My Family and Other Superheroes (2 page)

his eyes dart under their lids as he sleeps,

like Jaguars he's racing in his dreams.

Bamp

That's him, with the tweed and corduroy

skin, wearing the slack gloves of his hands,

those liver spots like big full stops. That's him

passing time with his favourite hobby, which is

you know, pottering, or staring closely

at the middle distance, enjoying the magic tricks

his watch does. His pockets are for special things

he has forgotten, no one fills the holes

in crumpets like he does, and in his wallet

is a licence from the Queen and what it means

is he can say what the hell he likes and you

can't do nothing. That's him, with a cupboard full

of tea cosies, a severe hearing problem

round those he doesn't like, gaps in his smile

and stories, a head full of buried treasure

and look, that's him now, twiddling his thumbs

so furiously, it's like he's knitting air.

It's only him can hold the air together.

Building my Grandfather

He comes flat-pack, a gift for my eighteenth.

We tip the bits out on the living room carpet:

nuts and bolts, a spanner, an Allen key,

tubes halfway between telescopes and weapons.

At first he goes together easily:

slippered left foot clicks into the ankle,

shin joins at a perfect right angle.

We have more of a problem with the right knee,

but my father remembers it was always gammy

from twelve-hour shifts, labouring in tight seams.

I fit the lungs, pumping in mustard gas

which filled each breath he took from 1918.

Something seems to be missing from the heart

and for a while we search beneath the sideboard,

but then my father says it's probably

for the old man's brother, who joined up when he did

and didn't make it back. The cheek and neck

and nose slot in and soon, we've almost got him:

my father holds the lips, the final bit

before he opens his eyes and I meet him.

A glance in the mirror at what he's going to see:

a pale-faced boy by an electric fire,

Nike swoosh like a medal on my chest.

It's then I say
Stop.
What will he make of me?

Lance Corporal Arthur Edwards (1900-1916)

You took the River Ebbw to the Somme

in your canteen, and never brought it back,

but it's still there, each time I look out my window.

I picture you there, holding the bottle under

to catch the water which proved you'd make it home.

Mid-river, stooping, shorter than your shadow,

your Sunday trousers are rolled up to your knees

so your mam won't kill you. A sixteen-year-old flamingo.

Now your face is blown up, above our mantelpiece;

you're prey to the latest image manipulation.

Your eyes are horror movies'; your eyes are God's.

You're close to the portrait of your elder brother

as he was to you when the blast hit. You look like each other:

his painted face is a sorry imitation.

My Uncle Walks to Work, 1962

He has a summer job as a postman,

so races up at six. In the living room,

my gran is poking the fire, cursing my grandad

who'll die before I'm born.

Out of the house and down the hill,

past The Crown, sometimes repenting the night before.

He rounds the corner by the block of flats,

or would do but it isn't there yet,

into the sorting office,

knocked down when I was a kid.

He shoulders his bag of mail

and staggers back up the hill,

into his street, into his house,

my gran still poking and cursing,

up the stairs. He drops the sack on the bedroom floor

(careful not to wake my father

who has to get up for work in an hour)

and goes back to bed.

He'll do the delivery when he's properly rested.

Let him sleep. He has much ahead of him:

a bag of mail, a wife, three children,

five (and counting) grandkids

and every year he buys me a hardback copy

of the winner of the Booker Prize.

2

Anatomy

These shoulder blades are Snowdon, the Brecon Beacons.

Walk gently on them. This spine is the A470;

these palms are Ebbw, Wye, Sirhowy. This tongue

is Henry VIII's Act of Union, these lungs

pneumoconiosis, these rumbling guts

the Gurnos, this neck Dic Penderyn. This manner

of speaking is my children, my children's children.

These vital organs are Nye Bevan, this liver

Richard Burton, this blood my father. These eyes

have been underground for generations; now

they're adjusting to the light. This gap-toothed smile

is the Severn Bridge, seen from the English side.

View of Valleys Village from a Hill

From here you see how small it is, how narrow:

terraced houses gone square-eyed from looking

too long at the homes opposite, while people

lug their lives to bus stop, chip shop, chapel.

From here, I could reach down

and fuck with them. Look, here comes my sister

with her latest bloke. Watch now as I take

his hair between thumb and forefinger and gently

pull: his eyebrows rise in shock, as if

to compensate. From here,

you feel the way God feels if God is

lonely: it's all wind blow-drying the grass

for its big night out, radio-friendly birdsong,

sheep doing their thought balloon impressions.

From here, I could destroy everyone I know

by blinking. From here, I could step off

the world. My father comes out of the shop,

cracking a rolled-up
Argus
against his hip,

doing the walk I nicked from him.

He lights a cigarette mam can't stub out:

from here I'll see him safely home,

scan miles around for speeding cars,

watch his breath rise through the air,

disappear before it reaches here.

View of Valleys High Street through a Café Window

Out there, policemen in attention-seeking

fluoro-vests eye up a single mam

pushing a pram, her head down and her face

so much a frown, it's like she's trying to mow

the pavement. Brollies bob above each head

like thought balloons, if everyone were thinking,

Fuck me, it's raining
. They're not thinking that,

these lovers who hold hands at just the height

of shopping bags, or this girl who smokes a fag

and rides a bike past, like a really crap

steam train. A man with a cumulonimbus

beard enters a phone box and I wait

for him to emerge as Superman. He checks

the tray for change, as his hot-water bottle

wags its tail. In this window, our ghosts,

those silly sods, sit at the pavement table,

eating cake from their left hands and getting

soaked. A board outside the travel agent's

puts a price on the sun. The democratic

rain falls on it, on them, on everyone.

Colliery Row

That's it, with the bloke at number five,

whose days are driving buses, nights The Crown.

To watch him walking down the street at night's

to forecast how his bus will be next day:

if he's wobbling, then you'd best stay in the house,

but if he's walking straight, you'll be okay.

At number six? The terrace's
Don Juan
.

At the first sign of sunshine he's half-naked

on a deck chair out front with a beer can.

His belly over his shorts is a landslide

which traps for days a hillside family cottage,

a school, a church, an entire alpine village,

but no women. Not even her across the road,

our lady on the other side of the curtains,

who's been walking around beneath a cloud

of dark hair since she watched her husband go.

Her car is parked outside all summer, pointing

away from here. She looks out through the window

at skateboard kids, who run rings round my childhood,

making ramps of bits of brick and wood,

so they can take off, shake off this old street

for an instant. They land outside number three,

Jasmine Cottage
, all
Neighbourhood Watch,

all
No Parking Here Please
and untouched

daughters. The bloke at the other end of the row

carried hods and now he's carrying

his unemployment. In his garden grow

For Sale
signs. Today, he's out back, burning something –

his smoke signals to neighbours translate,

roughly, as
Screw you!
At number eight's

the stately home of a terraced princess,

whose fake tan really turns her into someone

from somewhere else. She lets down her hair

for a Friday night hero, an ear-pierced bloke,

a handbrake magician, all mouth and sound system,

whose car disappears in a puff of smoke.

The terraced houses, semi-detached lives.

What is a street for? Wind picks up, tonight,

and a bus driver sways towards his home.

The stars come out above Colliery Row,

as far as stars from anywhere on earth.

Look up at them now. Imagine living here.

USA Family Kebab House, Merthyr Tydfil

Only the counter stands between them:

on the left, Gloria, shifting her fatness

from hip to hip, as if it were a baby,

on the right, him. She knows each move by now:

his body tight as he reaches with the knife,

slices the pole-dancing doner, dips his fingers

in the needless salad. Customer service

is love:
Have a good evening, pretty lady.

She knows his shifts, his favourite football team

and where he lives. Back home,

she can't wait for knives and forks,

shuffles some bills into a table mat,

lets chilli sauce drip down her chin.

Tomorrow's his day off: she'll need to be up early.

She opens a can, raises it to him.

Owen Jones

You'll find him standing sentry outside the bookies,

his reflection in the Oxfam window:

a roll-up and a cup of plastic tea.

His dreams are scribbled on papers in his pockets.

Or you'll see him, nights, in the kebab shop:

he swallows your drunk chat, counts your money

carefully into the till, ladles chilli sauce,

ekes out enough for the next day's races.

Some remember the boy he was:

how he could play off scratch at seventeen,

the trial he had for Cardiff City.

Others mention his best mate and his missis.

2.15: he flicks his fag out, goes in again,

where his clothes, his cars, his years have already been.

No one would notice his smile as the door swings.

A crisp packet rustles its applause in the wind.

Raskolnikov in Ebbw Vale

I was with my missis when I first spotted him,

down Festival Park, doing some shopping.

In his whole wardrobe, on coat-hanger bones,

he looked like some survivor of rationing

or the grunge generation, and when he spoke

there was a taste of something European.

His face was a mess of guilt and tension.

The next time was down the Rugby Club disco.

He seemed to have moved on to Joy Division,

spasm-dancing to Wham! in his coat –

his hair, cut shorter, made him look taller.

I didn't cop off, so followed him home.

He gave me the slip around by the station,

but by then I'd invented a life story for him:

how he'd survived existential angst

and a Siberian prison camp

to come to Wales, drawn to our hills –

a welcome escape from industrialisation –

and our more moderate socialism.

It was obvious to anyone who looked at him.

The next step was to have a word with him.

I was given a tip by my mate Parker,

who'd seen him come out of a flat by The Star.

I filled up the flask and tobacco tin,

parked the van in a discreet location

and settled in. It was almost morning

when he got back. I walked towards him:

it was then I felt the rock in my pocket,

my hand becoming a fist around it.

X16

The 7.54 to Cardiff is a dream.

In his shop window,

the bus driver is an ugly mannequin.

I take my seat among the regulars:

him who wakes five minutes before his stop;

her who's reading
Anna Karenina
for breakfast.

I fill in the blanks, write their lives:

she does tae kwon do on a Thursday evening;

he does the washing-up while listening to Bruce Springsteen.

That girl who got on one day

with a goldfish in a plastic bowl –

this is the third day she hasn't caught the bus.

A
Bless you,
a borrowed tissue.

At the station, we walk away from each other,

flicking cigarette ash, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

Chartist Mural, John Frost Square, Newport

This tunnel is the way from one place

to another: short-cutting from the station,

you pass these men, flattened by history

to a buskers' backdrop, marching for centuries

towards a Westgate they will never reach;

and bottom right, these three, forever dying,

are bleeding from their mouths, their hearts, red tiles.

This tunnel is the way from one time

to another: the school-trip boy who stares