http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2 Fri, 03 Apr 2026 22:33:38 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5596/mans-shed http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5596
In the shed of my late father
mortality raises its gentle 
terrifying reminding head
among the stilled working
the colonising cobwebs 

here in this inner sanctum 
of a man’s married years
lie the abandoned hobbies
the casualties of affordability 
and changing health

golf clubs beginning to rust
and accrete DIY liquids 
transforming into new uses
a club is always a club
no matter how it is wielded
no matter where it is
or how tamed one is

a complete bathroom window
frosted
its opening obedient to a key
that hasn’t turned for decades 

a trolley of peeling paint
and complaining metal 
castors still compliant
a primitive vehicle from my childhood 
upcycled then repurposed 
to shelve rough materials 
soon to be upcycled again 

I was sent there by my father 
to find a tool I could never retrieve 
today everything is uncovered
in the light of vacating 

]]> Wed, 21 Dec 2022 13:57:41 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5588/the-war-on-terror-ad-493 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5588
(For Owain Ddantgwyn
our Owen of the white tooth
in battle a bear 
Arth/Ursus/Arthursus/Arthur
to his family a comfort
to his kingdom
a worthy leader
warlike as the age demands) 



so meet me at the forum
in old Viroconium city 
that vacated shell we fitted 
like a glove of mail 
of might 
of shade of light



those men of Rome left in a hurry
and tonight we can have our fill
from their amphora
so have a glass with me
a toast for declining empires



in the morning we will sharpen 
our minds and our blade edges
ready for the latest wave of pagan invaders 
to imprint the sand of our beaches
with such heavy footfall 
and cruel design



we will meet them at the heights of Badon
and claim a hopeful victory
split wrong heads asunder 
in a war that we will ultimately lose
and which will be forgotten 
as those who will subjugate us
in turn will kneel in obedience 
and kiss the ring of their oppressor



leaving us to be onlookers
in our own isle
sulky in our ale
liminal 
in the far margins
the unforgiving terrain 
where seed fails to shine
in the harshness of our tears’ rain



not knowing that scant numbers
of dreamers and word launchers 
will meditate on our time
in their leaderless day
believing as we did 
that they are near to the end of all time
]]> Mon, 21 Nov 2022 09:24:24 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5577/warm-heart http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5577
The faded good looks of middle Wales
a well worn many coloured coat
its towns still insisting 
on breaking through the crust
of drying up commerce
and the slight of bypassing 


windows open to keep cool
but instead invite a new climate
bringing neighbours closer
and flies that hit the double glazing
dazed and bruised 


the gigantic escarpments 
hill fort patterns and holy rocks
abandoned homes revealed
in retreating defeated waters
those shy river sources


ospreys and others
vulnerable but splendid
choose this wilderness 
to regroup and to return
to pick our shamed bones


their shadows on hot plate roofs 
there are health warnings 
and burning buildings 
a sign of these times
these warning signs
]]> Sun, 02 Oct 2022 19:30:57 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5529/y-dieithriaid-the-strangers http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5529
A kitchen table
1953
its wood surface lined by
the scratching and scraping
of five thousand meals
gravitated around by people I haven’t met 
save through the study of dry documents 
lichen edited inscriptions 
and reverential anecdotes 



they’re gathering as if for an important event
in the calendar of living 
I’m kind of hovering like I did in real life
trying to listen in to the language of condolence 
the wording of commemoration 
the patois of those well known to one another 
the music of best china
touching
 

my 12 year old mother is here
with the other females
permitted at the house
to help with refreshments
and friendships 
but not at the open grave



she will grow into a Bardot
of the school bus
the chapel pews
the perambulating lanes
the first job 
until marriage and me will alter 
that possibility 
that destination 



a member of the branch
of the suicide sister in law
is among the mourners 
death grief thief of time
but healer of familial discomfort 



at the chapel in the forest
among the crabbed literature of wreaths 
one dedication reads
from all at Police House L-V-
32 miles and a half century away 
from the great uncle of the deceased
who had ridden from those walls
to collar the lawless of his day
from the first day of that county’s constabulary



these were the days of the start
of our separation from our beginning
our unravelling 
when we forgot so much 
of what we were and what was us
our relatives and their dwelling places
the reason for our being 



a time too when we became unfamiliar 
with horses 
their aroma
their voices
their muscularity 
their fidelity 



when we became a little less human
a little less animal

]]> Mon, 20 Jun 2022 11:54:18 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5526/indentations http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5526
Eyes closed to the sound 
of a breeze combing fir trees
reminds him of the curtain border 
of that cemetery 
hypnotic historic 
ultimately soporific 



a misspelt dedication 
next to where he left his parents
his grandparents 
the dear ones snug in the clay
returned to the earth
on the edge of that village
that gave him his scars



the shed tears
they all left only to come back
the sadness not interred
not boxed
but marks on their existence 
decades of indentations 
runes they couldn’t decipher 
though fingertips unthinkingly 
traced them in the quieter seconds
between the pressures



a new face gets a new face
that he will learn to wear with pride
his split cheek beneath a bonnet in a pram
a spider’s web of darning in skin
a stitch in time that saved him 
from being bled dry like a wounded bird
in a winter whiteness impasse
and quietened his parents’ guilt
 

that boy from Cwmcou
with its free flowing sparkle Ceri
a branch to the Teifi tree of life
a tributary sacrifice 
that took the boy from Cwmcou
but not Cwmcou from the boy



carry me away 
carry me away 
bring me home
I want to go home
]]> Mon, 13 Jun 2022 15:52:49 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5513/prime-suspect http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5513
Our fibber whose art is craven
furloughed be thy fame
thy Brexit done
broke times to come
in Neath as it is in Devon
give us this day our daily dread
and forgive us our trust issues 
as we forgive them that are classist against us 
and lead us not into inflation 
but deliver us from shortage 
for thine is the kidding
the poorer and the gory
together or severed
Amen
]]> Wed, 27 Apr 2022 15:30:40 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5511/laws-and-those-who-make-them http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5511
Our felon who has paid his fine
allowed is thy shame
the playing dumb
your japes undone
unearth untruths so uneven
give us this day your daily lie
and forgive us our press passes
as we forgive those that press pass against us
and lead us not into Trump nation
but deliver us from Priti
for thine is the comedown 
the sour and the sorry
never so clever
amen
]]> Sun, 24 Apr 2022 12:32:45 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5506/where-did-i-put-my-country http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5506
Jimmy Jangles would have liked 
to have been a highly-decorated warrior
relaxing in a highly-decorated lounge
but this was not to be



instead he obsesses over his fetish
for Dalek-like killing machines
and how he is obliged to hand over
money to bankroll violent regimes 
he doesn’t support 
by governments
he did not help elect



he tries not to get too hung up about about demarcation 
he has a door a gate a fence 
a scripture of passwords
and a clear understanding of where his personal space ends
he admits that he has at times fallen foul of the Trades Description Act 
existing on a small island 
in the middle of a tarn of sodium hypochlorite 
just like in the legends
afraid to venture out because of the risk of corrosion of his disambulation



he deplores TV programmes like Britain’s Got Talent
the exaggerated melodrama of slightly delaying the announcement 
of which hopefuls have been voted in or out of this week’s show
that pantomime pause 
a menopause 
by the men of pause



perhaps it could be improved by replacing it
with a different format such as
Britain’s Got Tory Parties
Britain’s Got Tax Avoiding Superstars
or at a push Britain’s Got Tommy Robinson



these would be much more sincere and entertaining 
especially if the same selection method is used
closer to the current democratic process than he could ever imagine
television as the new Tower of Babel 
that moved like a demented crab
into boxes then flat screens 
and into our gibberish conversations



he buys gin goblets from a budget foreign supermarket 
and is enchanted by the bell sound they make 
when brought together in a gentle semi pendular action 
he fills them up
throws in some handy botanicals
like consuming a boozy salad from a globe 
representing a swirling world without continents



it’s nearly Christmas though it has in effect been since the last one
for the last four decades or so
at least he can forget for a short while 
that many worthy companies 
feel motivated to make modern slavery statements



each Thursday he attends a workshop for those debilitated 
by post traumatic retail stress disorder
the hours in shops waiting 
his hands glued to his pockets
ignoring the signs 
the smells 
the sounds
the eyes



unnerved by showroom dummies 
sometimes feeling that they could be moving 
when just out of sight
some of them appearing to have been posed 
grotesquely in unrealistic human biological positions



still it beats working
although it is in its way a form of occupation
another usage of jangling useless time
in the name of the market 
in an age of continuous austerity 



when he gets the shakes he closes his eyes 
until he is taken far from where he is
back to the early 1960s
the bars of a cot surround him
the first feeling of imprisonment
of containment 
of being too safe

he's sleepy in this place too
riggings of snow grace the corners of a sash window
a draught making him shudder with cold
his first encounter with winter 
though he doesn't yet know what it is
and what it can do



his unseen mother sings quietly to him
something old
something of that location 
before the rest of the world 
and its non stop jukebox
would roar into the family life



he gardens industriously and ironically 
now that the UN has given the soil sixty years 
he could cry and allow his tears to water his parcel of land 
at least he'll be long in the ground by then



but he feels for the kids 
the birds the beasts 
the fish the insects 
the trees the flowers the forests
the wind the sea the streams 
the rivers the lakes 
the lovers and the possibilities



this morning his web photo provider sent Jimmy an image 
to remind him of this date one year ago 
a shot of an area of dampness on a ceiling
the reminiscing of an algorithm 
the inhumanity of technology 
there's no contest
even if the robots will take over as it appears they will
he chuckles and recalls the word clusterfuck 
that crops up in his news feed rather often these days



tonight he waits for a meteorite shower to arrive 
he knows this is an honour but he's a little impatient 
fretting that he's looking at the wrong patch of sky 
he need not worry for this has been done before 
and is still a thing of wonder

]]> Mon, 11 Apr 2022 13:41:45 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5488/llantood http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5488
Scaffolding around an old church
in scant countryside 
a skeleton encasing lungs and a heart
that pulsate more weakly now
at the wrong end of a millennium 
of belief and taxation 



birdsong and evensong
are rarities nowadays 
so a disembodied choir
of barbed wire
and its round hollow metal posts
murmurs low
to a congregation of livestock
 

a crew of crows guffaws
for they know all about
worms that abound



the marvellous underground 
its secrets to keep
kiss me quick 
kiss me dead
]]> Wed, 23 Feb 2022 19:23:32 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5466/a-new-beginning http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5466
I have not yet found God
nor has He found me
on another winter’s solstice
but it’s a new day
one that has never been before 
so it’s going to be alright



the mounting illumination of its early morning
a sky going through the shades of blue
then pinks and reds



there’s a ghost on my lawn
a ghost of dawn
maybe it’s only there 
before anyone looks that way
before the stillness is scared off
by the yapping of excitable dogs



as I wait to be enveloped
by a fog of unconsciousness 
waiting for no reason
that’s worth knowing 
waiting for me 
to wake up
to make up 
to shake up



and when I have done so
meet me at Durrington Walls
where we’ll raise a glass of fortitude 
distilled from the bitter fruit of native trees
in the new Neolithic new towns
retreat into the light we have created 
until the sun promises to linger once more
I guess that’s winter for you 



look to the future now 
it’s only just begun 



(Slade 1973)
]]> Tue, 28 Dec 2021 19:33:15 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5459/robbed-banks-of-rural-towns http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5459
I used my lunch hour to eat lunch
I went on breaks in order not to break
on Bank Holidays I holidayed
in abandoned banks
and slept safe in their safes



I am neither anti vax nor anti mask
but I have my suspicions 
I was not a girl
neither am I non binary



I object to having to pay
to withdraw my money at an ATM
and getting a do not reply email



there was a wondrous sunset yesterday 
people felt compelled to share 
images of it on social media 
I saw it too albeit from the corner of an eye
and am sorry that I passed up that chance



I abhor racists but am uncomfortable 
about residing in a fragile country
where nearly everyone appears
to be a stranger and new names
join the lexicon of living here
in this xenophobic kingdom 



it’s getting hard to remember 
so why bother trying?
how much of memory is incorrect 
to such an extent that is
a fanciful falsehood?



in a nation of controversial statues
it might be an idea to render them
eventually anonymous 
it wouldn’t work for the first few months 
but our bruised attention span
and the conveyor belt of distraction 
would soon make us warm to these 
handsome and interesting strangers 
poised on their magnificent plinths
as though they are contemplating 
jumping into our world
]]> Sun, 12 Dec 2021 21:40:38 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5442/1961-and-a-bit http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5442
As the light dwindles again
and I am returned to that winter
my baby face a horror show
of scar and NHS stitches



I spy a large spider on a Lino floor
my mother christens the arachnid 
pida pw
syllables I can almost parrot 
the invented dialogue of infancy
delightful dictionary-free words 
that bubble and exist only 
in a certain time place and feeling 
the music of the mother tongue 



my boy imagination 
in Yuri Gagarin’s shed
cosmonaut caught 
in dawning thought confusion 
my reverie when sleep
was blessed and not timetabled



foetus as astronaut 
tethered in the helmeted womb
every amazing event
each star show has its mundane side
something so down to earth
we can’t escape 
no matter how high we climb

]]> Sun, 31 Oct 2021 13:31:09 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5420/theatre-of-the-ordinary http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5420
(Curriculum vitae)
he cuts the lawns of an empty property 
the cable of the mower in his hands
is the microphone lead of a famous crooner
on a 1970s television light entertainment show
cracking the whip on kitten backing singers
what will the neighbours think
in their own private theatres?



in the evening when it is more seemly
he pours two glasses of rosé wine
equally mainly by sound 
and during subsequent replenishment 
he thinks he can hear the chorus
of the hymn mae’r Iesu yn geidwad i mi 
(Jesus is my saviour)
in the meeting of drink and glass
the music that follows work’s end
in vino veritas or so it is said
]]> Thu, 19 Aug 2021 10:05:23 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5410/not-welsh-not http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5410
This is not a Welsh Not
but a Welsh is and always will be
raving over higgledy piggledy slates
with fingernails of demons scraping
screeching out a lost non rock and roll
and not a low flying bomber
in sight or sound



tipsy on communion wine 
and a quick fumble
in the ecumenical jungle
dog tired dog collars loosen
to a beat of life lived
and not analysed
not a sermon planned
nor an afterlife awaited



submerge into sublime harps
inherited from the elders
never understand 
but defined as Corvid
not COVID
avoid their Larsen traps
and their booby traps
with our Weapons of Non Destruction 



Peter Hurkos a Dutch psychic
and y Mab Darogan
(the Son of Destiny)
and how about a little of Twm o’r Nant
or David R Edwards ?
we have become strange bedfellows 
but at least it is touching
 

I am not the National Poet
and I know it
I know my place
but not where to find it



we are all the National Poet
but don’t know it
we don’t know our place
nor where to find it



this is not a Welsh Not
a Welsh Not not
not Welsh not
I am not a Welsh Not
]]> Sun, 18 Jul 2021 15:24:08 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5403/square-mile http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5403
Nothing to see
not much here just a disarray of stone 
and multi coloured corrugated iron
splashes of spilt paint among
the day to day ordinary rust



it is our land where we always were
out of the way but easily found
when loot and recruits were demanded



(Geraint Jarman sang of Ethiopia Newydd 
but where is that now?)



it's a Sunday afternoon 
a half century ago
at the home of a relative
who was already old then



they treat me well
dose me up on sugar lumps
and familial kindness
it's sunny and dream-like
and fruit fattens on slender branches



but they failed to warn me 
about the rising wind and sea levels
about the idea of a future
and how sweetness flatters then corrodes 
and that thorns never really leave your skin
]]> Mon, 28 Jun 2021 14:33:54 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5384/replacement-or-youve-been-farmed http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5384
He'd never heard of replacement theory
but he was still sitting there
cowled in a no good hoodie
a cheap light grey like his complexion 



he who used to receive final demands
by lowering a bucket from an upstairs window
unhinged by losing the family farm
to irresistible forces
to inevitability 
those were the days
 

narrow old men trying to get the most
out of their narrow old tractors 
slim and puny workhorses 
when compared to the monsters
that superseded them
but still running on an idea
of efficiency through regular oiling
the treadmill of inheritance
the hoped-for success of repetition 



their pinched sunned faces
squint at the diminishing returns
their loosening holdings
with sloping ploughed fields
whose pious furrows end in
mists that could conceal sea 
sky a rainbow’s terminus
or Gawain’s green chapel



he won't budge until the undertaker
is booked and his pockets gone through
loss adjusted to nought
a vacated shell colonised 
by curious new creatures 
a beast among other beasts
brittle flinty had
]]> Sun, 16 May 2021 10:48:35 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5381/names-on-lanes-no-one-knows-now http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5381
On his laden career bicycle
Johnny Onions or Sioni Winwns
meets paramours and cousins 
the names the lives of names
the routes of commerce
way from Armorica to corner Cymru



an unnamed lorry driver
flat cap trim moustache
hooded eyes 1956
registration number PO 5384
brake lights brighten pre dawn hedgerows
in the squeal of stopping



on a stretch where the farm is unseen 
he carefully steers metal milk churns 
from the concrete stand
to the flatbed of his vehicle 
replacing them with empties 
the mornings will lighten then darken
then back again for this employee 
dependable essential anonymous 



on leaving these lanes forever or so
our Emrys as Ambrose as Ambrosius
us as Arthur yr arth the bear
is he with Glyndwr awaiting the perfect dawn?



I don't know but sometimes pretend I do
to conceal my plastic bag full of fault lines
I don't happen I don't occur I don't figure
I a mere carrier of bags
a haunter of yesterday's hedges



nearly everything’s changed 
but the grass still grows
in places it should and should not
and the land that sustains it is unmoved



I walk away from away 
I thought I recognised you 
but I was someone else



]]> Fri, 16 Apr 2021 22:28:32 +0100 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5370/career-opportunities http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5370
So what if he'd won big on X Tractor
that night with the other grinning hopefuls
of the combined Young Farmers of his county
but fame and its fickle flame didn't burn long



with the fattening catalogue of demise
and enough freshly signed death certificates
to fill a library of uncomfortable learning 
he should have been sated
busier than ever with 
the practiced condolences
the pressing of the flesh
and the liaising with 
the dependables of the funerary industry



despite this unexpected windfall
Tomb Jones was restless
seeing no end to a career 
of infinite possibility and beginning 
to despair even as his ISA multiplied



he spoke granite rather than Italian marble
and his wife complained that he was not urbane
enough for this stage of their union
fretting that she had not succeeded 
in niggling and nibbling away
all the burrs and bumps that constituted him



as ever he completely misheard her
confusing "urbane" with "urban" and snorting
"of course not dear we live down a farm track!"
he who had thought that Cinzano Bianco 
was somehow linked to that stranger Quixote 
hamboned enough to charge at a windmill



but when the day was over
the battered container of gossip emptied
and Death and his wife put to bed
his thoughts turned to a change of career
a new dawn a higher calling



on the reverse of a large used envelope 
propped up by the lectern of his pyjamed thighs
he began to draw the outlines of a combine harvester
sketching the insignia of the Red Cross on its flanks
and pencilled in military grade syringe-cannon
that could fire small darts of vaccine 
accurately into the unsuspecting arms
of anyone within a hundred yards 
doing away with the need for any sort
of organisation other than a simple timetable
and allowing thousands of health workers
to return to their wards to relieve their colleagues 
whilst ensuring that everyone was vaccinated
whether they wish it or not



he fell asleep satisfied that if he put his mind to it
he could harness his agrarian past
to a bright pharmaceutical tomorrow
and help broker a sort of medicated peace
a freedom that no one would suspect existed
]]> Tue, 16 Mar 2021 12:55:56 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5364/my-lost-tribe http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5364
The Welsh traditionally were interested in their genealogy.  From the endless “aps” and “ferchs” that preceded the edicts of the Act of Union to the closely penned family trees contained in homemade prefaces to prized Bibles, they felt connected to their predecessors and homeland through collections of names and monuments.
I was an awkward and sullen youth, not really interested in my tribe beyond those I could see, my parents and their parents, my uncles and aunts.  I grew into an awkward and sullen adult albeit one with a developing fascination and preoccupation in what came before.  I recall the afternoon when I realised that a lot of my future time would have to be devoted to the past. I was at the graveyard of a chapel called Pensarn on the outskirts of the village of Caerwedros in Ceredigion, Wales.  With me were my mother and sister.  My mother had been born and brought up in this little, out of the way village and we were there to visit the grave of her grandmother.  What struck me about the grave’s headstone was the story it contained, an account of people with names crammed and carved into stone.  I learned the name of my great grandfather who had died three years before my mother’s birth.  I also discovered that there were two children I was not aware of.  One, a man, had lived into his twenties, the other, a girl, had not even made her second birthday.  I was impressed by the wealth of information, the tragedy and the triumph, the self-assured use of the Welsh language, the poetry enshrined in slate.  I remember disturbing a lizard that was basking in the sun in the vicinity of a glass jar I happened to move near the grave.  I was to return to this tranquil spot many times, identifying about a third of its graves as those of my family members.
My search for my ancestry began in earnest with interrogation of my parents. One of the reminiscences that my mother had carried with her since her childhood was of oranges that her mother used to receive from the USA each Christmas in the late 1940s and 1950s.  My mother didn’t know the identity of the thoughtful person who made these presents available to this family of seven children at a time when such luxuries were quite rare in that place.
About ten years ago I paid a visit to my mother’s cousin who had moved from her village to the isle of Anglesey.  He was older than my mother and as a result had more history to share.  He gave me a copy of a document called The Families of Davies and Evans, a history including a detailed list of American and Welsh names and addresses from the early 1800s to the late 1960s that had been given to his father Daniel Davies by a man called David Wendell Hughes. He was from Lincoln City, Nebraska and had come to Caerwedros in about 1969 to look for his Welsh family. The visitor believed that he and Daniel were related but could not say exactly how.  He was descended from Reverend David Davies and Mary Jenkins.  Rev Davies was closely connected to the little chapel I visited at the start of my search and Mr Hughes believed that the minister’s family was instrumental in providing the land on which the chapel was built.  Daniel related that his father who had been born in 1851 also claimed a connection with a family that left the village for America in the time before his birth. On leaving my cousin that day, he shared with me that he didn’t subscribe to this theory despite what his father had said.

Armed with dozens of names of the descendants of a Welsh Calvinist Methodist preacher and his wife, I set to work trying to fill in the missing pieces of this Atlantic jigsaw.  I obtained a copy of the certificate of the marriage of my great great grandfather, another Daniel Davies.  His father was named as David Davies whose occupation was described as preacher and Daniel’s address on this happy day was Tirgwyn, the ancestral home of the migrant Reverend David Davies.  Although this was some evidence, it was mostly circumstantial: after all, why hadn’t Daniel sailed away too?
I like my history and I like the history in my family history.  I decided to research why a southern Cardiganshire family in the 1830s might choose to leave their country and never return.  I ordered a very informative book from my local library, Calvinists Incorporated: Welsh Immigrants on Ohio’s Industrial Frontier by Ann Kelly Knowles.  This publication explained that about 3,000 people, mostly Calvinist Methodists, had left the sparsely populated county of Cardiganshire for Ohio between 1818 and the middle of that century. They had been persuaded to make that long and dangerous journey because of religious persecution, oppressive taxation following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, an increasing birth rate, and disputes with landlords.  David and Mary Davies of Tirgwyn in the parish of Llandisiliogogo are mentioned in this account which said they arrived in Ohio in 1837 then moved on to Minnesota in 1856.  It seemed to be an organised sort of exodus, the Welsh, to start with at least, sticking together on the other side of the ocean. Once again I had the feeling I had often experienced, that sense that I had been denied some of my history, that somehow it was not important for a West Welsh boy to learn of significant events that occurred in his impoverished county in the century before he attended school.

Using the tools available to the seeker of family history, I unearthed records of baptisms at Pensarn Chapel of a number of the Davies children who had gone to America with their parents.  I was however, unable to find one at that chapel for my Daniel Davies.  It transpired that he was baptised in Llanarth Church which is about two miles from Pensarn Chapel. This record showed his father as David Davies, Methodist preacher, of Tirgwyn, Llansilio.  I assume that Llansilio was shorthand for Llandilisiogogo.  The mother’s name is oddly missing from the actual record  though in the modern transcript she is named as Mary Jenkins.  The baptism was in 1820, seven years before the birth of the oldest of the Ohio-bound children. I found that David and Mary were married in 1826 in St Tysilio’s Church near Caerwedros.  This would suggest that the boy baptised as Daniel was born out of wedlock.  This would have been a scandal in the narrow beliefs of the participants especially as the Davies family was heavily involved in the Methodist movement of the time and perhaps Daniel may have initially been brought up by his grandparents.  This, coupled with his age at the time of decision making, may have led him not to want to leave or even not being given the choice.  Maybe Ohio was too much of a potential lion’s den for this Daniel. However, it could also have simply been a case of him intending to join his family at a later date, something that occurred from time to time among other Cardiganshire immigrant families. His uncle Jenkin Davies, a renowned preacher and the only member of my family with an entry in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, died in 1842.  Perhaps he too was planning to join the Calvinist Methodist exodus and travel to the States with his own family including his nephew.  There is no evidence for any of these theories though one of them is likely to fit.  Daniel is not mentioned as a son of David Davies and Mary Jenkins in the document The Families of Davies and Evans but then this was compiled at least a century after the event and memories can become unreliable at that distance. I guess the story of a journey is of those who made it, not those who did not.  These were unexpected conclusions, ones that did not seem to provide enough corroboration.
An exciting new tool available to the researcher is DNA.  I had submitted a sample of mine to the Ancestry.com website some years ago and I was delighted to learn that a woman living in Oregon and whose name was included in the document The Families of Davies and Evans was a match to me.  She was descended from David Davies and Mary Jenkins.  This in my view validated my hunch which was further reinforced by another DNA match, also of a person in the The Families of Davies and Evans document. This distant cousin lived in Maryland but had been brought up in North Dakota and his mother had been born in Minnesota.
I have yet to unmask the identity of the kind soul who regularly provided my grandmother and her seven children with a much needed seasonal treat. My cousin in Anglesey believes he has an old postcard "somewhere" from someone who could have been called Betty and who could have posted the card from Florida.
Delving into one's family's roots and migrations can be frustrating and lonely, a sort of "minority sport" like poetry, something people know that they should enthuse over but just haven't got the time or the tools to comprehend the sheer weight of numbers that lead directly to them. I am glad to report that my family on the whole is receptive to my findings. My uncle revealed that in my great grandparents house in Caerwedros was a Black man money box. This uncomfortable cultural artefact was mass-produced in the USA and exported to Europe in the late 19th century. Could this have been another gift from our New World cousins?
I am pleased that many Americans hold dear their Welsh heritage. In my search I received crucial information and support from the Great Plains Welsh Heritage Centre in Whymore, Nebraska, the University of Minnesota in Mankato, and the Blue Earth Genealogical Society, Minnesota.
That long forgotten branch of my family had many adventures and were among the earliest settlers in what was to become the state of Minnesota. I will watch movies featuring depictions of Sioux Indians somewhat differently in future. Reverend David Davies became Reverend Doctor David Davies and two of his sons and five of his grandsons also became Ministers of Religion.  One of his Caerwedros great grandsons also followed in his footsteps, albeit unwittingly perhaps. 
In Wales, at least, the land remembers. At the funeral, at the graveyard of the disused Pensarn Chapel on a bright summer day in 2017, of the last Davies cousin to live in the village, I lazily made conversation with one of the bearers, a local man I had not met before. I was amazed when he recognised what I told him about the ancestors of the cousin of mine he had just helped to inter, that they had emigrated from that village to Ohio in 1837. One hundred and eighty years later and the people still remember though the story had slipped from the consciousness of the affected family for a number of potential reasons: my grandparents left the village while their children still lived with them; my grandmother died at the age of 48; my great grandfather had been 20 years older than my great grandmother and as a result was not around to share the tale of the grandparents and uncles he had never met with very many of his family; in the rush and distractions of our continuing diaspora, we were in danger of forgetting who we were.
I was born in Cardigan, Wales and honoured to be so. I could so easily have been born in Lake Crystal, Minnesota and would have been equally honoured with that outcome.
]]> Mon, 08 Mar 2021 20:34:54 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5353/the-itch-and-the-scratch http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5353
Had a bit to drink so I began to think
what had happened to my ancestors
what is happening what has happened 
and is likely to happen to me



the right to protect the half memory of half lives
to live and earn a living among one's own kind
to put a brake on the creeping amnesia
that separates us from who we are
who we are from who we were
and where we came from in the longer view



newly arrived faces discovered our legends
animated as though they had known them all their lives
and not told by their mothers as we had been
in places our grandparents sold them


 in which we used to play used to laugh
used to love used to dream used to remember
but they are not afflicted by the itch that resulted
nor the scratching that persisted into
the fantasy of growing up



I await analysts to tell me where I have been going wrong
pathologists to reveal my causes
and detectorists to definitively pinpoint me
]]> Sat, 20 Feb 2021 13:15:10 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5350/castellate-me http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5350
They said "high" but how high
turned out high enough to keep out
the locals the subdued other types
sufficiently lofty to conceal the life
of the enemy and too tall for us
to peer over even with the aid of a leg up



the despised and the besieged
the attacked and the defended
the architecture of oppression blotting out
the horizon and eclipsing the sun and moon
the domination still tacit at times



we sullenly embattled our invaders 
with haircuts language and time 
until they were redeployed to another outpost
another link in the chain mail empire 



the arrow slits squint
the curtain walls loom
like a citadel of giants' tombstones
a reminder of tumultuous centuries 
now muted and disarmed
recalled in the names of streets
residences and the sides of vans
]]> Sun, 14 Feb 2021 11:56:26 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5339/cabin-fever http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5339
Steam escapes from tears
the dream of the sleep punk
those guitar solos based on choruses
lull me to lullaby absence



my participation on the edge 
of the plantation of easy guilt
trying to keep safe in the attacking air
dry in the angered rainfall



as water percolates from the eaves
roads that meander through the forest
and around its scraped-out mines
its quarried foreheaded depressions
also leak and leach generously 



they’ve left a few trees standing 
in the meadow to remind us of trees
the mirage of a cared-for landscape
the deception of orderly lifestyles 
the ludicrousness of plans at times like these
]]> Sun, 17 Jan 2021 18:54:03 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5325/a-wedding http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5325
Near-deserted lanes mid way up low hills 
the sodden escarpments of unfashionable zones
unvisited by most who know of their existence
in this interlude when a shadow cajoles our attention



the damp hushed houses of this year’s departed
dust on shelves weeds between paving slabs
awaiting tidying up and reinvigoration
and the lengthy sigh of a decision reached



(starling darlings lingering watch unwatched)



among the personal effects in those corners 
not accessed in a period compromised 
by the seizing up of bones 
and the disorder of failing and forgetfulness
an antique from the top of a wedding cake but whose?
two figures a bride and her groom
he minus his head his sacrifice 
making them equal in height



(can mementos metamorphosize into voodoo dolls?)



how had he come to lose his head? 
how was he relevant to the widower 
in whose former home it was found?
who and when did they represent?



what I am to do now that this imperfected tribute
this broken inheritance is in my possession 
the only one that has raised its head to me?
]]> Sun, 13 Dec 2020 12:16:44 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5305/decline-to-monoglottism http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5305
I listen to and learn from the eulogy
for a poet from my village recognised in his death
this awaits me or vice versa
or verses versus verses 
a book is not its cover
but a chimera to ward off stereotypification
a taxi ride among a cavalcade of red tail lights
to where the bokeh is okay



I met Billy and his grandson Ryan in the x-ray waiting room
his eyes had red circles around them
as if he'd spent a lifetime crying
he joked he'd been hiding behind a tent 
at the siege of Rorke's Drift
and that I'd limped with a different leg on leaving



not much chance to use the old language here
where Iolo Morganwg tells me to buck up
in a minaret multi storey car park 
named after our patron saint
our capital city its smart centre
the ordinary radiating roads
(who are they named after?)
the tarmaced-together suburbs
their Chinese supermarkets and eateries
the heirs of the enquiring minds 
that dreamed up gunpowder navigation and printing



I sniff around the outskirts of the spirit skirt
and the gaps in people 
some good gaps some not so
but do the flatlands feel the imprint
of the inundations of their moulding?
]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2020 21:09:30 +0000 http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5291/new-halloween http://americymrunet.jamroomhosting.com/paul-steffan-jones2/blog/5291
Waterloo
Peterloo
portaloo
no can do



in Manchester
Liverpool
Newcastle
Nottingham too
no can do



dead man's shoes
dead man's hand
do the right thing
you and all



hands face space
waste of space
new rules for scrubbed old hands
I'll try to remember
but feels like I'm back 
in work or school



Eat Out to Help Out
aka Eat Out to Help The Virus
I was there too
I took the money
I dined at that trough



like everything else
masks constantly evolve 
from the Lone Ranger
to the werewolf
from PPE
to mandatory wear
whilst enjoying the retail experience
to the jaundiced faces
of our corrupt politicians



first they wanted to save the NHS
now the mission is to save Christmas
but let’s get through this Halloween first
as the country closes its doors again
the leaves mulch and the light weakens
and the ghosts come back
to interrupted conversations
those things we wish we’d said
]]> Sat, 31 Oct 2020 20:52:47 +0000