| Poetry & Lyrics
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| Written & copyright by John Good. Graphic design by Mark Foshee |
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Poems
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Timeline
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I Lawr I Hyn (Down to This) Crystal Dreams Becoming Gate-crasher Ashen Solace Night Fright & Ecstatic Reflection The Talisman Allegory Shrovetide Fair Sventeen Seasons Cymylu (Overcast) Bilge & Beachcomber Blue Natural 50th Birthday Gift Lie Lightly Hard Landing A Dancer & Oh My Love Father Just Motionless and Lost Dramaless Day Rhapsodic & Then Rain The Driver As if... Silver Terrace Cemetery Idris Speaks (video enhanced) San Anselmo Reprise Questions in Llareggub Mawl a Marwnad Afan Kyle Similar Weather Sleep Timekeeper The Girls of Summer |
May 2021, Prescott Valley, AZ May 2021, Prescott Valley, AZ May 2021, Prescott Valley, AZ November 2020, Prescott Valley, AZ Revised 2020, Prescott Valley, AZ Revised 2020,Prescott Valley, AZ `90s, revised `20s, Prescott Valley, AZ 2000, recently revised, Prescott Valley, AZ Mid 1990s, Glendale AZ Late 1990s, Glendale AZ 2000, recently revised, PV, AZ July 2020, Prescott Valley, AZ Early 2000s, El Mirage, AZ Mid `90s, Glendale, AZ 2000, Glendale, AZ Early 2000s, Port Talbot Wales 2017, Phoenix `90s, Arizona 2000s, Arizona 2000, Arizona `90s, Arizona `80s, California Early `90s, Arizona Summer 2018 Revised Winter 2018-19 Summer 2018 2000's, San Anselmo, CA Late `90s, Wales & Arizona May 2004, Phoenix area October 2015, Phoenix area `80s San Anselmo, CA Mid `90s, Glendale, AZ Late 2014, Phoenix area Early `90s, Glendale, AZ |
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Lyrics
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Project
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| YouTube, Aug. 2017 | |||
| I Lawr I Hyn (Down to This) No matter how expected, when grief rears its ugly head, the unawareness of the majority of people to your raging sadness, as they go about their everyday lives, seems almost callous. It can almost make you want to shout out, "Don’t you know what’s happened?" But of course, to come to grips with that grief will eventually mean rejoining that everyday majority, although as a permanently changed person. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Down to This. |
| Crystal Dreams I think most would agree we live in turbulent times. Then again every generation has surely experienced stormy if not tempestuous spells. What’s more important is how we cope with that heavy weather. Do we grit our teeth, struggle to our feet, leaning into the gale? Do we confidently let the rising water wash over us, in the knowledge that the flood will recede? I think the answer will be different for everyone, but perhaps predictable from how we’ve dealt with rough patches in the past, and what we’ve gleaned from those sometimes tumultuous experiences. |
Listen to John's take on the poem. Alternately Crystal Dreams. |
| Becoming After many years of searching for some kind of permanence in life, I eventually found it in the realization that change is certain to come. As they say, you can take it to the bank. Nothing, even if it takes a thousand years, remains unchanged. Perhaps not so strangely for an incurable optimist, I take solace in this. I was greatly helped in my revelation by the I Ching, aka The Book of Changes! |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Becoming. |
| Gate-crasher Maybe I’m naive, but I sometimes feel that relatives and friends who are no longer with us are, on some special occasions, still part of the gathering. You might say that at 71 I’m senile, and that maybe true, but even as a child I thought this. In fact I find it’s a reassuring thought in this age of enforced isolation and rampant alienation that we have loving companions who are never far away. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Gate-crasher. |
| Ashen Solace There’s a fine line between accepting the inevitable and taking a stand against the often negative, yet impersonal forces in life that seek to take us down. This seems particularly relevant at the moment, with the pandemic raging around our once perhaps complacent, everyday activities. Reality can’t be avoided, but surrender is not an option. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Ashen Solace. |
| Night Fright & Ecstatic These are two nighttime poems written at quite different times but strongly connected. One being saved from a nightmare by a night bird, the other a waking wonderment at one of the most enchanting singers I have ever heard… human or not! |
| Listen to John's take on the poems.
Alternately Night Fright & Ecstatic. |
| Reflection The most mysterious aspect of existence is consciousness. What is it that makes us aware of being alive, of being loving, breathing, sentient creatures? This question—or one similar—has preoccupied philosophers, priests and poets since King Solomon was a boy. These verses are my attempt, if not to find an answer, then to phrase the question in a better way for myself and possibly others. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Reflection. |
| The Talisman It would seem strange to find reassuring permanence in the desert of the Southwest, in an environment that can be brutal and unforgiving. Just stand out in the noonday sun in June for 10 minutes and watch the buzzards circle, or listen to the rushing wave of a flash flood carrying trees, boulders and once rugged vehicles along a recently dry wash. Or imagine the hunger in the eyes of the coyote, owl, mountain lion or rattle snake as they set out under a crescent moon to hunt and survive. But strangely enough, there is a permanence of sorts in this harsh cycle of life, death and rebirth. It just takes a little while to show itself. Photo: Daniel Tuttle at Unsplash.com.
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| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately The Talisman. For another Arizona desert poem, try The Driver. |
| Allegory Dreams come with all kinds of hidden messages. Some are clear, some confusing, some reassuring, and others frightening. This reworking of a dream narrative is an attempt to laugh at the surreal, as opposed to attempting amateur psychoanalysis, as inviting as that might have been. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Allegory. |
| Shrovetide Fair I wrote this poem in the late 1990s. Even though poets tend to look back to imaginary golden days, they sometimes accidentally anticipate the future. Well, to tell the truth, the ancient bards of Wales were part wordsmith, part sear; they were expected to foresee whatever was to come, whether it was victory or defeat. In this case, with the present pandemic, I hate being clairvoyant. The Shrovetide Fair occurred right before Lent, when everyone atoned for their sins. Photos: (top) Olga Kononeko, (bottom) Richard Beatson at Unsplash.com.
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| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Shrovetide Fair. |
| Seventeen Seasons I was born in Wales, lived in Hull, Yorkshire, London, Wales again, London again, Brighton England, San Francisco, L.A., Phoenix and Prescott Valley Arizona. So, I think of myself as a traveler, even when settling in one or another place for considerable periods. Romantically inclined, like many of my country folk, I often imagine myself as having been on board ship, with all the vagaries, hazards and exotica that that entails. Also, like my fellow travelers and compatriots, looking back over the swirling waters of a lifetime’s passage is both edifying and essential in fixing my current position on this vast ocean we call being. Regrets? Yes, some. Would I do it again? When do we sail? |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Seventeen Seasons. |
| Cymylu (Overcast) I’ve said it before that Wales is the Mawsynram of Europe and Mawsynram in India gets over 300 inches of rain a year. Wellies (rubber rain boots) are essential equipment for the autumn, winter, spring and even summer in Wales! Strangely enough, having spent childhood expecting rain, drying off after rain or being caught away from home in a downpour, I love a rainy day. Even after having thoroughly dried out in California, then Arizona, I sometimes get something like restless, if it doesn’t rain for a week or more. I guess puddles are in the blood now. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Overcast. |
| Bilge & Beachcomber Maybe the prebirth experience of swimming in amniotic fluid, or an innate sense that our bodies are 60% water, or even some million-year-old almost memory of humanity’s ancestral origins in the fathomless ocean, who knows? But whatever the reason, the human race has a love-hate-fearful-longing fascination with water of all kinds. By growing up boxed between a mountain, two nearby rivers and the ocean, spending countless hours on the beach, swimming in the sea or fishing and playing along the river banks, my own relationship with water is both complex and profound. How about you? |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Bilge & Beachcomber. |
The musical accompaniment is a piece called Afon Clacamas
(The Clackamas River). I wrote it one Sunday morning waiting for an
afternoon musical engagement in the Portland, Oregon area. My hotel room
overlooked the magical, eddying river, teaming with salmon. The
instrument used is a set of hybrid Welsh Bagpipes made by John Tose,
Preseli, West Wales. Preseli area is itself magical and was the source
of the Blue Stones, mysteriously transported to Salisbury Plain, for
ritual use in the construction of Stonehenge.
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| Blue Natural Perhaps the greatest preoccupation of versifiers down the windblown ages is the passage of time. Like the wind itself, you can’t see it, but everyone sees and feels the effect it has. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Blue Natural. |
| 50th Birthday Gift Living abroad is entirely an adventure when young. The focus is on looking outward. As the years pass, and the focus turns homeward, the delayed cost of the adventure, although maybe not prohibitive, becomes appreciable. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem. Alternately 50th Birthday Gift. |
| A cold day in the sun Unexpected turn in late spring Sliding windows wide on their tracks I watched the curtains dance macabre Asked the breeze to freshen the presence of Family whisked away down ghostly jetways — International skies — All the time wishing miles-away-faces Familiar scent etched on beds, windows, walls Would linger, present for the next 50 years | ||
| Lie Lightly Losing a mother sends every son and daughter in search of something to cling to, in a rising tide of disbelief. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem. Alternately Lie Lightly. Read a story about Vi in Gwenllian and Vi. |
| Hard Landing Love of family and friends, in retrospect, has a cost. Well, it’s more like a ransom that only time can redeem. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Hard Landing. |
| A Dancer & Oh My Love Delight in watching a woman, my wife, as if dancing, become ever more alluring. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately A Dancer & Oh My Love. |
| Father |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Father. |
| Just Motionless and Lost Some things wash up on the shore, some fall out of the sky. Beachcomber, rock hunter or poet pick up the debris. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Just Motionless and Lost. |
| Dramaless Day The I Ching tells us that there is no such thing as a motionless state. Thoughts, philosophy, people, the seasons, Celestial Spheres, even the rock we casually take for granted and stand on, are all in motion. If not increasing, they are decreasing; if not slowing down or cooling, they are accelerating and heating up. The ancient Celts knew this and celebrated the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Their priests, the Druids, are said to have called it Alban Arthan (Beacon of the Little Bear). They knew that the darkest day had no choice, but to give way to ever brightening light. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Dramaless Day. |
| On some cold dramaless crossroading day Dove and pigeon scratch out a living from Winter-yellowed rye grass seed But seed and shoot, taproot and tuber Sunday-silent as a ruined abbey’s altar light Darkly wait their growing Future inflorescent crowds Solstice hay-high on seasonal hysteria Outflowing vibrance in zenith’s verdancy Though growing itself never makes a sound Greening is deaf as a grandfather clock that Taps its old foot marking idle hours Is color blind to gray days and heydays alike Woven deeply in the fabric Built in the bricks of our floors and walls Earth and sky In every changing heart Every signal from the hands and All sightings of masked mystery’s eyes For there are no standstills not manmade Neither timeless wastes nor child out of reach Just frame-frozen thoughts Picture postcards scribbled Never meant to be sent of Dove and pigeon scratching out a living on Some cold dramaless crossroading day |
| Rhapsodic & Then Rain Two Windscapes
There’s a long-held Welsh folk tradition that pigs can see the wind. People can only see its effect, but as a metaphor for the human condition, it is clearly visible. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Rhapsodic & Then Rain. |
| The Driver Phoenix to the Apache Reservation and Back
It’s proverbial that that those born, bred and still living in their immediate environments often have forgotten the exceptionality of their surroundings. Frequently, famous, even world famous, landmarks and places of beauty or mystery have been absorbed into the everyday. The traveler, expatriate and passerby often have the advantage of fresh eyes and curiosity, to take what for many has become ordinary and rediscover a world of wonders! |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately The Driver. For another Arizona desert poem, try The Talisman. |
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| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately As If.... |
This
poem was written at the time of the expected, yet devastating
premature, passing of my brother Alan. The music is my arrangement of
the traditional song of parting, sang at the quayside in Wales,
when people left for lands oversees often--as in my own case--never
to return. As to the appropriateness of using flutes? Alan gave me my
first lessons in flute playing and those hours spent in the front room
of our childhood home in Sandfields are still a vivid memory 60 years
later.
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| Silver Terrace Cemetery (Virginia City, Nevada)
They were looking for gold, at first throwing away silver-bearing rocks, when someone realized the folly, and the Comstock Lode was discovered in Virginia City, Nevada. It was the richest silver discovery in history, attracting miners and camp followers from all over the world, including people from Wales and even Mark Twain. The city's cemetery readily attests to an extraordinary diversity of dreamers. Ironically, some of the old mines actually extended under the resting place of many of these miners. This irony inspired the following poem. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Silver Terrace Cemetary. |
| Idris Speaks Idris
Davies was a miner, teacher and poet who T.S. Eliot thought captured
the atmosphere of the 1926 General Strike better than anyone else. His
work received a welcome second look when Pete Seeger used a part of one
of his poems as a lyric for the 1965 folk song "Bells of Rhymney". The Pop group The Birds turned it into a major hit.
The poem is a monologue I wrote to accompany my version of the song that includes some of his actual words. |
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For more information on Idris Davies, see the Wikipedia page. |
| San Anselmo Reprise Two
expatriates, at one time living near each other in Southern England,
then Northern California, meet from time to time to recollect, make
music, look forward, exchange dreams, bandage old and new wounds, and
seamlessly resume a friendship spanning over 40 years. There are always
major changes, but, at heart, the important things remain unchanged.
William Blake understood this.
"The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship."
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| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately San Anselmo Reprise. I also wrote Similar Weather while at the same friend's house. |
The musical accompaniment was composed/improvised and recorded in the same room in San Anselmo California, in which the poem was written, over a period (on and off) of many years.
A. Hindson: Engineer and Percussion Assemblage J. Good: Flutes, Words, Whistles and Voice. |
| talking to Dylan Thomas...
Questions in Llareggub ...at the Boathouse
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| Listen to John's take on the piece.
Alternately Questions in Llareggub. From the album From the First 1500 Years of Welsh Poetry. |
| Kelly and John the Boathouse, some time ago... |
| love and loss of childhood...
Mawl a Marwnad Afan In Praise and Lamentation for Afan |
| Listen to the poem, as sung by John.
Alternately Mawl a Marwnad Afan. I have two short stories about Christmas in Afan, Magic Amongst the Slag Heaps & Once upon a Star |
| the River Afan by David Good
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| getting over a loss...
Kyle ...creativity heals
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| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Kyle. |
Kyle Harris | |
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| international spring...
Similar Weather |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Similar Weather. I also wrote San Anselmo Reprise while at the same friend's house. |
| a midsummer night's dream...
Sleep |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Sleep. |
| regulating the clock...
Timekeeper |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Timekeeper. You can read about my grandfather in Jack. |
the maiden verbage...
The Girls of Summer |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately The Girls of Summer. |
| Lyrics |
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Beams of Light "I think it's a first
installment of a 20 year scrapbook of song, verse, instrumental, with
story and legend to be added in future linked episodes ...sort of an
alphabet 'cawl' with musical croutons. The theme is a loose narrative,
created by longtime traveling, learning, laughing, forgetting,
regretting and loving..."
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| Listen to John's take on the piece.
Alternately Beams of Light. |
And I will build bridges, night and day,
Lay strong beams of light. And I will read from the book of dreams, Walk Wisdom's well traveled causeway. Groceries put away, paper bags discarded, the daylong dreamer gratefully sleeps. From abstract patterns traced on fitful sheets a macabre black cat leaps from its dream, clears a blouse caressing a chair, scattered skirt, shoes, tap dancing to the moon, lands, spills a perfectly still glass of wine left standing overnight on piano's polished lid. Silent, red, slow, Beaujolais flows past a rosewood-reflected Waterford vase, seeps over sheet music's opened page, five easy pieces anyone can play! Even "Five Easy Pieces" requires concentration and peace, though simple, is a practiced thing.
Just motionless and lost
late wayward children shaken in faith yet faithfully following obscured footprints our discovering fathers had sometime left on vanishing sands of tidal lives Now and then once and ever great and small All! Microscopic stones in the Universal Shoe [ Ancient to Modern* ]
Star-castled above engines of siege, Spindrifting silver threads of time, Arianrhod--ironing--watches "Wheel of Fortune". Flicking ash from cigarettes, Wondering: "Should I stop or spin?" [ Charade - A Parlour Game ]
The glitter ball revolves littering round faces with spiral galaxies. Slow slow quick quick slow dance sounds inform... shuffle feet around sand-sequined floors. (Rhythmic inebriates back-beat high blind to expectation unaware of time.) Suddenly the music unexpectedly stops. Dumbfounded! can't find a chair. [ The Flying Fish Song ] When I walk the dream-real, dragon's tail ridge that Divides the red devil from the pea green sea, Breakers beat on that poor lizard's feet. "God help me if he wakes, it'll be the death of me!" And the flying fish sing, to the tune 'Sink or swim': "Just jump Mr. Jones, we'll polish up your bones. You men love us fish. You've kissed us with your lips And we fish love you men, but we don't like all those chips!" So if you walk the dream-real, dragon's tail ridge that Separates blue heaven from blue hell, Cling like a cat to that reptilian back, But don't fear if you fall. Don't worry yourself at all. You'll soon hear your own seafood, dinner bell call!
Light, late night rains hold
saddened, Southern warmth, Trickle-fingering, trigger past-tense. I, indyingly search, find shelter from the Westerly dawning storm. Ecstatic, the night bird nocturnes solitude, perfumes suburban garden dreams. Enthroned, constellation's helmsman steers, silencing near not wishing to miss this fragrance intoned.
The 'senseless' dreamer, image deep,
In waking sleep-walks. Often unheard, seldom out of sight, Night's quiet child draws day's outline.
Without malice--like hell like heaven--
Hurt's remembrance aches. "Never the same. Never as it seemed," Greedy regret needs recompense. That morning's effort extra hard, Sleep's letter received, The grammar of mood misunderstood, Shadow-metaphors miss their mark. Symptoms defy diagnosis, Self confounding self. The `I' conceals itself in the 'me', One multiplies by division. This enigma speaks in symbols, Picture parables. A language encoded in heartsong, The riddle revealed in the soul.
And I will build bridges, night and day,
Lay strong beams of light. And I will read from the book of dreams, Walk Wisdom's well traveled causeway. |
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*Square brackets indicate a poem's title and is not spoken or sung. Recorded by Kyle Harris. Read an interview with John, regarding Beams of Light. See our video on YouTube, integrating Beams of Light into the opening, at 2:37 and 9:28. |
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