Caernarfon

Ar ôl gwario wythnos yn ardal Caernarfon dwi eisiau arwyddo adduned mewn gwaed coch i beidio siarad Saesneg byth eto ond nawr gyda fi yn llithro nôl i'r De fel llipryn dwi'n ymwybodol pa mor anodd ydyw i gadw dy Gymraeg yn erbyn y llif. Mi roeddwn wedi clywed o blaen fod Caernarfon yn 'Gymraeg' neu fel galwyd y Rhufeiniaid arno 'Segontium'. Mi ges i fy swyno gan Sgubor Goch a gan Twthill, brecwast Cymro bach wedyn ar Gaffi'r Maes a 'ffrothi coffi'. Cerdded o gwmpas y Castell a gweld yr hen lys ble cadwyd ein harweinwyr Saunders Lewis, Lewis Valentine a DJ Williams cyn ei drosglwyddo i freichiau'r frenhines ag i ofal Wormwood Scrubs.

Beth oeddwn yn gwneud yng Nghaernarfon cyhyd? Wel mi roeddwn wedi cael y fraint o actio a chyd cyfarwyddo drama a sgrifennwyd gan ddramodydd lleol o dan adain 'Amser i Newid Cymru'. A dan ni nol lats gyda prosiect arall! Gwyliwch y gofod yma!

Dim ond Tri from David Williams on Vimeo.

Dirty Looks

A realisation came upon me yesterday, that I have a phobia of 'Dirty Looks'. It is why I don't look at strangers in the eye. The mantra is 'keep eye contact' but what if that mantra is bound up with historic shame and self hate. How can you look kindly upon another if you hate yourself and I realised yesterday how many people hate themselves. How many women hate themselves when they look at men. We men think that they hate us, but they hate themselves for 'allowing us' to be haters of them. This is just a theory of course. It is why I wear sunglasses a lot even inside and when there is no sun. The elderly and aged give the young dirty looks, Christians (some) give unbelievers or as a member of the Salvation Army called them 'the heathen'. They give out dirty looks. I remember those dirty looks at the Chapel I attended as a child. Those disapproving looks, those withering glances from those with ashes on their tongue. I think that is why I have gravitated to the cities because you tend to get less looks. This phobia of 'dirty and disapproving looks' from other people can manifest as paranoia. If you have historic low self esteem, poor self image, lack of self confidence, I feel it doesn't matter how much work you have done on yourself, how much reading, how many self help CDs you listen to and how much Cognitive Behavioral Therapy you engage in, when you get that historic dirty look that drags you back to the chapel aisle of your childhood, then it was all for nothing. I hate looking at other people and I hate them looking at me because I still feel shame. The gaze of the other. I want to be incognito. The ghost in the machine. It was a profound 5 minute realization yesterday where this came from. Back to childhood, back to the sensitive teenager. I am convinced that by now some people have perfected the dirty look to such an extent that they could knock Lot's wife out of the ball park.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lot%27s_wife  

Black Spot on a Leaf

Black spot on a leaf, next to Hampstead Heath 

I was expecting his orchestra to strike up 

but I wasn't on the sunny side of the street

I was lost

I was looking for the head of Karl Marx

and was thinking how wonderful it would be if when I arrived,

 a band would be playing the peoples flag is deepest red.

There is something about the sound of a dance band

with its trumpets full of melancholy

that make me think that I've been here before.

On this earth.

life is like an aircraft hangar 

and you're all on your own.

You either empty it 

or fill it.

In April 1956 Heath arranged his first American tour

During the tour, Nat King Cole was attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama by a group of white segregationists.

 Heath was so appalled he nearly canceled the remainder of the tour but was persuaded by Cole to continue.

He performed continuously and successfully until his health faltered in 1964 suffering a cerebral thrombosis on his 62nd birthday and collapsing on stage in Cardiff.

Which reminds me I have a bus to catch,

I hope I'm sat next to Rosa Parks.

The Fox of Highgate Cemetery

"So you're admiring our fox" 

said the former nurse from Monaghan

"Aren't they wonderful" I replied

"No they're not, they give dogs.....things"

To be fair, it hadn't stopped scratching since it appeared 

from behind a gravestone

Elgar's I think

but he was less pomp and circumstance

and more shifty, let's have it. 

"I came over in the fifties

and worked as a nurse in Hackney/Homerton"

but she didn't say stroke because she wasn't from Hampstead.

"They sleep on our shed roof and our dog Theo, just looks at them,

wishing he was younger".

"I married my husband, who is buried here

He's from Armagh

We became newsagents.

So you're Welsh are you?

My friend, he's a fine artist

he's going blind." 

Reynard the Red  had legged it.

"You don't have to be famous to be buried here, you know,

but it helps".

Letter to an Unknown Soldier

Well if you don't blow your own trumpet and bang your own drum, nobody else will, so the Shark Fisherman of Wales is letting you know, my faithful 15 readers of this select, boutique blog that his poem 'Boots on the Cenotaph' (which first saw the light of day on this very blog) is being included in the above anthology. 

The book 

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/kate+pullinger/neil+bartlett/letter+to+an+unknown+soldier/11249560/

will be launched this Thursday night at the Royal Society of Arts in John Adam Street off the Strand in London. David/Dafydd/Dai Williams will take the straw out of his mouth and don the spats and tuxedo and having secured budget travel and accommodation will appear like a ghost at the above function to bag his free copy of the book.

If you would like to read the poem without going to the expense of purchasing the book you can do so here by clicking on the link and putting 'Dafydd Williams' into the Name of Sender Box after you have clicked search for specific letter

http://www.1418now.org.uk/letter/new-read/

Diolch

   

Arithmetical Equation

+

=

My life can be distilled into the above arithmetical equation. Capel(Chapel) + Ysgol(School) = Carchar(Prison) There you go, you get a little Welsh Vocabulary thrown in. You also get the actual, real life pictures of the chapel, school and prison that I went to. If you throw into the equation the following quote then you have my 48 years on this planet reduced to a numerical equation. 

 So I have been through the institutions of chapel, school, work and prison, probably like you (but without prison hopefully)

I don't think that Institutions are good for human beings. I believe that children know at a primitive and elemental level that they are being force fed bullshit in Sunday School and facts, figures and dates that they will never use in their adult life in school. We are aware that a human's mental health is a combination of nature and nurture. Your spiritual life or faith occurs as an adult when you have a personal connection to the 'supernatural figure' on the fluffy white cloud. At confirmation class in the above chapel, we as a group of 12 year olds were asked 'Where is God?' and I replied on behalf of the group, "Well I've never met him" and got a well deserved chuckle from the rest of the group and a frown from the minister. I had my own spiritual connection with God in the above prison because I had no other choice than to leave my fate to an (alleged) higher power. I am still open to be persuaded that he/she doesn't exist but once you've had a 'spiritual emergency' there is no going back. As humanists and atheists distrust religion, I distrust Christians who do not proclaim a personal experience, a re-birth. If you are born into a religion or a denomination then you have been force fed and have accepted it hook, line and sinker without questioning it, which to me appears as hollow as the lives of the humanists and atheists. I realise that if my life had not followed the above arithmetical equation then I wouldn't have my own personal God. A God that I certainly didn't believe in or have a personal experience of in the first two establishments.     

Canlyniad/Result

I went into town/city specifically to find Jimmy to give him a copy of my book. He wasn't outside the indoor market on his usual pitch so I headed for Central Library. I had a feeling that he'd been moved on. As I passed the Tabernacle Chapel, on the right just before you get to the opening of Caroline Street, I saw this poster in neon day glow. I had to take a picture didn't I. It says "You cannot measure wealth with the euro or pound but in terms of love and sacrifice". Town is getting busier as we move closer to the 'alleged' birth date of Jesus. I can sense the tension and disappointment in the air already, but then I can sense that everyday and perhaps it's just mine. I thought one last go and walked up to St John's Square again. Jimmy wasn't there although there was a guy clutching a can of grog close to his breast and muttering the eulogy.  I got to St Mary Street and instead of diving down Westgate Street like a scuttling rat to avoid the thronging mass, I decided to brave it and as I crossed Wood Street, there sitting on the corner by Greggs was Jimmy. He looked ashen. I shook his one good arm, threw a couple of gold sovereigns in his cap, gave him the book with dedication and said that I'd buy him something to eat and drink when I saw him again. I asked him whether they'd moved him on from the market and he said that they did it all the time. If you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, you can read Jimmy's story here.

    http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/my-news-years-resolution-is-to-become.html

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/jimmy-2.html

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/dedicated-to-jimmy.html

"Dafydd y Garreg Wen" / "David of the White Rock" (David Lloyd - Tenor)

http://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dafydd_y_Garreg_Wen

Limbo Land

Well I am in a strange place at the moment. I shall call it 'Limbo Land' named after my second 'slim' volume of poetry, so slim in fact, I bet you could read it in fifteen minutes, hence the price, but if you did read it in fifteen minutes you wouldn't be savoring it. It would be a functional read, like having your dinner or taking a shit.
A book is like a DVD, you watch it once, you put it on the shelf, you take it to the charity shop in a couple of years after you have watched it again.

http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/david-williams/limbo-land/paperback/product-21778390.html

 
20 poems coming in at £3.59 so that is 17.95pence a poem. Are you getting your moneys worth? A question that all poetry readers ask themselves. Is it value for money?  Well I would say that 'The Arrogance of Golfers' on page 20 is worth 20pence. I actually had to go out and walk across a golf course for that one. It is actually better value than 'Genius Loci' which comes in at 29 poems for £5.99 which is 20.65 pence a poem. Every poem has its price. Imagine if you sold a piece of art for that price, the person buying it wouldn't believe it was 'art' because the artist had undervalued it. So a Poet who undervalues his/her poetry. How can you put a price on Poetry? You see I don't even know whether it is Poetry, to me it is a rag tag collection of angry words, a stream of consciousness and sometimes it rhymes. I published 'Limbo Land' hot on the heels of 'Genius Loci' because I wanted him to have a little friend, someone to play with, similar poems, similar style. More ways to make money but surely there must be easier ways.    

http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/david-williams/genius-loci-poetry/paperback/product-21567917.html

Who looks inside,awakens.

My Little Welsh Home - Ivor Emmanuel

The Gallipoli Catastrophe Documentary

Two Brothers by Tom Jones

Cars & TVs

Cars & TVs. We need to get rid of them if you are serious about climate change and media bias. Now, I'm not prone to conspiracies BUT think about the first event that was filmed and broadcast widely in colour? Queen Elizabeth II of England's Coronation. Long to reign over us, she surely has. We've been force fed establishment propaganda since that day. The Queen's speech on Christmas Day when we are all at our lowest ebb having fallen out with family, she reminds us that there has always been something solid and reliable in our lives! She won't let us down even if the presents and our family do. Why won't they get rid of the Cars and Gas Guzzlers that are ruining the ozone layer? Because they are just too darned convenient. Like the TV, we've got used to them. Also the Car Manufacturing industry employs so many people. It's a monster, a leviathan that cannot be stopped.
God, if we got rid of the Car and TV, then we might have to walk places and speak to people, we might have to attend live theatre because that will be where the TV actors are all employed. They are all employed to entertain you, to divert you from political thought. Dr Who is an agent of the Government! He wants you inside on a Saturday night instead of out there on the streets, agitating with nothing more than a flask of tea in your hand because what I am advocating in this Blog Post is rationing and abstinence. Together we can cut our consumption! Together we can bring the economy to its knees and then lets see what will happen.
If the economy crumbles will the world end? Will we end up eating eachother or simply greeting eachother? "I've seen you passing in your car, I didn't think you had legs". "I've walked passed your house many times, the TV is always on".
Many people say they have the TV on for company! What a damning indictment of the human condition when you have to pay £145.00 a year for 'company'. "Well, at least the Television won't judge me, it won't rip me off, it won't belittle me, it won't threaten me, it won't compete with me, it won't make me paranoid". No?
I am prepared to lead by example. I've got rid of one and I've only got the other one in case of emergencies. You can guess which one I'm sure! Yes I have an emergency television under the stairs in case I have to watch Strictly come Dancing! We are all here for such a short time, we are being divided and conquered by items that give us a false sense of freedom.         

  

Dedicated to Jimmy!

http://chipmunkapublishing.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2571

Well it's now out in Paperback! My autobiography, my memoir of madness and I am going to dedicate the Publisher's First Copy to Jimmy! 

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/jimmy-2.html

http://sharkfishinginwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/my-news-years-resolution-is-to-become.html

I found out today though that his name wasn't Jimmy. His name must have gone astray in the wisps of time!  He was sitting outside Cardiff Indoor Market but had moved his pitch ironically because the God squad had taken his. He wasn't bothering anybody, he just had a hat out in front of him. I gave him a quid and reminded him of how and where we met over 25 years ago. He said that he didn't have long (to live)! I asked him why he felt that and he replied that he could just feel it. I've said in the above 2 blog posts that I am glad that he is still alive. I hope to see him tomorrow to give him a copy of the book with a dedication inside. We had a chat. He was lucid and clear. He told me that only this morning had he been thinking of writing his life story! Watch this Space.  

Pub Fly Impersonator (Delilah)