien’s, was just a fall away!

In where I copped this fat lass, who asked me home to play!

I looked at her… she was rough! Face like a Bassett Hound!

So I declined politely, and hurried off down town.

I hurried down, past the Square, I headed for the Bucc!

All armed with my Rohipnol, was destined for - some luck!

Once in, I faced these big boys - their faces were renowned!

Didn’t like my face that much, so they beat up down town!

The moral of this story, as if you didn’t know…

“Be careful what you do there, in places where you go.

‘Cos Barry Town is dodgy, if you're unaware -

There’s local rules of conduct and locals to beware!”

(Dedicated to the 'Daily Mail')

Cinder’s Answer…

Sad Ken. I fear a lot of what you penned, is ever so sadly true,

But I think you’ll find amongst the crap, quite an honest few.

The ‘roid munchers are out there, but dwindling now you see,

As there’s a new breed a coming, a new community.

We’re fed up of being pushed around not knowing where to look,

Of havin’ all our hard earned shit nicked by sum little crook.

It’s time to sort the wankers out, it’s time to take a stand.

Pull together, kick ‘em out and shit where they land.

The ‘roid munchers, the bullies, the asbo kings the lot,

Send them all a packing and in hell let ‘em rot!

Ode to a Barry Tart

I luvs u more than night or day,

I luvs u more than Jackson’s Bay!

I luvs u more than a Sunday dinner,

I luvs u more than a ten to one winner!

I luvs u more than a pint of Bow,

I luvs u more than a smoke of blow!

I luvs u more than a Jacks and Coke,

I luvs u more than Hollyoaks!

I luvs u more than fish and chips,

I luvs u more than Oxo crisps!

I luvs u more than a vindaloo,

I luvs u more than a morning poo!

I luvs u more than a Castle slate,

But I luvs u most, cos you’re my mate!!!

Sad Ken X

Sad Ken does Dr Zeuss, badly!