The scribble page

This is a page where I can talk about my interests, or things that catch my eye. It covers classic cartoons, poems, stories... or whatever I feel like. Here is a short story about Adam and Eve, followed by some poetry.

Adam outside Eden

He sat a long time, his belly heavy at that momentary thoughtlessness. Part of him - how strange this concept, "part" (he caught these two energies, the habitual and the new, and watched them vie with each other - so alien,so new, almost fascinated, were it not for a sickness which lay deeper, deeper) - that part wanted to blame, blame the figure who now sat a little way off, to scream at her partiality; but he knew he could not blame: he, he had accepted, acted, devoured this new experience. He gazed at the glow over Eden, and quietly, imperceptibly, turned the blame and anger in on himself.

"What are you thinking?" she asked. What a strange concept - "thinking". What was it? Before, she had known him utterly, his being was her being, her being his. This strangeness - this strangeness of not knowing...

He grunted. The sound surprised him. He found it unpleasant. She too, noted it and sighed, and caught the sigh with a new unease.

Only one picture stayed with him: the life he had just left - with such suddenness, in one quiet moment of forgetting (forgetting? What was that? What was there to remember before? His mind twisted at the incomprehensibility of this) let fly away.

He turned to her, looking for... looking for... Her eyes moved down to the ground, away behind to the wastes which were now their home. Why was he waiting, this man?

He followed her look. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. What was she watching?

The bleakness sunk deep in his belly, and suddenly caught the hint of a picture in his mind. What was it? What was it?

Ah, yes - Eden... but so much dimmer now.

He looked up whence he had come and saw indeed that it was much dimmer, barely a memoried haze. In the picture he felt a need, an urge.

What was it he had to remember? His mind battled with new pictures: Eden. Eden. Edentree. Eden. Edengarden. Eden. Walks. Yes walks. Eden. The memory, the feeling of another presence. What was it? Who was it?

He breathed hard and deep, and again the picture came in all its fullness. He held it steady, keeping it taut, ready in his mind; leapt to his feet and turned, purposefully, doggedly and faced the bleakness, the picture before him. He moved.

The woman had already set off, stopping occasionally to pick up... something, to note - a stone, a root, a trickle.

On an impulse, he looked back. What had been a fact was now an thin film. He jerked the image back into his consciousness, held it a moment, fixed it, then strode on - forward, forward; she weaving, stopping, gathering.

He knew now what he had to do: build, recreate, recapture. He knew what he had to do.

Was that a glow on the horizon? He strode on.

The woman was suddenly beside him.

"Adam?"

"Hmmm?"

"Why rush? We're going nowhere."

He didn't reply. He knew what he had to do.

"Look what I've found. See what God has provided." She opened her palm - three seeds.

A snort of air escaped his nostrils. "Good! Good!"

He seemed preoccupied.

"Good! You do that!" He strode off. "Come!"

She watched him, then followed, stopping repeatedly to gather; gather and plant; gather; gather and plant; and wondering why he sometimes stopped with pain in his eyes, as if trying to remember something, oblivious of the demon which drove him.

Build. Must build. Yes, that's it. The glow.

No. That's not it. Destroy.

Build. Yes, that's it. The glow. No, that's not it . Destroy. Build. Yes, that's it. No. Not yet not quite yet. Destroy.

Build. That's it. No. Not quite. Destroy.

Build. That's it. Not quite. Destroy.

Build.

Poetry section

What was given

What was given was a communion dress,
The Sunday gatherings in the other room,
The Saturday juke-box in the American bar,
The veil, a secret cafe on the Anden Levante,
Bass voices behind the door, incense,
The smell of maleness behind the Father's eyes,
His finger on my forehead, the taste of flesh on my tongue.

I, bride of Rome, Mother of Catalunya, Widow of the Sea
Waiting at a distance from the fishermen's bars,
The naked waters where boats once sailed.

Published in A Passion for Poetry (United Press Ltd)

Funeral party

We sit together at our fixed places,
Speaking in gasps. One coaxes the ash-fire,
The women bustle-busy, then silence.
A mumbled grace, the quick eyes, and we dine,
Carefully wiping away all traces
Of yesterday. We rise; the men retire
To a second room, their hush'd voices tense
With comings and goings. We wait for signs.
Slowly, the blinds are raised, the hearth crackles,
Someone is talking of flowers and sunlight,
A baby cries, a spinster group tackles
The debris of an event. Doors close. Night.
The house crouches in shadows. An old man
Stops by the door, falters, and passes on.

Valley train

The Tawe train (one carriage
Stubbornly humping backwards out of Swansea)
Scuttles Welshness along the valley floor
Before nosing - the briefest of sniffs -
The cool English air.

Llandeilo, Llangadog, Llanwrda, Llanymdyfri,
Cyndhordi, Llanwrtyd Llangammarch, Garth;
Cilmeri, Builth Wells, Llandrindod, Pen-
y-Bont, Dolau, Llanbister, Llangynllo;
Cnwclas (Knucklas),
Trefyclawdd (Knighton);

Bucknell, Hopton, Broome, Craven
Arms, Church Stretton,
Shrewsbury.

Even now, awaiting a new connection, my comfort
The cold familiarity of a common language,
My heart scuttles back to the womb of the valley:
A place where words held no meaning
But the language was music.