Recently I've been making paintings in series, like the following small oils (mostly 16x12 inches) on the theme of washed-up timbers. First you find a Passage to the Sea:
There you may see strange objects:

Wart-hog

Tree Agony
The next came from a trip to Bardsey, that mythical island of 20,000 saints at the tip of Llŷn in north Wales. Sink a spade in Bardsey and you crunch bones, they say. For centuries the island was a shrine, Wales's Santiago de Compostela: three trips there counted as one to the Holy Land on the salvation map. Useless fact: Aberystwyth's pier points directly at the whale-back hump of an island 40 miles out across Cardigan Bay. Weird? Yes, but Ynys Enlli (island in the stream or current) is special, with its seals, puffins, guillemots and sanctuaries. I need to go back, twice. Here's two more it prompted. (The Foot is photo-montage; painted, no one would take it for real.)

Rocking Horse

Inspecting
Croc


Bardsey Ahoy!

Seal and Foot
Larger oils follow on The Basin, a sculpted bowl at the top of Rhondda.

Rocks 1

Rocks 2
And from the valley floor

The Rocks, the Con Club and Harry the Blind
Harry the Blind
The signpost outside our shop had a big
Y on it showing the road split further up
at Pen Pych, and every now and then
a double-decker would smack Blaenrhondda
right behind Blaencwm like a wet Echo.
One fine day some bright spark on the Council
had the post moved two feet in from the kerb
without telling Harry the Blind who played
piano Wednesday nights to cider-wallers
in the Stuart. Harry came down Bute Street
shops whistling a favourite tune he didn't
(Smack!!) play that Wednesday or again ever.

River
It must have happened in the night
when nesting birds lay heavy with sleep.
They woke like me, and shook their wings,
startled by the river's crystal light:
the rocks, mountain, ferns and sky all there,
lustred on a satin sleeve.
Something
told me, this moment was mine to keep:
age might come to ache my bones, tremors
or subsidence disturb my soul,
I'd fly to the mountain like a bird.
Two portraits now of blokes who fought adversity in their own way: Gwilym took Richard Burton down a peg when he called for a pint at the Castle Hotel, Treherbert; and Gordon showed good grace on being dropped from the Black Lion Llanbadarn's pool team.

Gwilym Trefleming Thomas
Lines in Memory of Gwilym Trefleming Thomas
At first light, on Bute Square,
a hooter and the tramp of boots:
comrades in arms, without guns.
That first shift, off the farm:
air down Lady Margaret, up Bute shaft,
kept the dust off your lungs.
Hundred per cent, you gave and got;
hundred per cent, scarce a day lost.
Dram for dram in a three-foot run,
fills an ocean.
Semaphore eyes see in the dark;
your forehead, pockmarked with calamities;
that nose, catacombs of erosion.
Black boots, white scarf,
laced and buttoned for all eventualities.
You were gone, Gwilym,
when the canary choked.
Above St Mary's, the language is ripe.
At the hairpin, they gob on scratchings of grass,
resigned.
You walk home,
the moon on Cwm Saerbren;
stump of kindling under one arm;
magnolia, on the breeze, from your garden.

Gordon 'Elvis' Ward
Tin bath by the fire; scrubber ready, no hymn.
Go down the pub, Gwilym.
Trevor will fetch you up.
Big moon on Tydraw:
your face in fire-glow.
On the hearth, flames in a pint glass.
You come and go,
between pipe-smoke and pipe-smoke:
lungfuls squeezed out slow
as a pit-pony's fart.
... Say what you like,
Dai Morris was always in the game...
But that man Hain...
You clear your throat, the grate sizzles;
smack your lips and the room smiles back.
Talk fades.
You stare, unseeing, at wallpaper stains.
What comes, Gwilym, breathless, in the shadow?
Senghenydd, Cambrian, Aberfan...
a boy in a barrow?
Fifty years down the line
you wonder was it all worthwhile.
Somewhere, underground,
a drip of water resounds.
Ron Berry (1920-1998) from Blaencwm, quit mining after an injury underground and took up writing. Two of his novels were reprinted in the recent Library of Wales (Parthian) series, namely: Flame and Slag and, possibly his best, So Long Hector Bebb, about a brain-scrambled boxer. Rigorous in his craft, warm in company, Ron caught the fag-end aura of his patch bang on.
One night in March 2017 six fires were lit simultaneously on different Rhondda hillsides, leaving the fire-fighting services powerless to stop flames reaching down towards the houses. No-good boyos with smart-phones, or plain frustration?
Rhondda Burning
Boys are out late tonight
on Penrhys, Pandy and Bute mountain,
every twmp and knoll alight:
Rhondda burning, burning, burning...
Squirrels once went tree to tree
from Blaencwm to Pontypridd.
Now there's not a single leaf
falls on Bwlch or Pen Pych:
Rhondda burning, burning, burning...
When the last collier died
a hooter sounded in the mine.
Tonight a widow wonders why
dawn breaks on four sides.
Rhondda burning, burning, burning...
Did testosterone
torch the world tonight
or were these winds sown
in galleries of spite?
Rhondda burning, burning, burning...
See the fires rage all night
on Penrhys, Pandy and Bute mountain,
every cwm and twmp alight,
Rhondda burning, burning, burning...