The Singer

Where black rocks bare their fangs and roar
and sea shouts angry at the shore;
when rain comes sweeping wet-walled night
and lamps are pools of yellow light,
the singer stirs from out the deep
where phantoms of his memory sleep.

He trudges by the lighted inn
as jest and laughter ring within.
“Blood is the bond,” he thinks, “of brother love,
roots fit others for the glove.
Solo is a finite role,
no mirror for the choirs deep soul.
My lonely strain was not a theme
that bound the past to future dream.
I played my part. I sang it strong
but feel no call for further song.”

He wanders on along his way
where seas shed tears of spume and spray.
Now cries the wind as rain comes down
to draw a curtain o’er the town.
Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

The Shadows of the Night

Do they frighten you like they frighten me?
these downcast sons of low-caste mobs.
As you lock them away and lose the key,
their parents sweat in low-paid jobs.

These downcast sons of low-caste mobs
mime rebellious-dreams in drugs and beer.
Their parents sweat in low-paid jobs.
They chant coded-prayers in a football-jeer.

Mime rebellious-dreams in drugs and beer
to ease the day-long searing-pain.
They chant coded-prayers in a football-jeer
in the gloom of a dark-slum-lane.

To ease the day-long searing-pain,
as you claim the dues for their squalid-lets
in the gloom of a dark-slum-lane,
pale parents wail and rail against the debts.

As you claim the dues for their squalid-lets,
children scream of cruel-oppression.
Pale parents wail and rail against the debts
as they spiral through depression.

Children scream of cruel-oppression,
trapped on a treadmill-track from womb to grave
as they spiral through depression,
training for the life of a low-wage slave.

Trapped on a treadmill-track from womb to grave,
youth stolen by forsaken-school,
training for the life of a low-wage slave
in lawless-class where bullies rule.

Youth stolen by forsaken-school;
dull-eyed masters screaming at sullen-mobs
in lawless-class where bullies rule;
churning-out fodder for the low-grade jobs.

Dull-eyed masters screaming at sullen-mobs
whose minds are brutalised by stress;
churning-out fodder for the low-grade jobs.
Dream-escape is a drug's caress.

Whose minds are brutalised by stress,
seek false-pity from none, nor spare a friend.
Dream-escape is a drug's caress,
For there is no prize at this journey's end.

Seek false-pity from none, nor spare a friend,
where honest-labour will not pay;
for there is no prize at this journey's end,
and brute-frustration rules the day.

Where honest-labour will not pay,
the deprived will study the plumper-breeds;
and brute-frustration rules the day,
when the fat-one flaunts what the lean-one needs.

The deprived will study the plumper-breeds.
The game is called accumulate.
When the fat-one flaunts what the lean-one needs,
cruel-rules are there to contemplate.

The game is called accumulate,
where they dirty-deal for the master-share.
Cruel-rules are there to contemplate;
when the winner takes-all, none will play fair.

Where they dirty-deal for the master-share,
beware the shadows-of-the-night.
When the winner takes-all, none will play fair;
paupers leap-out to snatch their right.

Beware the shadows-of-the-night,
as you lock them away and lose the key.
Paupers leap-out to snatch their right.
Do they frighten you like they frighten me?

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

AW

Gifts For
Elizabeth

Look into the sky tonight and travel
back in time, where diamonds light forever-
up beyond the Milky Way; if you know
the stars by name you'll never be alone.

See Lunar, queen of all the nights, a-glide
with silver smiles; lingers while the morning
mist shimmers all with dew, then hides among
the vapour-screens to watch her lover rise.

How mighty rides the Sun King, Midas of
the dawn, transforming leaden sea and sky
to sheets of dazzling gold; red carpets lie
on cloud-scapes of plains and mountain passes.

Purple anvils, forging hailstorms; thunder
clapping; lightning flashing; Buddhas billow
then dissolve in peaceful islands floating
high ... Now yellow skies of driven rain-squalls.

Flooding fields send swollen rivers rushing
to the sea, where they boil and steam in the
tropic-tides, then leap on the wind and flee –
to return in tears to their native hills.

Such glory is the earthly engine – where
sylph-rainbows float on fields of flowers that
mirror back their subtle hues; while starry-
fish flash in inky seas of ever-night.

Deep forests whisper secrets to the fields
and jungle-hedgerows where busy insects
drone. Fisher folk of spiders spin beauty
into webs that find jewels in the frost.

Savours of the planet are bound into
a whole by the pulsing of the hours in
the rhythm of the days, that circle in
the seasons of the spiral of the years.

There's a presence and a theme in the beat
of the never-ending dancing of the
ocean on the shore – where a gypsy wind
croons love songs to the birds that pipe and soar.

To melt into this music is to blend
into the motion, and form again the
beauty of our truth; where minds are laughing
ripples on a stream that runs forever.

Find succour in the knowledge that all of
us are one, and the substance of all things
is the universal essence of the
stars ... and see strife as but a passing phase.

Charlie Gregory
Prifddinas
Cymru

AW

AW

Memories

White mist on a mountain,
grey mist on the sea;
vapours of the time-mist
are the men I long to see;
just the knowing of them
made a better man of me.

Spring is in my song today,
fields beside the sea.
Robin, from the tractor,
waves a hand at me.
Gulls, churning like a sea-wake,
follow on the plough.
Donald, trudging homewards,
after milking of the cow.

Peter, in the neap field,
leans upon the hoe,
dreaming of a girl he loved,
many years ago.
Geordie’s in the seiner,
butting up the bay,
heading for the haddie grounds,
over Orkney way.

Summer feeds the fields of hay,
moist winds from the west.
God is in a summer day,
men and land are blessed.
Comes along a bonnie lass,
children at her knee,
breathing nectar in the glass,
giving love to me.

AW

Taj Mahal

AW

Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal is silent, blushing at the dawn,
thin veneer of beauty heralding the morn.

Scorned and mutilated, living with the hounds,
chattel of the bad men by the palace grounds…
Never ending evil meets them off a train,
buys them in a village, then inflicts the pain.
“Amputate! Infect them! Smash an arm or leg!
Make them our possession, only fit to beg.”

Taj Mahal is mystic, love song of a shah,
music of a river, echoing afar.
Gentle men and women, viewing Mogul’s stones,
fountains of compassion: “Show them broken bones;
get the ragged army limping on parade,
begging bowls a-banging, injuries displayed.”

Symbol of submission, baby at her feet
hasn’t got a pillow, sacking for a sheet;
screaming and hysterics, battle for the prize,
quelling ranting mother, blinding baby’s eyes.

Taj Mahal is awesome, shimmering at night.
Agra folk are sleeping, Milky Way glows bright.
Glorifying heaven, planets rove the skies.
Satan roams the shadows, mid the cripples’ cries.

Charlie Gregory
India

Photographs: Taj Mahal at dawn… Chris Mills, Aukland, New Zealand.
Taj Mahal at night… Vijayakumarblathur, Malayalam

AW

Orang Ulu

Orang Ulu ( pron. Uloo) = collective name for the up-river tribes of Sarawak.

Orang Ulu,
loping through mottle-green light of the jungle-track,
lighter than dawn-mist, nimble as wild-cat.
Hunt-hounds around-him are bounding and
wailing a death-hymn or baying for
deer-spoor or fat-ox or wild-boar.

Ulu-agape at the edge of a clearing,
proud ebony, ironwood crashing before him;
din of tree-felling and sawing and logging,
plundering into the land-of-the-lair,
filling the air-of-the-woods with despair.

Animals fleeing; no way of escape.
Earth-mother, naked and bruised by the rape,
bleeds yellow-puss in the pure-running-river
where bones of the forest now rattle down rapids...

Change; flooding the valley,
drowning the nestling, the gibbon and python;
feeding their life-force into the pylon.

Rain; kissing the forest her final goodbyes...
Lonely in grief, tears in his eyes,
Ulu burying dogs in the shade of bamboo.
"Sleeping in nature," the sandalwood sighs,
"dreaming forever of hunting with you."

Charlie Gregory
At the head of the Rejang
Sarawak

Wedding Reception

                         Reception
                
        We’ll settle by the bar and watch
        the women dance, then split a likely
        pair, when we think we stand a chance.
        I’ve one eye on the bridesmaid, with
        the skirt that’s riding high – showing
        off the daisies, tattooed upon
        her thigh.

                      The groom is still hung-over;
        can’t find the pregnant bride. She dodged
        into the box room – best-man by
        her side.

                     Mothers-in-law are screaming,
        ‘war,’ handbags all-aflail. Uncle
        Jack is on his back. George is green
        and frail.

                     So we’ll linger here and
        guzzle beer, till the barman calls
        the time. Then make a play for a
        pair who sway – join the pantomime...

        ...Hope you like the big one, with the
        bird’s nest in her hair. Because I’m
        heading for the bridesmaid, with the
        skirt that’s riding high, showing off
        the daisies...

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff