Sometimes people use the word shame when describing a piece of music they somehow see as a guilty pleasure.All forms of bigotry stems from one fundamental principle, namely that one believes one's culture to be superior to that of another or at the very least fails to understand that other culture. In its most violent and extreme form, this can manifest itself in book burning ( the Nazis) record music burning ( the Klu Klux Klan) or cultural destruction and vandalism ( the Taliban). Those culture snobs who believe themselves to be the final arbiters of the nations tastes and who would say to you they are mainly poking fun at your preferredstyles of art and music , and who would seek to make you ashamed of them, are in fact standing alongside the worst despots in history, as they pursue their relentless drive of cultural genocide. Some in denouncing the awesome and majestic sound of music, they are at one with Hitler, the K.K.K and the Taliban, none of whom are fans of the genre. Grandpa teifidancer did not sink battleships at the River Plate, nor did Great, GreatUncle teifidancer go over the top at the Somme for a society where you would be treated as untermensch for your love of rock music. For those about to rock I salute you.
Spoke to him only once, crossed the road to parliament square, just to say thanks.
But a real hero, an inspiring voice who stood up against warmongers and imperialists. He will stay as a torch to all those that remain, we will keep fighting, keep questioning and we will never forget. An illuminator of conscience, courage and willfull determination. He refused to be silenced, he wished for no wars, and dedicated his life to peace, inspiring so many people. .
Long live freedom. Love peace and justice for all.
Oh and perhaps it's best not to mourn, carry on his legacy and resist.
The following is a companian to my post earlier this week by J.G.Ballard.
Mr Jarry was a man whose entire existence seemed to be devoted to fun , pleasure and mischief. Best known I suppose for his epic burlesque play 'Ubu Roi ' , which was first performed in 1896 when he was twenty-three. Ubu who he let loose on the world was a grotesque figure, a personification of human greed, cunning and treachery. Jarry devoted himself to chaos , but also also managed throughout his wild but pleasurable life to write plays, novels, essays and journalism.
He wrote a series of notes and reviews for ' The Wild Duck' a satirical, anarchist, anti-clerical paper named after the Ibsen play.
He developed the Ubu theme in further plays including 'Ubu Cocu', and in his Rabelaisian-cum -symbolist epic 'Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, Pataphysician' he invented a character as important and intersting to modern readers as Ubu himself.
His works are now considered major precursors of surrealism, Andre Breton and the surrealists hailed him as an immediate predecessor and Ubu as a prophetic figure. Although the coarsness of his language was deliberately shocking, Jarry's humour was often metaphysical in nature. He would for example, often give a logical demonstration in lucid style of an absurd proposition. Ubu gave us a terrifying image of the animal nature of man, his cruelty and ruthlessness.
Born in Laval, Mayenne, France, he was of Breton descent, moving to Paris when he wa 17 where he gained attention for his poetry and prose poems and general outlandishness behaviour.
A life of bachaalian excess was his main preoccupation, drinking was to him his 'sacred herb' and absinthe in particular made his heart warm.
A mephisto in miniature ,wild, extravagent and unhibited, in his use of language,permanently dressed head to toe in black,another devotion was to cycling, an obsession . His life lived hardcore to the extremes, an anarchic adventurer chasing the sweet excesses of the absurd. A hardcore eccentric he also took very seriously the art of taking nothing seriously and referred to himself in the third person. Often painting himself green, in homage to his favourite tipple, eating his meals in reverse , adapting his own living quarters to such an extent that visitors had to stoop on entering his myterious lair, which was full of strange things.. He followed closely the footsteps of his hero Rabelais. Reading a book by Jeremy Reed at moment called ' Isodore' about Isidore Ducasse who called himself the Comte de Lautreament (1846-70) and who wrote 'Les Chant de Malador whose dark , brooding, haunted world Jarry also belonged to. Jarry also owes a debt to Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarme, visionaries too, revolting against the rational. A lot of his writings predate science fiction in their othertherworldiness.
Illustration for Ubu
Welcomed by many symbolist poets , painters and journal writers, because of and not despite his extremity.
Throughout all his excessives , he maintained his sense of humour, and his unigue sensibility. Speaking with exagerrated and flowery precision. Drink practiced as discipline! He wrote ' anti-alcoholics are unfortunates in the grip of water, that terrible poison, so solvent and corrosive than out of all substances, it has been chosen for washing and scourings, and a drop of water, added to a clear liquid like absinthe, muddies it'. That's right he took his absinthe neat, and when without funds resorted to ether.
People could apparently tell when he was coming, because sometimes he did not wash for long periods, and he had a general disorder about him, guzzling from whatever drink he had available, whilst swaggering around waving two pistols, which he had about his person,at all times, between riding his bicycle in hell raising style,often in a drunken haze, but how I imagine how he must have dazzled, this swaying subversive, dressed head to toe in tall stovepipe hat and black hooded cape, full cycling gear worn at all times, a wildness about him , that makes many a modern rock god look like mere pussycats.
Almost mythological now is his status, burning bright, dissipating suddenly into the Paris night.
Never bowing to boring convention, this inspiring even on his death bed, his last words which were " Bring me a tooth pick."
What a guy, what a time. My god he must have dazzled. Long may his memory be kept green. We are all Ubu, still blissfully unaware of our destructiveness, the world still rich in its ridulousness..
What follows is a small selection of his writings
The Passion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race
Barabbas, slated to race, was scratched.
Pilate, the starter, pulling out his clepsydra or water clock, an operation which wet his hands unless he had merely spit on them - Pilate gave the send-off.
Jesus got away to a good start.
In those days, according to the excellent sports commentator St. Matthwe, it was customary to flagellate the sprinters at the start the way a coachman whips his horses. The whip both stimulates and gives a hygeinic massage. Jesus, then, got off in good form, but he had a flight right away. A bed of thorns punctured the whole circumferance of his front tyre.
Today in the shop windows of bicycle dealers you can see a reproduction of this veritable crown of thorns as an add for puncture-proof tires. At Jesus's was an ordinary single-tube racing tire.
The two thieves, obviously in cahoots and therefore "thick as thieves," took the lead.
It is not true there were any nails. The three objects usually shown in the ads belong to a rapid-change tire tool called the "Jiffy."
We had better begin by telling about the spills; but before that the machine itself must be described.
The bicycle frame in use today is of relatively recent invention. It appeared around 1890. Previous to that time the body of the machine was constructed of wo tubes soldered together at right angles. It was generally called the right-angle or cross bicycle. Jesus, after his puncture, climbed the slope on foot, carrying on his shoulder the bike frame, or, if you will, the cross.
Contemporary engravings reproduce this scene from photographs. But it appears that the sport of cycling, a a result of the well known accident which puta grevious end to the Passion race and which was brought up to date almost on its anniversery, by the similar accident of Count Zborowski on the Turbie slope - the sport of cycling was for a time prohibited by state ordinance. That explains why the illustrated magazines, in reproducing this celebrated scene,show bicycles of a rather imaginary design. They confuse the machine's cross frame with that other cross, the straight handlebar. They represent Jesus with his hands spread on the handlebars, and it is worth mentioning in this connection that Jesus rode lying flat on his back in order to reduce his air resistance.
Note also that the frame or cross was made of wood, just as wheels are to this day.
A few people have insinuated falsely that Jesus's machine was a draisienne, an unlikely mount for a hill-climbing contest. According to the old cyclophile hagiographers, St. Beiget, St. Gregory of Tours, and St.Irene, the cross was equipped with a device which they name suppedaneum. There is no need to be a great scolar to translate this as "pedal."
Lipsius, Justinian, Bosius, and Erycius Puteanus describe another accessory which one still finds, according to Cornelius Curtius in 1643, on Japanese crosses: a protuberance of leather or wood on the shaft which the rider sits astride - manifestly the seat or saddle.
The general description, furthermore, suits the definition of a bicycle current among the Chinese: "A little mule which is led by the ears and urged along by showering it with kicks."
We shall abridge the story of the race itself, for it has been narrate in detail by specialized works and illustrated by sculpture and painting visible in monuments built to house such art.
There are 14 turns in the difficult Golgotha course. Jesus took his first spill at the third turn. His mother, who was in he stands, became alarmed.
His excellent trainer, Simon the Cyrenian, who but for the thorn accident would have been riding out in front to cut the wind, carried the machine.
Jesus, though carrying nothing, perspired heavily. It is not certain whether a female spectator wiped his brow, but we know that Veronica, a irl reporter, got a good shot of hoim with her Kodak.
The second spill came at the seventh turn on some slippery pavement. Jesus went down for the third time at the eleventh turn, skidding on a rail.
The Israelite demimondaines waved their handekerchiefs at the eighth.
The deplorable accident familiar to us all took place at the twelfth turn. Jesus was in a dead heat at the time with the thieves. We know he continued the race airborne but that is another story.
The deplorable accident familiar to us all took place at the twelfth turn. Jesus was in a dead heat at the time with the thieves. We know that he continued the race airborne - but that is another story.
AlfredJarry's portrait of Jesus's feet.
Pataphysics - Days and Nights, Book IV, Chapter 1
Sengle had taken it for granted that, owing to his proven influence on the behaviour of small objects, he had the right to assume that the entire world, in all likelihood, obey him. If is not true that the vibration of a fly's wing " makes a bump in the back of the world," because there is nothing in back of infinity, or perhaps because movements are transmitted, accordind to the Cartesian equation, in rings ( it is established that the stars describe narrow ellipses, or, at least, elliptic spirals; and that a man in a desert, believing himself to be walking in a straight line, walks to the left; and that comets are rare phenomoena) - nevertheless, it is evident that a small vibration radiates outward in a series of significant displacements and that the reciprocal world is incapable of moving a reed in such a way as to make it take notice; for this reed, carried along in the retreat - which is never a stampede - of its surroundings, would remain in its particular rank and file and could confirm thaty, from every point of view, its relationship to its surroundings has remained fixed.
Under a glass bell Nosocome had suspended side by side a straw and a cocoon of silk, and verified the fact that a source of animal heat, which brought near, did not displace the enclosed air sufficiently to provoke a liberation. Fromseveral yards away Sengle obtained declinations with a brief glance.
Sengle rolled dice one day, in a bar, against Severus Altesch playing for the first fifteen. He rolled five, five, and five three probable combinations to Severus in advance, while the dice were srill whirling round in the opacity of the dice box. And on the second roll, already drunk on absinthe and cocktails, he threw a five, a four - the bourgeois idiot within Severus cackled derisively - and a six. Nobody would play with him any more, since he was cleaning them out of considerable sums of money.
His strength, having been breathed oiut toward the External, re-entered his body, funnelling into him a deposit of mathematical combinations. Sengle consructed his curiously and precisely equilibrated literary works by sleeping a solid fifteen hours, after eating and drinking, and then ejaculating the result in an odd half hour's scribbling. This could be anatomised and atomised indefinitely, each molecule being crystallized according to the laws of matter, in an ascending scale of vigor, like the cells of the body. Some professors of philosophy rhapsodize that this resemblance to natural processes partakes of the ultimate Masterpiece.
He had absolute confidence regarding practical matters, having always experimented, unless the inducive principle was false, in which case all the laws of physics would be equally false; so that all he needed to do was to rely on the benevolent return of the Externals which would jolt him and trap him in a series of dilemmas, until he emerged, via the inner stairway of salt, at the summit of the Pyramid. And that had never failed him yet.
This repriprocal relationship between himself and the Things which he was in the habit of controlling through his thought processes (but we are all at this stage, and it is by no means certain that there is a differnce, even in time, netween cognition, volition, and action, cf. the Holy Trinity) resulted in the fact that he made no distinction whatsoever between his thoughts and his actions or between his dream and his waking; and perfecting the Lebnizian definition, that perception is a true hallucination, he saw no reason why one should not say: hallucination is a false perception, or more exactly: a weak one, or better yet: predicted ( remembered sometimes, which is the same thing). And, above all he considered that there existed nothing except hallucinations, or perceptions, and there were neither nights nor days ( despite the title of this book, which is why we chose it), and that life goes on without interruption; but that one could never be conscious of life's continuity, or even that life exists at all, without these movements of the pendulum; and the first proof of life is the beating of the heart. The heartbeats are extremely important; but Sengle didn't give a damn for the fact that these little deaths nourish life, an explanation which is no more than a statement of the obvious. Neither did he give a damn for the piddling professor who once postulated that explanation.
The world was simply a huge boat, with Sengle at the helm; contrary to the Hindu concept of the huge Tortoise carrying the tiny universe, the least absurd image was that of the Roman scales, whose fantastic balance-weight was reflected and balanced by Sengle himself ( the balance-beam's fulcrum being a lens, although this hypothesis is contrary to all the laws of optics). More philosophically - ad Sengle, not thinking pride a sin, liked to imagine this grandiose scheme, constructed in observance of the theories of the formation of images, with the rays crossing at the same point as abov- it was indeed Sengle who identified himself with the enlarged image, and the imaginary figure; and the tint world, stood on its head by the projection of its gigantic double on the screen of the other scale pan, toppled under the traction of the new macrocosm, as a wheel revolves.
The concept of this great windmill is perhaps quixotic, but only imbeciles still recognise mills by their grist alone.
And Sengle had dulcnified or deified his strength.
The Man with the Axe
After and for P.Gauguin
On the horizon, with sea-mists blown,
Vague hazards roar and moan
Waves, our demons we array
Where troughs of mountains shift and sway.
Where we sweep into a bay
A giant towers above the clay.
We crawl beneath him, lizards, prone,
Whilst, like a Caesar on his throne
Or on a marble column, he
Carves a boat out of a tree,
Astride in it will give us chase
To where the leagues' green limits lie.
From shore his copper arms in space
Upraise the blue axe to the sky.
Through the Door...
Through the door and the holes in the wall are crawling;
Through the door and the holes in the wall flights glide.
It's the rustle of hippogryphs' wings and silk falling,
and a flurry of snowflakes, a soft drifting tide.
In the air hover hieroglyphs, darkly enthralling:
Skinny necks twist around in a mischievous pride
To decipher their meaning. Then, wheeling aside,
The flock lights on wasteland, clumsily sprawling,
And marches, a band of prim pundits in column,
Mumbling strange words in a gibberish obscure-
Singkle-minded, their beaks so ascetic ignore
The spiders which gnomes, with their hands far from solemn,
Have displayed in the corners like fruit on a stand ...
The procession advances to some distant land.
Poems translated by SIMON WATSON TAYLOR
FEAR CREATES SILENCE
Nothing is terrifying, if it be not a widowed gallows, a
bridge with dry piers, and a shadow which is content to be
black. ear, turning away its head, keeps its eyelind lowered
and the lips of the stone mask closed.
THE CLOWN
His round hump hides the world's roundness, as his red
cheek rends the lion on the tapestry. Clubs and diamonds are
embroidered on the crimson silk of his garments, and toward
the sun and the grass he makes a benedictory aspersion with
his tinkling aspergillum.
LOVE
The soul is wheedled by Love who looks exactly like an
iridescent veil and assumes the masked face of a chrysalis. It
walks upon inverted skulls. Behind the wall where it hides,
claws brandish weapons. It is baptised with poison. Ancient
monsters, the wall's substance, laugh into their green beards.
The heart remains red and blue, violet in the artificial absence
of the iridescent veil that is weaving.
WOOD ENGRAVING BY JARRY - ' Les minute de sable memorial
It is with great dissapointment I have learned today that under sponsorship from the Welsh Government, the Civil Aviation Authority ( CAA) has, for the first time over Britain designated air space around Aberporth for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or 'drone' flights. This follows a short public 'consultation' in summer 2009, across the affected areas of Wales.
The permanent segregated airspace around Parc Aberporth will permit frequent testing of unmanned aircraft across Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Powys and part of North Pembrokeshire with flights between Aberporth and militarytraining ranges on Mynydd Epynt. The only company now renting a business unit on the especially constucted Parc AberporthParc Aberporth is now Qinetig who are testing an Israeli designed 'Watchkeeper' (formerly ' Hermes' drone owned by the MOD for use with spying and targeting over Afghanistan and other war zones. The Parc itself had cost the taxpayer at least £21million. Another drone company Italian 'Selex' has recently pulled out of the site citing economic reasons.
Research into UAVs and UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle) is mainly funded by the military. Arms companies see drone technologyas an ideal way forward for them to increase their profits in the growing area of 'remote killing ' technology.
Protest, RED CHOIR/COR COCHION, CAAT, Green Party, C.N.D
Many individuals and groups in Wales (C.N.D Cymru, Cardigan Branch of Amnesty International, Bro Emlyn Peace and Justice Group, Cymdeithas y cymod) and Britain.
Protest y Cymdeithas yn Aberporth, August 2010, teifidancer unveiled.
Talks on Aberporth and drones
.
are deeply concerned about the use of Aberporth for developing these killing and spying machines. They see this as another sign of the increasing militarisation of Wales.
Some are concerned that these drones which will mainly be invisible to those further away from the airfield will be testing their spying equipment on the people and communities, thus infringing our privacy.
The use of unmanned drones as weapons of war in conflicts around the world has been called into question by one of Britain's most senior judges Lord Bingham, a former senior Law Lord, said that some weapons were ' so cruel as to beyond the pale of human tolerance'.
Jill Gough. National Secretary of C.N.D Cymru said
'We are dissapointed but not surprised by our Welsh Government. They should be supporting local businesses, not giving money to multinational companies to produce killing machines, not in rural Wales or anywhere. The only surprise is that it has taken them so long to make the announcement.'
'Shame on our coutry. Life on the planet is already damaged by human activity; people are suffering from recourse depletion, pollution and disease and poverty - as a result of violence and greed. We hoped that Wales would be part of the solution, not, as such projects as these do make us part of the problem. 'There will be more of the sort of situations we are seeing in Israel and Palestine, in Libya, Afghanistan and the rest - more conflict and further suffering unless we stop fuelling the arms trade - which itself fuels wars.
We say 'No' to the militariation of Wales'
The fly zone can be seen here
Heard that a new programme about the Kennedys's starts at the end of this week on B.B.C 2, Friday 17th June,9.30 ( won't be watching it though, an evening of dub and reggae awaits) it did remind me however of the following piece by one of my favourite writers Mr J.G Ballard.
Incidentally it's my blogs 2nd anniversary today, so thanks to all those who have kept coming back,and to those who've stayed with me from early days, cheers, time flies, never thought I'd still be here. Always grateful from any comments recieved , unless from trolls. If your new then croeso/welcome.Hope you've enjoyed some of my posts, not sure myself, but hey that's a post in itself probably.
The point of my blog is , well that's it really I'm not sure myself anymore.Another thing I thought Id' add , their are many irresponsible bloggers out their that undermine bloggers freedom, the internet police do not need no excuse to crush what little free speech remains, before I started this blog I had always been suspicious of the internet, suspicioos of lots of things, but hey that's my nature. Recent things have reminded me that in the future I will try not to post unverified news, but let us not forget that false stories are often reported to us as truth by the mainsteam media, who have their own agenda.
NEWSFLASH Heard 10 minutes ago...... their are absolutely no Welsh bloggers on the internet, and humanity is lovely and everything we read is true.
Meanwhile in all seriousness, - another world is inevitable..... remove all borders, hedwch/peace.
Laters... xx
THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY CONSIDERED AS A DOWNHILL MOTOR RACE - J.G. Ballard
Author's note. The assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, raised many questions, not all of which were answered by the Report of the Warren Commision. It is suggested that a less conventional view of the events of that grim day may provide a more satisfactory explanation. Alfred Jarry's " The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race" gives us a useful lead.
Oswald was the starter.
From his window above the track he opened the race by firing the starting gun. It is believed that the first shot was not properly heard by all the drivers. In the following confusion, Oswald fired the gun two more times, but the race was already underway. Kennedy got off to a bad start. There was a governer in his car and its speed remained constant at about fifteen miles an hour. However, shortly afterwards, when the governer had been put out of action, the car accelerated rapidly, and continued at high speed along the remainder of the course. The visiting eams. As befitting the inaugration of the first production car race through the streets of Dallas, noth the President and the Vice-President participated. The Vice-President, Johnson, took up his position behind Kennedy on the starting line. The concealed rivalry between the two men was of keen interest to the crowd. Most of them supported the home driver, Johnson. The starting point was the Texas Book Depositary, where all bets were placed in the Presidential race, Kennedy was an unpopular contestant with the Dalla crowd, many of whom showed outright hostility. The deplorable incident familiar to us all in one example.The course ran downhill from the Book Depositary, below an overpass, then on to theParkland Hospital and from there to Love Air Field. It is one of the most hazardous courses in downhill motor racing, second only to the Sarajevo track discontinued in 1914. Kennedy went downhill rapidly. After the damage to the governer the car shot forward at high speed. An alarmed track official attempted to mount the car, which continued on its way cornering on two wheels. Turns. Kennedy was disqualified at the hospital, after taking a turn for the worse, Johnson now continued the race in the lead, which he maintained to the finish. The flag. To satify the participation of the President in the race Old Glory was used in place of the usual checkered square. Photographs of Johnson recieving his prixe after winning the race reveal that he had decided to make the flag a memento of his victory. Photographs of Johnson recieving his prize afterwinning the race in the lead, which hemaintained to the finish flag. To satisfy the participation of the President in the race Old Glory was used in place of the usual checkered square.Photographs of Johnson recieving his prize after winning the race reveal that he had decided to make the flag a memento of his victory. Previously, Johnson had been forced to take a back seat, as his position on the starting line behind the President indicates. Indeed, his attempts to gain a quick lead on Kennedy during the false start wre forestalled by a track steward, who pushed Johnson to the floor of his car. In view of the confusion at the start of the race,which resulted in Kennedy, clearly expected to be the winner on past form, being forced to drop out of the hospital turn, it has been suggested that the hostile local crowd, eager to see a win by the home driver Jonson, deliberately set out to stop him completing the race. Another theory maintains that the police guarding the track were in collussion with the starter, Oswald. After he finally managed to give the send-off Oswald immediately left the race, and was subsequently apprehended by the track officials. Johnson had certainly not expected to win the race in this way. There were no pit stops. Several puzzling aspects of the race remain. One is the presence of the President's wife in the car, an unusual practice for racing drivers. Kennedy, however, may have maintained that as he was in control of the ship of state he was therefore entitled to captain's priveleges. The Warren Commission. The rake-off on the book of the race. In their report, prompted by widespread complaints of foul play and other irregularities, the syndicate lay full blame on the starter, Oswald. Without doubt, Oswald badly misfired. But one question still remains unanswered: Who loaded the starting gun?
Reprinted from ' The Atrocity Exhibition' Jonathan Cape, 1970.
I have admired this poets work for a while, and recently in Hay-on-Wye I was lucky to find the collected poems of Idris Davies ( http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2010/02/idris-davies-poet-of-people.html ) in the poetry Bookshop. Imagine my joy when I delved further into the book, it seems that I had bought a book actually owned by Mr Garlick, for their was his name in the inside cover wth the date of Mehefin 1972 ( June) underneath, and contained within were this poets lovely annotations , which to me were lovely additions to a superb book. So when I got back to West Wales I delved into my bookshelves to get reacquainted with Mr Garlicks work. My dear partner Jane kindly bought me 3 lovely volumes of his. I decided I would do a post on him, but this was tinged with sadness, because having rediscovered him I found he had passed away back in March. How I missed this news I really don't know. I first discovered his work through the pages of the now defunct Welsh Literary magazine ' The Anglo-Welsh Review' where he had been editor. Born in 1926 in London he subsequently spent most of his life in Wales, coming to Llandudno to live with relatives when he was a schoolboy. He studied English at the University of Wales, Bangor where he also learned Welsh. After leaving University he worked as a teacher in Bangor, Pembroke Dock and Blaenau Ffestiniog, and from 1961 to 1967 at an international school in the Netherlands. From 1967 to his retirement in 1987 he was senior lecturer at Trinity College, Carmarthen, where he lived until moving to a care home in Cardiff. He developed a nationalistic, almost romantic view of Wales, his adopted country and became preoccupied with its two languages. Whilst at Pembroke Dock he founded in 1949 the magazine 'Dock Leaves' which became the Anglo-Welsh Review. At Blaenau Ffestiniog he became friends with his neighbour the writer 'John Cowper Powys' .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John-Cowper-Powys and a friend of R.S Thomas. He is today considered ine of the best mid 20th century English writers in Wales, alongside Harri Webb, R.S. Thomas, Dylan Thomas, John Tripp and Vernon Watkins. A convert to catholicism in later years he confessed to being a born again Pagan, his poetry displayed great confidence, with considerable strucure and control combined with beautiful lyricism. A seculor struggle seems to swim sometimes underneath, but in the 1960s and 70s an allegiance with the emerging civil rights movement emerged. His influence I feel is bound to grow. He passed away peacefully at 'The Forge Care Home' in Cardiff, having previously left the Roman Catholic Church. I posted a poem of his back in November http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2010/11/raymond-garlick-auguries-of-guilt_11.html , so here's' a few more. R.I.P....
DYFED
I speak from deep in Dyfed, little Wales
beyond both Wales and England, where like snails
upon the sea's green leaf the shells and sails
of ships of saints once bustled in the bays,
busy as bees about their lawful ways,
all raising up a honeycomb of praise;
from Dyfed, where Pryderi used to ride
and rule the seven green cantrefs; where beside
his bay Giraldus watched the lawn-sleeved tide
fawn on his castle piers at Manorbier,
and sighed, and rode off for another year
to Rome to gain the Holy Father's ear.
I speak from Dyfed, Wales within Wales, world
within world, within whose hearts lay curled
the flower from which Four Branches were unfurled-
a green and mighty myth where princes pass
and galleys glide on a sea of glass,
and poetry the wind that stirs the grass
THE WELSH-SPEAKING SEA
So Iestyn staggers down the shore of speech
and trips and suddenly sits and takes his rest,
playing with sounds like pebbles on a beach;
then clambers up and totters proudly on
towards the sonorous vowels of the sea,
and casts a net of consonants upon
the wondrouswaters,angling for a word.
He waits and watches, drawing in his breath,
until the waves withdraw. Then like a bird
his less than two years' tongue wings on its way
a singing syllable of sense, a sound
caught from the bounding chaos of the bay
Never before more splendidly was snug
thislitany of language on his lips,
nor Welsh more lovely tumbled from a tongue.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
And who am I? You ask. My mask is spare.
I live in a rakish body framed
about a spine like a buckled spire
or twiste spring, my uncurled crown of thorn.
One crystal tear of God, one devil's flame,
lies clear or leaps on this lop-sided throne.
As earth desires the rain, the womb the seed, pain
rest, coception birth, the burning lover
his beloved's breast: just so, yo pin
a syntax on existence and to voice
the vovels of being is the hot desire
locked in my knotted limbs and body's vice.
And thus I am, and thus you see me now:
a hustings for a heart wrapped in a wrack,
lusting for words to shape itself anew.
POET
He has no small talk.
The bright warm-tap
of conversation-
whose silver lip
moistens encounters-
he cannot turn,
releasing the ripple
of talk's tune.
For him always
the private walk
to the well in the rock,
and the silent work-
kneeling, leaning,
reaching, twards
the trembling wellspring,
the living words.
POEMS FROM:-
A Sense of Europe, Collected Poems 1954-1968. Gwasg Gomer, 1968.
Last night watching Newsnight it was bought to my attention that their were doubts to Amima's identity. The pictures of her on her blog were of another woman named Jenina Leic. The fact is her blog existed before any pictures were put up. Perhaps it is an elaborate hoax, or a case of government disinformation, an attempt to drown out dissident voices.The reason that the story cannot be verified is the Syrian regime has closed off the country to foreign journalists. Censorship in this country is still very real however....
Given the relentless oppression of Syrian citizens, it could be the case that 'Amima' simply used a pseudonym..... a common practice to protect identities amongst activists.... The fact is at least 11,000 Syrians are currently being detained, and hundreds of people have dissapeared, and the freedom that some in the West take for granted is not available in Syria. Over 1,000 peaceful demonstrators have been shot dead in Syria and internet blackouts and violent repression continues.
Amina whoever she /he is has become a symbol of this oppression, and the Syrian people are still suffering and experiencing from this oppression and abuse, as I write.
Amina Abdalla Arraf is a blogger who holds dual Syrian and U.S citizenship.
She also happens to be a lesbian who has shared her frank views on Syrian hypocricy, politics and on her sexuality. She has openly critisised President Bashar Assad's autocratic rules. She is behind a courageous and inspiring blog called 'A gay Girl in Damascus', which includes a mixture of erotic prose and updates about Syria's uprising, including her participation in anti-regime protests. She is not only gay, but is an anti-zionist, pro palestinian sympathiser to boot. A brave dissident in these changing times. with an internationalist outlook.
Her family claim that she was last seen on Monday being bundled into a car by 3 men in their 20s in civilian clothes in Damascus, the capital of Syria, where homosexuality is still illegal.It is probable that the regime has sought to silence her because her blog has become increasingly popular after capturing the imagination of the Syrian opposition as the protest movement struggled in the face of the government crackdown. Supporters have taken to facebook and Twitter to draw attention to Amina's unlawfil seizure.
The day before she was detained , Miss Arraf wrote :-
'I am complex, I am many things; I am an Arab, I am Syrian, I am a woman, I am queer, I am Muslim, I am binational, I am tall, I am too thin; my sect is Sunni, my clan is Omari, my tribe is Qurash, my city is Damascus. I am also a Virginian. I was born on the afternoon in a hospital in sight of where Woodrow Wilson entered the world, where streets are named for country stars.'
One of the last poems she posted was called 'Bird songs' which I reproduce below.
BIRD SONGS
The bird flies free
knowing no boundaries
Borders mean nothing
when you have wings
My heart and my soul
long to follow and soar
out over mountains
and deserts and seas
I have no wings
and earth presses in
wrapped in a sheet
Forever to lie
weighed down by dirtclods
Never to feel
wind on my wings
sun on my back
The Blogging community seem to be rallying around her ,
so below are some links, to the facebook group set up to support her, to Aavaz's online campaign and a link to her own blog.
The continued censorship and imprisonment of bloggers by countries like Syria, China, Iran etc, I believe to be totally unacceptable and must be opposed.Amina is one of thosands of nameless detainess, all over the world, over 10,000, she is a beacon amongst many others.
We must support her and all other friends of freedom.
