Ashes Poetry

Whatever the weather we people in Bakewell believe in hanging Aussie cricketers out to dry.

‘Cheltenham’s the next stop’ shouts the bloke on his mobile to his girlfriend. I was brought up in Cheltenham, saw my first first class cricket at the College Ground during the Festival in short trousers in awe of Tom Graveney and the toilet facilities (another story.)

 ‘Are you wearing that white dress?’  We shall never know. Wales as a lad was a land of mystery, surpassed only by the Dean. Before the Severn Bridge opened in the sixties, the rugby coach taking me and the rest of the juniors, colts, 2nd and 1st XV  travelled up to Gloucester before going down through Lydney and Chepstow onto Newport Grammar or Cardiff High School, or was it the other way round? I could understand South Wales, the hugh red steel furnaces ablaze as we motored back in victory or defeat, whole towns and cities letters on an O-level (GCSE) Geography exam map – C, N, N, C, EV, S (answers at the foot of this blog.) I could understand the pride and the hurt as this industrial land died. In the early seventies I learnt to be a teacher at Hereford and lived in Abergavenny, which some English people thought only existed in a song ‘Taking a trip up to Abergavenny’ (Marty Wilde?) At eighteen I married and spent our honeymoon traffic-censuring between Blaina and Nantyglo. We sat in two separate huts a hundred yards apart counting cars as above our heads a conveyor belt ferried coal slag heaps for reprocessing, doing the penniless out of scavenging for their hearths. Cheltenham and the south-east of England has never experienced this. You can understand why the Welsh are so passionate and so good at beating England at rugby union, the most public school of games. As Graeme Mourie, the superlative All Black number eight and captain said ‘You never beat Wales at rugby, just score more points than them.’

Talking of point scoring, my mate Geoff Jones http://www.poetrymine.net/asp/home.asp, rang me just after England bored their way to the Rugby World Cup ‘I’m on a coach to sing in the All Wales Male Voice Choir Competition at the Albert Hall.’ ‘That’s very good, Geoff,’ I replied, ‘at least the Welsh will win something this year.’  The Grand Slam, and England the wooden spoon to boot.

The Welsh nearly lost something more basic than rugby. Their language. Many people are still alive who will remember teachers beating them if they spoke Welsh in the playground.  Den heh tavas a gollas y dyr, or translated from the original Cornish ‘Those who have lost their language, have lost their land.’ Never mind white dresses, if you don’t have your own language how can you talk? New Labour, English New Labour, scarcely flattered to deceive, with national assemblies, minimum wage, freedom of information (how that bit them in the bum) and taking interest rates out of the hands of the chancellor (think how much worse the recession would be if Darling could fiddle with that too) their only successes. What’s wrong with Cardiff hosting their first test as the first of an Ashes series? Does Wales deserve less? The  EWCB deserves to be congratulated. 

The sun’s setting over Gloucester, and next stop, Newport, The Holly Inn’s my destination. Watching dusk fall over the Severn from the Welsh side I eavesdrop on a group of nurses resigned to how the powers-that-be don’t involve them, which is like not talking to outgoing batsmen about how the wicket’s playing. All sadly par for the course; Thatcher made the NHS more business-like, if not more efficient. New Labour Toni Blare’s Turd Way construed health as a business, with commissioners and providers (excuse me) all competing rather than cooperating. Health isn’t a business, it’s a blessing.  Bevan weeps. The train rattles down the west bank of the Severn, a monstrous serpent of life, nearly overflowing with Nye’s tears. Back to cricket and poetry, where if you’re in Wales and even if you’re not try www.academi.org Very practical, membership includes discounts with stationers, something appreciable and appreciated by penniless poets. There’s a big razzamatazz opening ceremony before the cricke tomorrow, ‘including performances from world class artists’ (Not just the cricketers, eh?) I wonder if they’ll be any poets or poetry amongst them (and not just the cricket, eh?)

Why should I complain? I’ve come for the cricket, not the opening ceremony. They reckon the Cardiff wicket is going to be flat and dry – something like R S Thomas, but probably not quite as acerbic; one of my favourite poets. Interesting toss to win or lose – both sides will want to bat first for fear and hope of a final innings on a turner (Do England play one or two spinners? Dare Australia play none?) But with the rain and the damp, will the ball move around on the first morning, is it worth a risk and ask the opposition to bat? (Do England play one or two spinners? Dare Australia play none?) Once the coin’s tossed, there’s nothing else but for the ump. to bung the new ball to the new ball bowler…

Cellophane

prophylactic
against undue wear
before testing the wary 

a kite-marked sphere
ruby of stitched leather
awaits conquest of measures
upon the most measured pitch
to tempt the temptress
to give and lose all
modesty unbound

 twenty-two yards a catalogue
of denial and penetration
will it swing rear seam? each entry
roughs up the diadem till too old
or innings done by conquest
or declaration

all manner of manipulation
lop-sided thigh polish
occult knowledge
to beat or kiss the edge
of the keenest blade

the field’s edge heeds
all turns to waste in attendance
mugs cups papers programmes
a miasmic sea
consumes the consumed

umpires draw stumps
crinkled cellophane pocketed
anchored a humble memorial
the first shared sip of hope and fears

C, N, N, C, EV, S ?

Cardiff, Neath, Newport, Cymbran, Ebbw Vale and Swansea

Oh yes, the Dean, the Forest of Dean, a magical place, Tolkein’s Middle Earth writ large.