The Text Files

On the 10 a.m. Swansea - Paddington

This text was published in his autobiography What's Welsh for Zen.

In the wind as it comes off the mountains
there is clamour of wild bells
A methedrine hymnal clear and fresh as it dances
in the sunlight.
If it sours it rises up and flies off hte sky
If it sweetens it dips and swoops inotour mouths
To be tasted as mothballs are tasted - sour -
Fleetingly in an antique wardrobe in an
Old house near as a stream,
Damp with insomnia
Sizzling with summer hopes
(Content to be haunting
this particular valley at
this particular time)
A loghorn hope in a mildewy religion
Full of broken Bibles warm hassocks
adn timeless sermons.
We were a flock for fol-de-rol
   abattoiristas
Sensimillia pirates
Concertos de MONGOLIA
Sings the wind as a wild bell caltters to the floor
And breaks
Another hurtles of in a curve
   to the East
Another trills/spins uncontrollably at my face
   in alarm
My mouth is tasting mothballs
   again
I spit and the earth explodes
   at the dignity
I try to remonstrate, but the
   fever of the countryside has
Entered my soul
It bleeds now with martyrs lying
In worshipful circles for the
Last lament
Past the farmyards pouring out
   of TV screens
Scrubbed and bleached like
   white tuxedoed trees
Crammed with epithets
Devoid of colour since the
Lambing season made the
Fields so smooth
I cannot leave this door ajar another
   year and be so
Unprepared to die

John Cale