deepundergroundpoetry.com
On Snowdonia, We Sat Down and Wept
This is the land
Dethroned Tolkein’s imagination
From soulless suburban burden.
This is the land
Dead poets track the railed rosaries
Of quarrymen’s blunted prayers.
Primitive aching jaw, unbraced steel,
Mouths two thousand years of history,
Mother tongue sucks fossils
Then spits them out.
Last snow of spring tiles the light,
Clay roofs once branched sky walls
As airborne feathers fear the fall.
In pendwmpian, we learn to fly.
Birthplace of phantoms, broken spectres,
Something beautifully ragged was born.
Tourists trade their dreams in lustrous lakes,
The roads are full of cars.
This is the land
Cigfran claws tear the morning mist
Dredges dead Celtic Gods from Irish Sea.
This is the land
Built on Hymns and Arias
Prostitutes, crime and smack.
Pendwmpian = Nodding Off
Cigfran = Raven
Dethroned Tolkein’s imagination
From soulless suburban burden.
This is the land
Dead poets track the railed rosaries
Of quarrymen’s blunted prayers.
Primitive aching jaw, unbraced steel,
Mouths two thousand years of history,
Mother tongue sucks fossils
Then spits them out.
Last snow of spring tiles the light,
Clay roofs once branched sky walls
As airborne feathers fear the fall.
In pendwmpian, we learn to fly.
Birthplace of phantoms, broken spectres,
Something beautifully ragged was born.
Tourists trade their dreams in lustrous lakes,
The roads are full of cars.
This is the land
Cigfran claws tear the morning mist
Dredges dead Celtic Gods from Irish Sea.
This is the land
Built on Hymns and Arias
Prostitutes, crime and smack.
Pendwmpian = Nodding Off
Cigfran = Raven
Published 12th Aug 2022
Author's Note
ERULGCT 163. There's a well-known story about Cadair Idris, a mountain in southern Snowdonia: if you sleep one night on its summit, it's said you'll wake either a bard or a madman. Slept there once and here is the madman I became.....
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12th Aug 2022 9:08pm
This is the sort of poetry I love, utilising myth, memory, tradition, and nature to create a world beneath the world, a depth beneath the landscape. It rewards reading aloud and is just splendid. My only quibble would be that “by” should probably come after “dethroned”. It’s an extremely Welsh poem, not just in its use of Welsh icons but in its use of sentiments that simply feel in tune with a Welsh culture, or ideal.
12th Aug 2022 9:46pm
Many thanks for the considered reply. I’m chuffed the message shone through. My identity continues to perplex me. Half English by birth and have spent most of my life living in the foreign territories of Ingerland. Lol. My decision to return was a conscious decision though. I do vote Plaid Cymru & have some friends who are rampant Nationalists, but I wont be burning down cottages anytime soon! Unlike Ireland, we are hardly being occupied by invading armies.
Think point trying to make was that Tolkein’s vision had been coloured by suburban Birmingham, until he discovered the rolling landscape of Snowdonia and he tuned into that. Hence, Snowdonia overtook / dethroned Birmingham. Maybe “which” after land? Dunno. It’s a clumsy opening stanza.
Think point trying to make was that Tolkein’s vision had been coloured by suburban Birmingham, until he discovered the rolling landscape of Snowdonia and he tuned into that. Hence, Snowdonia overtook / dethroned Birmingham. Maybe “which” after land? Dunno. It’s a clumsy opening stanza.
13th Aug 2022 1:15pm
I am aware of Tolkien's Birmingham background but was not aware the influence that part of Wales (which I visited on an organised uphill walk once) had on him.
The last verse makes sad tail when one is aware of the influence of drugs and crime is rampant among especially south Wales communities now, since the closure of much of its industries.
The last verse makes sad tail when one is aware of the influence of drugs and crime is rampant among especially south Wales communities now, since the closure of much of its industries.
13th Aug 2022 1:36pm
Many thanks Solomon. Appreciated.
Rather eat my own faeces than watch The Hobbit, but appreciate Tokein was a visionary. It was also a favoured area of inspiration for Wordsworth. Have visited many beautiful locations, but nothing stirs my soul like Snowdonia. But I'm biased :)
Pleased you got the final stanza. It's easy to get lost in aesthetics and ignore the underbelly.
Rather eat my own faeces than watch The Hobbit, but appreciate Tokein was a visionary. It was also a favoured area of inspiration for Wordsworth. Have visited many beautiful locations, but nothing stirs my soul like Snowdonia. But I'm biased :)
Pleased you got the final stanza. It's easy to get lost in aesthetics and ignore the underbelly.
31st Aug 2022 7:32pm
I'd consider the trek to sleep on that mountain worthwhile, my friend. All the worthiest artists are madmen, as far as I can tell, that was kind of my inspiration behind Ginsberg, NY. The Hobbit trilogy movie was badly done with the shitty commercial rewriting, but Benedict Cumberbatch makes an amazing Smaug, I cannot deny.
I love the intertwined wistful, mournful melody of this.
I love the intertwined wistful, mournful melody of this.
31st Aug 2022 10:18pm
Diolch DC. Just don't get the Hobbit. Or Harry Potter for that matter. Just me I guess.
We had family friends who owned a wooden cabin in one of the villages at the foot of Snowdonia. I made a pilgrimage one misty w/end with a group of mates. Here's the thing. Despite being built like a brick-shithouse, one of the ghost stories really gave me the chills and hardly slept. It is a beautiful part of the world.
We had family friends who owned a wooden cabin in one of the villages at the foot of Snowdonia. I made a pilgrimage one misty w/end with a group of mates. Here's the thing. Despite being built like a brick-shithouse, one of the ghost stories really gave me the chills and hardly slept. It is a beautiful part of the world.
1st Sep 2022 4:49pm
Reading grants a kind of perspective, I have been blessed to drink from that chalice, stand on the shoulders of giants and be the hydra, as I have oft wrote of it in metaphors, but there is nothing like truly being there and experiencing it. I'm at the local library, going to upload my new writing because lightning fried my modem yesterday, a terrible blast and I heard the device sizzling. This is such a wondrous bizarre brutal place, I see insects devouring anything dead by the roadside with machine precision. Waxing on as I'm wont to do when I'm speaking to someone I truly respect.
