Holl Lawenydd Gwyllt

Translations by Llŷr Gwyn Lewis

Snake

Nokia, 1998

the Nokia nk402

with that special see-through cover

that showed the circuit boards inside

you were the one who pulled me in

I think, 12p for a text

the sex the drugs all now within my reach

I paid as I went

and that is where I think I began

button by button to follow

that serpent’s tail

that grew and grew

until it consumed itself

Walls

Tetris, Game Boy, 1994

Curtains were being opened

all across a continent; hurricanes

that had not been forecast making landfall;

babies like my brother arriving amidst

the rubble of the Berlin Wall, the foliage of tanks

And this was the game I chose to receive

that yellowing Christmas in ’94.

A brand new shiny GameBoy: the plastic

smell of a new century being unpacked,

and a game lifted from Soviet ashes.

We surprised our parents with our instinct.

We knew how to pound those red buttons,

how to build solid, extensive walls

before knocking them down again to dust:

blowing them to smithereens was second nature.

We slipped downstairs after bathtime for one more go –

but who was sitting there, gripping the game

but Dad, tongue out, insisting

on trying to clear them in sheer fascination,

but he just couldn’t stop himself

from letting them grow taller every time.

Menagerie

When I go in to our second born son

He is instantly awake

No snooze button on this boy

He is up, rubs his eyes, then begins

To offer me his animals

Gestures as a showman would

Or a showroom wheeler dealer

Invites me into their – his – world

Reels off the inventory of blind and wallpaper:

The monkey – easy – arms

Curled by his sides, the elephant’s trunk

And, piece de resistance, lion’s roar

Waking up his brother in the farthest room

One day soon he will stop doing this

Will give no prior indication

But will decide of his own accord

That he doesn’t do that any more

And I curse the weary experienced parent who

When the first was still young, counselled us knowingly:

‘Everything’s just a phase’. I see

That soon we’ll grieve these versions of the boys

As though they were ghosts, already gone.

I’ll miss this life in another. I’ll miss

Who we were too, glimpsed in the background

Of phone video clips (that focus on them)

And wish we’d had more photos done

Of all of us. I’ll miss this house,

I’ll miss the menagerie of animals

On blind and wallpaper, creatures, sheep,

The scribbled matchstick mums, the figurines,

Dinosaurs, pirates in plasticine

And happy smiling jigsaw lions

And brown-eared dogs and Duplo cows

The plastic tat of our menagerie

That filled our lives, a few short years

With all the wild domestic joy of them