Poems

This is a new poem about a modern hero's quest to find an old Welsh secret

Return of The Cambrian

Before he disappeared from sight
Exactly six hundred years ago, The Cambrian
Had hidden in the clock tower his last secret.

Six centuries later the Celt set off
To discover his thoughts and found
His obsession to be a lonely sport.

He sought first the farmer who replied
I feed the mouths that do not thank me.
Instead they freely enrich those who blank us.

He badgered next the builder who implied
He was too complacent to upgrade his trade
It's easy money duplicating estates.

The Celt moved on
Through vast mazes the builder had raised
Charmless boxes hemmed by walls,

Penned by a million eyes,
Lost in thought and doubtful, so he paid
A man who swore he was a guide.

This charlatan took his cash
Abandoned him in a vast arcade
From which guards evicted him.

He was heard to shout
Do there exist any beings at all who
Can tell me where The Cambrian laired?

Of a sudden he was overwhelmed
By hordes of polyester-suits wearing cyberhelms
Chanting unintelligible English terms.

He hacked and thrust with the lust of justice
But numberless they were, like dust
Till sense told him to switch his tactic.

He summoned the illusion that he was not there
Appeared abject, defeated, meeting no eyes;
Anticlimactic, they drifted away.

Alone, he wept while the midnight wind
Scoured his flayed flesh making rain of blood.
Sprayed from his mind the same repeated query.

Oh Cambrian your people have become complicit
Their spirits castrated, like battery hens
Where are you now? Where went your weapons

When your defeated army slunk underground
To let their land be ripped like a rug
From beneath their feet - and their freedom.

A migrant sweeper removing traces said look down.
Beneath the construction's concrete piles
Under pulverised agricultural loam

The Celt's x-ray eyes spied the stronghold
Of a brass-bound sarcophagus
Of ancient oak and white Mawddach gold

Engraved with words most long erased -
But loneliness and despair were there,
Too poetry and insight, dignity and autonomy,

Words with echoes faint and dim:
Solidarity, community, magic, art
Song, soil, seasons, pride, child.

Camouflaged as a subcontractor
He burrowed below and in time
Made contact with his benefactor.

Slowly The Cambrian's slumbering form
Was seen to twitch. Foundations cracked.

Keep Britain Normal! - the rap

Keep Britain Normal!
- Hybrids out! Hybrids out!
Keep Britain Normal!
- Hybrids Hybrids Hybrids out!

Banish strange diseases
Chuck out the wicked
Except for coughs and sneezes
We don't want no sickies!
Anything unusual
Gotta be reported
Watch the technology
Keep yourself sorted!

Keep Britain Normal!
- Hybrids out! Hybrids out!
Keep Britain Normal!
- Hybrids Hybrids Hybrids out!

Laptop ipod digital gizmos
Gameboy lameboy Stole his charisma
Mobile Camera Never been the same
Since I pressed that button
Now I'm self-cutting
Got a DNAberration Electronic nation
Wired up blanked out Missing generation
Creep! Creep!
Panic on the streets
Paranoia is what greets
Me everywhere I go
No one wants to know

Keep Britain Normal!
- Hybrids out! Hybrids out!
Keep Britain Normal!
- Hybrids Hybrids Hybrids out!

Hunted Shunted on the run to Nowhere
Nothing's fair No peace
No hiding place from the Gene Police
Just cos I'm different
What's your frame of reference?
Help me Save me
Give me salvation
There's no cure but
Genetic Rehabilitation

Keep Britain Normal!
- Hybrids out! Hybrids out!
Keep Britain Normal!
- Hybrids Hybrids Hybrids out!