Surf
01-09-2008, 08:35 PM
Mother Tongue
Not wind blown America, beckoning
street words and train cars
That gentle night, travelled and proud
where men wrote old song stories
and found their land in their verse
and their pens painted nostalgia
which grew on the page
and they traced a line
down Offa's spine
which dribbled like spilled string
down through brick red trees
in a pointillist curve
and they dripped over hills
swelling like waves
breaking against the fields
grass and mud
knotted hedges and cloud shapes
like veins and liver spots
peeling across the ground
Where the language ebbs
unravelling with influence
and moving on the air
the wry vowel sounds
which I never spoke
in the gargled voice
and would only see on paper headers
and effete street furniture
from the small cities
which would grab a footnote
on the weather casts
Not 'croeso', the muddied dust sign
over the bridge, the riverrun
deep, the anthem sounds,
that welsh harp plucking consonance
on the mother tongue television
like normal, dubbed, and a week
later. Withdrawing English money
underneath dripping flower baskets
hanging from rust laced brackets
peppered down the high street
like a picture of a painting
and this crumbly word I heard,
It meant a longing
or a yearning for home
and I it looked up
in a withered dictionary
in my parent's old house.
it wasn't taught in school
or used in the bars and homes
or churches, shops or tourist spots:
'Hireath'
and it was just another word
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First thing I've posted in a while, this needs some changes I think, but I'm a bit lost.
Any help is appreciated, crit for crit as usual.
I'll get critting properly tomorrow when I've got the day done.
Not wind blown America, beckoning
street words and train cars
That gentle night, travelled and proud
where men wrote old song stories
and found their land in their verse
and their pens painted nostalgia
which grew on the page
and they traced a line
down Offa's spine
which dribbled like spilled string
down through brick red trees
in a pointillist curve
and they dripped over hills
swelling like waves
breaking against the fields
grass and mud
knotted hedges and cloud shapes
like veins and liver spots
peeling across the ground
Where the language ebbs
unravelling with influence
and moving on the air
the wry vowel sounds
which I never spoke
in the gargled voice
and would only see on paper headers
and effete street furniture
from the small cities
which would grab a footnote
on the weather casts
Not 'croeso', the muddied dust sign
over the bridge, the riverrun
deep, the anthem sounds,
that welsh harp plucking consonance
on the mother tongue television
like normal, dubbed, and a week
later. Withdrawing English money
underneath dripping flower baskets
hanging from rust laced brackets
peppered down the high street
like a picture of a painting
and this crumbly word I heard,
It meant a longing
or a yearning for home
and I it looked up
in a withered dictionary
in my parent's old house.
it wasn't taught in school
or used in the bars and homes
or churches, shops or tourist spots:
'Hireath'
and it was just another word
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
First thing I've posted in a while, this needs some changes I think, but I'm a bit lost.
Any help is appreciated, crit for crit as usual.
I'll get critting properly tomorrow when I've got the day done.