Psychodahlia by Mike Jenkins

Down in the darkest corridors of municipalia

is where the seed must’ve come from,

nurtured no doubt by a quirky computer

about the time of the Garden Festival.

.

It was to be Merthyr’s own shrub:

a plant ideally suited to the area,

only needing to be oiled every ten years,

never losing its metallic beetroot colour.

.

‘What should we call it?’

discussed the Parks committee:

‘Mini triffid?’ ‘Spike drunkard?’

‘ow about an ever ‘ard?’

.

Without realising their irony,

because a stalwart councillor, after too many beers,

slipped on his way to a spaghetti

and skewered himself on the castiron cactus!

.

‘DESTROY KILLER PLANTS!’ screamed the local press,

but law and order merchants were impressed

by its vicious leaves and bought thousands

to surround the Civic Centre, school and institutions.

.

Soon the forked flora had spread everywhere

threatening the soles of stray vandals,

so the Council named it ‘Psychodahlia’

and the computer was made into mayor.

.

.

by Mike Jenkins

from This House, My Ghetto

Additional information: Mike Jenkins (born 1953) is a Welsh poet, story writer and novelist writing in English. He taught English at Radyr Comprehensive School in Cardiff for nearly a decade and Penydre High School, Gurnos, Merthyr Tydfil, for some two decades before that. At the end of the 2008–2009 academic year Jenkins took voluntary redundancy. He now writes full-time, capitalising on experiences gleaned from former pupils. He continues to live in Merthyr Tydfil, and has done so for over 30 years. He is also the father of Plaid Cymru politician Bethan Sayed née Jenkins MS and journalist Ciaran Jenkins.

Always the Ocean by Mike Jenkins

For those us born by the ocean

there will always be a listening,

an ear close to the ground

like an animal trailing.

.

I remember one night

I couldn’t see anything of water

and I was sober as the stars,

yet below the tracked paving-stones

and gushing up through cracks…

benches tilted, clouds rocked.

I was a vessel, filled full of it.

.

This town at the valley’s head

I’ve adopted or it’s adopted me:

wakes fan from the simple phrases

and often laughter can erode

the most resistant expressions.

Despite this, I’m following the river

along our mutual courses:

.

to the boy on a storm-beach

hopping from boulder to boulder

trying to mimic a mountain-goat;

to the young man sitting in a ring

of perfumed smoke of dolphins

plucked by the sleight-fingered sea.

.

.

By Mike Jenkins

from This House, My Ghetto

Diver-Bird by Mike Jenkins

People sat up from skin-baking or shade-seeking,
children on flabby lilos stopped squall-splashing:
not a pointy snorkeller, but a diver-bird.
'Duck!' someone called, as he dipped
and disappeared underwater, emerging
liquid minutes later as no human could.
'Guillemot' I said assured, chuckling.
 
Grey-black, shiny as wet seaweed
his head intent for rush of a shoal,
no periscope or radar could equal
that vision: beak needling fish
leading a feathery thread up and down.
I tried to swim out, follow him,
make clicking noises to draw his attention:
he ignored my performance.
 
Returning home, in reference books,
I realised 'guillemot' was just as absurd.
He was elusive here as he'd been  
in the bay, no silhouette fitting.
Yet I knew he'd keep re-surfacing
further and further away, stitching
more firmly because I couldn't find a name.
 
 
by Mike Jenkins
from This House, My Ghetto 

Additional information: Here are some fun facts about the guillemot.

Searching The Doll by Mike Jenkins

Slowly pacing the beach,

in age now not in sleep,

it’s a cemetery

but I’ve come to dig.

Gulls wailing what’s inside.

 

I’m alone again at night

in a waking trance

searching for that doll

I dropped, the blood-smirch

on its white wedding-dress.

 

My prints always lead back

to the cellar of that house.

A nine-month sentence stretched

to life on its camp-bed:

the memory condemned.

 

I chatted so readily then

hadn’t learnt suspicion’s martial art,

his affection the breadth of air

and hands soft as powdery sand.

Soon became my jailer, my interrogator.

 

Buried me under his sweaty bulk

so my frenzied fingers tried

to take flight and reach up

to the single slit of light.

Dead birds washed up with the flotsam.

 

by Mike Jenkins

from This House, My Ghetto

Vedran Smailovic by Mike Jenkins

People dash across our TV screens

like sheep scatting from a moorland blaze,

they’ll disappear over the edge of dreams

when we ascend to sleep away the day.

 

But, all of a sudden, within a frame,

a portrait animated and tightly-strung:

the cellist plays on streets where lame

buildings hobble before falling down.

 

His slashback hair is aging a rocker style,

upturned moustache makes a sign of peace;

his two faces: a pizzicato smile

and mournful vibrato of so much grief.

 

His audience are the pavement wreathes,

from the distance come heckles of gunfire:

the amphitheatre where he once bowed

is a frozen skip of bricks and wires.

 

On a thin point he gradually spins

the web-fine veins of an Adagio,

while hearing the bomb’s deadening dins

and fearing for that small bridge below.

 

by Mike Jenkins

from This House, My Ghetto