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STONES

Stones take to each other naturally,
Like a family of sleeping creatures,

The large ones accommodate little ones,
To create a colony of hardness;

They rest in centuries of stark stillness;
They are elephant-heavy to lush grass.

Their colours employ the afternoon sun;
They are as warm as loaves from an oven.

Each one embodies its personal death;
They are cobbled memories of the sea;

They are the solid language of labour:
Each one weathered to a perfect image.

They rest, innocent of their history,
Like a grey display of featureless skulls.

They have tasted our sweat and absorbed our blood.
They rise and fall, symbols of man’s conscience.

Their persistence has sculptured their silence;
They hint that their souls haunt other planets.

They are magnets for our primitive thoughts;
They are the armour of truths beyond us.

They shape our built fears of an afterlife,
They could tempt us into acts of worship.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2008 _________________________________________________

PIETRELE (STONES)

Pietrele se cuib,,resc unele lâng,, altele, firesc,
Ca o familie de f,,pturi cufundate în somn,

Cele mari le cuprind pe cele mici,
Ca s,, formeze o colonie a r,,bd,,rii;

Se odihnesc în secole de neprih,,nit,, t,,cere;
Sunt grele precum elefantul când iarba o calc,,, crescut,, în voie.

Culorile lor sorb soarele la amiaz,,;
Sunt calde ca franzelele scoase din ,,est.

Fiecare întruchipeaz,, propria-i moarte;
Sunt amintiri din piatr,, de mare;

Sunt graiul dur al str,,duin,,ei:
Fiecare încercare le des,,vâr,,e,,te chipul.

Se odihnesc, ne,,tiutoare de a lor istorie,
Sunt imagine cenu,,ie a tigvelor f,,r’ de contur.

Ne-au gustat sudoarea, ne-au supt sângele.
Se înal,,,,, coboar,,, simboluri ale cugetului din om.

Îndârjirea le-a cioplit lini,,tea;
Î,,i închipuie c,, sufletele lor bântuie alte planete.

Sunt magne,,i ai gândurilor noastre dintr-un început;
Sunt armur,, de adev,,ruri de dincolo de noi.

Ne modeleaz,, temeri n,,scute de via,,a de dincolo,
Vom fi ispiti,,i, poate, de acte de închin,,ciune.

Translated into Romanian by Dr. Olimpia Iacob © 2008 ___________________________________________________________

HARRY PUSHED HER

Harry pushed her;
He pushed her around;
He pushed his sister.
Before school, after school;
On weekends.
He pushed his sister;
He had no friends.
He pushed her - school-holidays
And Christmas time.
The children always
Sang their made-up rhyme:
“Harry push her, push her now!
Harry push the crazy cow!”
Harry pushed her without strain:
Through snow, sunshine, wind and rain.
She smiled strangely
And never said a word.
He pushed her for years -
It was so absurd.
Harry was twelve;
His sister twenty-three.
Harry never had a childhood like me.
Harry pushed her without a care;
He pushed his sister in her wheelchair.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2008 _____________________________________________ THE SEVENTH QUARRY Swansea Poetry Magazine
THE SEVENTH QUARRY Swansea Poetry Magazine aims to publish quality poems from around the world. Poets from the U.K., AMERICA, ARGENTINA, CANADA, ISRAEL, CATALONIA, SPAIN, CZECH REPUBLIC, SERBIA and ROMANIA have already appeared in its pages. New York’s Vince Clemente, as the magazine’s Consultant Editor: America, ensures a steady stream of American poets. ________________________________________________ Each issue features a Poet Profile, a batch of pages given over to a chosen poet. The policy is to try to alternate between a British poet and a non-British poet. There is also a Books and Magazines page, which provides details and brief comments on received publications. ______________________________________________ The magazine has recently become a cooperating partner with CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS PUBLISHERS, New York. The partnership has already contributed to the magazine being displayed at several prestigious literary events in America and the publication in QUARRY of work by the late, Pulitzer prize-winner, American Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz. _______________________________________________ The magazine has also been contracted to THE POETRY LIBRARY'S (Royal Festival Hall, London) prestigious digitisation project, which will ensure copies of the magazine are featured on its very popular website: regarded by many as the best source for poetry in the U.K. QUARRY was featured in THE GUARDIAN, one of Britain’s leading daily newspapers, in April 2006. It was awarded SECOND BEST SMALL PRESS MAGAZINE IN THE U.K. 2006 by PURPLE PATCH (U.K.). ________________________________________________ The Editor also organises THE SEVENTH QUARRY PRESENTS poetry evenings. The first, at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, featured a visit by American poet Stanley H. Barkan. ________________________________________________ The magazine appears twice a year, in January and July. It costs £3.50 per issue or £7 for a year’s subscription (two copies). $10 and $20 for USA subscribers. ________________________________________________ EDITOR: PETER THABIT JONES ________________________________________________ CONSULTING EDITOR, AMERICA: VINCE CLEMENTE ________________________________________________ ISSN 1745-2236 www.myspace.com/theseventhquarry ________________________________________________ DAN-Y-BRYN, 74 CWM LEVEL ROAD, BRYNHYFRYD, SWANSEA SA5 9DY, WALES, GREAT BRITAIN ________________________________________________ SUBMISSION: NO MORE THAN FOUR POEMS (NO LONG POEMS, PLEASE) S.A.E. ESSENTIAL ________________________________________________ CONTRIBUTORS RECEIVE A COMPLIMENTARY COPY ________________________________________________ THE SEVENTH QUARRY ISSUE 8 - PUBLISHED JULY 2008 ....................................................................... WALES: AERONWY THOMAS, CAROLINE GILL, J.C EVANS, BRIAN WHITE, LIZA PENN-THOMAS, JEAN SALKILLD, RAYMOND HUMPHREYS, PAT FORSTER, CAROLE ANN SMITH, HERBERT WILLIAMS, DAVID ALUN WILIAMS, MERRYN WILLIAMS, STUART JONES, ALAN KELLERMANN, MIKE JENKINS, MARTYN SULLIVAN, DAVID WOOLLEY, DAVID GILL _______________________________________________ ENGLAND: KATE EDWARDS, FRANCES WHITE, SUE GUINEY, RICHARD GEORGE, THOMAS LAND, WES MAGEE, GERALD ENGLAND, JOHN GREEVES, MARTIN HOLROYD, F. J. WILLIAMS, ANNE BROOKE, GEOFF STEVENS _____________________________________________ FRANCE: JEAN PIERRE DUPRE
ARGENTINA: TAMARA DELLUTRI
ISRAEL: ORNA RAV-HON
RUSSIA: YURIY MIKORAVA
CATALONIA: AUGUST BOVER
ROMANIA: MAGDALENA DORINA SUCUI
JAPAN: NAOSHI KORIYAMA
SICILY: MARCO SCALABRINO
________________________________________________ AMERICA: MARIA MAZZIOTTI GILLAN, JOHN DOTSON, TINO VILLANUEVA, ANNABELLE MOSELEY, SULTAN CATTO, MARILYN MOHR, GREG ORMSON, TAMMY NUZZO-MORGAN, ALYCE GUYNN, CHARLES ADÉS FISHMAN, STEPHEN CIPOT, GAYL TELLER, GLORIA G. MURRAY, JIM GWYNN, STANLEY H. BARKAN, DUANE NIATUM ________________________________________________ The morning poet came early
like a worm waiting to be devoured
by very early birds hungry for words.

from MORNING POET by STANLEY H. BARKAN
(C) Stanley H. Barkan, 2008 ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ WELSH BOOKS COUNCIL REVIEW OF THE LIZARD CATCHERS

The Lizard Catchers--- Author: Peter Thabit Jones--- View more titles by 'Peter Thabit Jones'-www.gwales.com ---ISBN: 9780893048655 (0893048658)--- Publication Date June 2006--- Publisher: Cross-Cultural Communications, New York--- Illustrated by Nick Holly--- Format: Hardback/Paperback, 213x144 mm, 64 pages--- Available from www.gwales.com

GWALES REVIEW by CLARE MAYNARD

'The recipient of several awards for his work – which includes six other collections of poetry and one collection of short stories – Peter Thabit Jones’ new body of poems is diverse and touching, thanks to his sensitive yet powerful use of language.

The leading poem ‘The Lizard Catchers’ has many astute and succinct observations. He captures well those small moments in human life that are profound and potent. The powerful ‘Psalm for the twentieth century’ is a heartfelt poem about environmental damage – ‘Blessed is the bird that is no longer heard’. There is a very concise and sincere tribute to R.S.Thomas in ‘The Priest-Poet’: ‘The sweet birds, the peasanted hills/ That housed their heavens and their hells.’

With his wide range of subject matter and his dynamic way of representing intense emotions, his beautifully crafted poems engage us in the real world. There is a selection of poems for children towards the end of the book, all lively and concise, including the emotive ‘Some people in other lands’.

Overall, this is an intelligent and interesting collection of poems – definitely to be opened often.'

A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the WELSH BOOKS COUNCIL. ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

SNOW, GUITAR, LORCA

The fingers relieve the guitar of its sorrow;
Outside, the snow is slowly melting:
Its coldness has lingered in our hearts for too long.
A frozen song is slowly melting.

In the cellar’s candled dark, you pour bottled wine;
Two girls hold hands but one is crying:
Have the crowd’s ghosts of smoke flung grey salt in her eyes?
The guitar says the world is crying.

The man utters the sad words that shadow our dreams:
The laments of Lorca are living.
Outside, the town that was wintered is darkening;
Each face is strained with its own living.

The empty bottles of wine are guards of dark glass;
The bar is closed and people leaving;
The ashtrays display their grey gardens of nightmares;
The man with the guitar is leaving.

We say our goodnights on a street crusted with snow;
The world of white has started fading;
Our cold fingers relieve our hearts of their sorrow;
The red wine’s warmth is slowly fading.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2008

___________________________________________________________ THE NEWSPAPER BIRDS - a prose-poem

(for Raymond R. Patterson, Blues poet, New York)

I followed my friends and their talking fathers, who held the great kites, the newspaper birds. They were made on cleared kitchen- tables and on bedroom floors: on stormy rain-spoilt evenings. The flying creatures grew from bamboo lengths, glue, balls of cord, and the ‘rude paged’ Sunday papers. We climbed to the top of Kilvey Hill, which was brightened by an October sun and a sky of unexpected blue. The cord reels were wound tight, like talons, to the kites; and the frilly tails hung like scraps from a carnival.

Beyond the quarries, by the stone remains of the Windmill, we set to work, voices blunted by the wind; the reels were unwound as we gauged the slackness. Then fathers and sons started to run; the kites followed, bumping on the field of grass; then some kites rose as others crashed (and some boys tumbled into laughs). A chorus of rustling flaps, as up they went, their tails alive in an air of excitement. Their cord lines were as taut as telephone wires, as they soared above us, taunting the clouds. They were tied to each pull, our careful coaxing. A crowd of anxious faces, a sky of weird birds. When we brought them down, they touched the wavy ground: like awkward things, like herons and albatrosses.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2008 _______________________________________________

MODRIS

Modris sits on the warm doorstep,
Wearing a pullover knitted
By his blind sister.
He grins at fresh girls clip-clopping
In high, platform shoes
Down the sun-blurred street;
Tut-tuts at the old Indian
Doctor’s sons playing
Football against a garage door;
Accepts homemade cake
From the young wife across the road;
Gives children hot mints;
Asks me about Keats.
Goes in about ten in the night.

I live three houses away.
Midnight, I can hear him coughing.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2008 ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ AMERICAN REVIEW - THE LIZARD CATCHERS

The Pedestal Magazine, U. S. A.

The Lizard Catchers

Peter Thabit Jones

Published by Cross-Cultural Communications, New York

ISBN Number: 0893048658

REVIEWED BY JOSELLE VANDERHOOFT

Welsh writer Peter Thabit Jones’s latest poetry collection, The Lizard Catchers, concerns itself with small things and the small moments of life: ivy climbing a wall, snow melting, the ugly mystique of frogs, lunching in a noisy city pub and, of course, a boyhood quest to capture the small reptiles mentioned in the title. Generally speaking, the thirty-four poems in this collection are also small, in terms of length; most are shorter than a page, and a few less than ten lines. But there is nothing small about Jones’s vision or his profound humanity, both of which shine through his musings on such universal subjects as grief, mortality and the innocent cruelty of children, for which his small, everyday subjects serve as unusual and striking portals.

Many of the poems in The Lizard Catchers are set against the backdrop of Jones’s native Wales, a landscape that is beautiful, mysterious and sometimes even cozy in the way a hometown feels after several years of living there. Yet nothing feels quaint about the affection Jones obviously feels for Wales in such poems as “Cajo’s Farm,” ‘Weller’ and Burning Waste’ (here reproduced in full). Here his language can be deceptively simple, each word chosen as carefully as seeds for planting, and the images he creates make his country appear before the reader in all its wild, harsh beauty:

The bonfire flares,
Shredding the black night.
The wooden bones crack.
Smoke, salt-white, departs,
Thinning, vanishing
On its self-made tracks.

The wax faces of children
Are buttered with firelight.

But not all of the poems in The Lizard Catchers are joyful paeans. Jones also sees a darker side of living in his country, which includes painful events he (or at least the persona in some of his poems) experienced, such as a last visit with a dying loved one in ‘Home,’ the anonymous, noisy loneliness of being in public in “Lunch in a City Pub,” the cruelty of children towards innocent animals in “Bunker Frog,” and a young man’s realization that old age will someday claim him in “A Clock Ticking and an Old Man.” Of these more melancholy poems, the collection’s true standout is the longer poem “The Cold Cold Corner,” a piece in six parts (titled after a line from Edwin Muir’s poem “The Child Dying”) which Jones wrote for his deceased son, Matthew. It is a profound and highly personal mediation on different stages of grieving as told through the impressions of time and landscape a grieving person often notices most strikingly: changes in weather from warm to cold, the barrenness of nature and the wordlessness of keeping watch over a grave. From the first section, “Bereavement”:

Your head is full of trees
And the leaves have fallen.

Your eyes are full of lakes
And the water’s frozen.

Your ears are full of birds
And the songs are stolen.

Your mouth is full of skies
And the clouds are ashen.

Your heart is full of fields
And the grass is barren.

Your soul is full of hills
And the paths are broken.

Your life is full of caves
And the dark is open.

It is not Jones’s subject matter alone that makes him a strong poet and his work exemplary. He is an extraordinary poet because he understands, and utilizes, devices and techniques many poets today downplay or discard entirely: namely, rhyme (both external and internal) and meter. As the above quotation may indicate, a poem’s rhythm is important to Jones: each line has exactly six syllables and the same pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, which gives the first section of “The Cold Cold Corner” a cadence which feels as grave and measured as a dirge. Jones employs his understanding of meter throughout The Lizard Catchers, in such poems as “My Grandfather’s Razor,” “Volunteer Work: Special Needs” (a poem about working with special-needs children written in iambic pentameter) and “Watching the Sea: Swansea Bay.”

In an age when rhyme is often considered the trademark of an unimaginative poet, or the worst kind of doggerel verse, Jones is also brave enough to use external rhymes in many of his poems, most strikingly in “The Boy and the Lion’s Head,” a poem about a young boy’s terrifying encounter with a lion-shaped rock in Swansea, South Wales. Told from the boy’s perspective, the poem uses a combination of hard and soft rhyme to create a feeling of running, and of rising dread:

One Sunday, I crossed Kilvey Hill
And saw a strange, thin man sat still,
By the rock shaped like a lion,
Above Tir John Power Station:
As private as a Nazi camp.
His rough clothes labelled him a tramp.
He beckoned me to join him there,
But I was frozen like a hare.
"Come touch the Lion’s Head,” he said,
Shout ‘Great white eye you’re red and dead’,
And the stunned sun shall loudly fall
Down on the town’s brown streets that sprawl,
By the sea.” His voice frightened me.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jones also uses his ear for rhyme to create poetry for children. A few such poems are included near the end of the book, along with another painting by Nick Holly, the cover artist, which details the boys in the title poem shouting in triumph after they have captured the lizards. These seven “bonus” poems further showcase Jones’ talent by showing him at his most wide-eyed and innocent, and they are to a poem witty and entirely charming. None, however, is as breathtaking as “Spring”, a four line concrete poem which provides visuals of the land waking up after a long winter sleep, such as a breeze “b I o w i n g” [each letter in a larger point size] and a cat “c. . r. . e. .e. . p. . i. . n. .g.” Elementary teachers who read this collection would do well to inquire about using these and any of Jones’s other children’s poems in their classrooms, as they illustrate the mechanics of poetry and truly speak to children’s sense of wonder.

At times joyous and at times melancholy, The Lizard Catchers is an excellent new collection from one of Wales’s premier poets. Not only for fans of world literature (and literature from the United Kingdom, in particular), it is also a desirable collection for any reader who appreciates well-crafted language and the skilful employment of traditional techniques. _______________________________________________

THE PRIEST-POET: R. S. THOMAS

Now I’m beginning to know
Your considered dark,
The contradictions in your work—
The wasted words you threw

At fools, who were always looking
For a mirror to reveal
Themselves: until they only revile
You for disliking, not for liking

The sweet birds, the peasanted hills,
The silences that your God left
In the mind’s uneasy loft
That housed their heavens and their hells.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2008