Poems By Peter Finch
Dinas Powis
Sirhowy Valley
Cambrian Coast
Garth
Heritage Coast
Watkin Path
Ben Lomond
Dorset Coast Path
Taff Trail
Carn Menyn
Table Mountain
Upper Neuadd
Written over many years
- a good walk should have excitement, danger which comes to nothing,
be full of air and weather and effort. These are like that.
Dinas Powis
South Wales unknown offbeat ramble
number sixteen has us
full boots and clog mud
emerge on the main
fairway of Dinas Powis golf
club men in yellow socks
and diamond pattern jumpers
with Pringle on the breast the
trail is manicured grass and
dark looks but
this is an ancient way we
stride righteous in our
luminous waterproofs
cross the green push through
the hedge two fences ploughed
ground thick copse later the path
peters totally back of a bungalow
PRIVATE sign and a fiery
watercourse throw the offbeat
guidebook into the unknown brook
Sirhowy Valley
North of Rogerstone on the
canal drip of the Sirhowy Valley
the houses backing
this algae flytrap celebrate
outdoor life with permanent
barbies and extensive patios onto
which the drizzle falls - at the
Rising Sun no sun visible because of
anvil head cumuli path goes
up through the bog leaf mould of
Coed Mawr woods
here Dwr Cymru are routing
a main drain - gouge the trees
drop the yellow pipe stuff it all
back scar of contractual restitution
all this for faster shit - beyond
lies Mynydd Machen
radio mast and bracken thin
man smoking with a greyhound
do this next.
Cambrian Coast
bog path back out of aberaeron
dolloped with polystyrene flotsam
blue yacht rope plastic tub oil
some bladder wrack fabric twists
of fibreglass sir geraint's bungalow
used to be his looking on from
behind the fat storm beach pebbles
a bloke in a quilted armless & binocs
complains to me this is the welsh
for you bloody hell no doubt they have
a crap word for it yes I say sbwriel
y saeson up ahead the track
climbs and then the green hills
.
.
.
Heritage Coast
Far end of the Heritage
Coast scamper the
leaflet suggests the rungs of
the metal ladder - down off the
cliff this may be subject to
erosion but the wave cut platform
here is worth a look fossils
embedded ammonites rugged
mollusc no reference to the sewer
fracture nor around 100m
further a clasp of male
sunbathers wearing only long
moustaches to cover their
lips the path committee (voluntary) mention
only items of cultural significance
tresilian cave barnacles the pill
box - for further data check at the
information centre where the
soft jacketed volunteer will
deny all knowledge but when I
look at him hard he'll twitch
Watkin Path
up the crowded slog
which four-foot fat
Manon did two years back so
I daren't complain a gent in
tweeds bravely pulling on a
woodbine stopped on the
zig-zags sun no rock
painted BashÜ haiku but
the train on Crib y Ddysgl
out of Dali - the summit
clog gross llanbuggery white
heeled handbag the way
off retaining grace is Sir Edward
Watkin's 1890 vertical heartstop
descended jellyleg vertigo
and blind then the long miles to
Gladstone's great ice-polished
slab where he once addressed the
people of Eryri on justice and I
lie for half an hour to see if
the shaking stops sky still there
dry blue and most of it still up
Ben Lomond
Up steep Ben Lomond nothing
like the Gribyn left boot
full of mud at the outset the
wind picking up no Asda bags
anywhere locals descending in
full mountain gear me breathy Skywalk
Suede Easywear cleats and my
hands frozen.
The tree line breached gale
whacking toggles face roughed by
the velcro I stop
a huge red beard who
says och lad without crampons
yr dead sinking his
skipole into rising snow lots
of sky a couple of climbers
like dark sheep and a blizzard beyond
me slid into a gully sod ice trousers no
thermos a Glasgow Tourist Department
Days Out Guide and a Rennie Mackintosh
label pkt of shortbread - page three
an easy family walk - I'll tell them that
at the Cranston tea-rooms when I get back.
Dorset Coast Path
east of golden cap there are
burned wooden leaves among
the cow pats and a stone acorn
litchening on the cliff top the
fence posts have gates hung by
binder-twine arte povera in the
pressing sun from the woods
on the path to nowhere step a
couple her white dress marked
with earth his cigarette trailing
slow smoke in the listless air
is it far he asks it goes on
forever I tell him I watch her
breasts from under the cotton
point the way thanks mate
.
.
.
Taff Trail
The Taff Trail section four put the
Car at Coed Penmaen Road where
the wheel trims will be nicked
and squash along the tow path - half
of this field the other overgrown
banks of car wreck and
blown Asda carrier - emerge
by slow water Rhondda Cynon Taf
operatives path clearing one rotorvating the
other leaning against his broom sucking a
fag this section is labelled Albion Industrial and
a maze of dogs and outofwork owners
continue the guide says for a short metalled
stroll actually two straight miles up the
blistering A4054 wailing cars and belched
artics - sod this enter the
Masons Arms a pint and then two
re-emerge raining grey rags road
sprayed by a tanker o South Wales joy
back on the bus.
Carn Menyn
Through marsh - three sheep splashed with red & up the track
are the Stonehenge Bluestones in a jumbled heap
like dead dogs - the skyline is huge as daybreak
full of heat if one of these sailed to Salisbury
I am a Martian - We will buy water in the Mynachlogddu
Post Office the only shop for ten miles its window
snagged with curled cymraeg greeting cards en route
the Waldo apocalyptic visionary remembered bleak menhir
is cemented in the spartan green - I am bushed on my
feet carrying only a day sack - ah you stone-age
genii magicians each I salute you - the Post Office is closed.
Table Mountain
We're up the lane between the PH and
the school into sloppy woods with our
knees creaking we have two hours for
this five mile circuit yes enough but for
the paranoid owner with his salient of
barbwired TRESPASSERS
WILL BE SHOT god's blood. Half way
up I suffer anarchy all profit is theft and
climb his buggered fence roar through
the miasmic sheep to the brilliant top. From here
you can see snow on the moon.
My tracks indelibly point the route in
the frosted bog.Marks of a good walk:
disagreement over route - no
meeting new fellow travellers - no
nature - too fast
lost - no
blow for the cause - maybe
reach the PH before closure - yes
Upper Neuadd
the track gets us all from the parked cars to
moorland steppe in apparently no time
flight of a buggered arrow someone sd
this used to be a Roman rd - Torrance
ten miles south got into some shenanigans
aligning his cottage along a ley - through a
female stood stone and a Roman memorial
to the fallen but for now the power is
merely rain begun as a peachy touch and
now robustly filling our suits.At the col after two hours of damp blindness we
circle hopelessly like penguins - water in all
our seams and folds - my Skywalk SuperCleat
full like a divers boot. We give up. Someone on
the return falls in a ditch - w/out its cover the map
has become a mache skein - in the car with
tea steaming the screen we watch them
wring socks from windows and flit in their
knickers putting sodden overtrs into Nissan boots.Through the middle comes a t-shirt fell-runner sinew
& rain water - ten wet miles like nothing.
the lesson is to do it you do it
I start the car - we go.
Garth
We're testing the Garth to
see if it holds water, the idea.
Walk the whole crowd round
for the big birthday up here
through the wet fern and over the
top in under 1 hr 30 give
them beer and sandwiches.
Near the trig between the four
mounds - three original
megalithic (Do Not Dig Up-
Pentyrch Community Council)
and one oblong built 1940 fault
of the war we run into
a group of damp youth with
Asda carriers hunting for
magic mushroom. They're
button black and you need
six we waste twenty
looking but don't see any. The
Kawasaki scars here are like the
canals of Mars. The youths
are trying to fly from the
highest barrow on celestial
wings. The sky is black.
We get back to the
car in 1 hr 40 rain front
hits at 1. 50 a single
small mushroom by the
offside font tyre. I suck
it. Nothing at all.