Don Rodgers is a poet from Neath. His books are published by Seren.






Aphrodite at St. David's Head

The dark, scalloped edges of the day
hold in place a clear blue sea, in which
lines of light vibrate like harp strings,
and bulbous comb jellies, beating
tiny, iridescent oars in series, swim.

A family of choughs feed and converse
on the cropped turf of Carn Llidi.
A peregrine patrols the air space
over a white farmhouse. While the bitches
suck rage through their teeth in Ramsey Sound.

Orange inflatables charge the cliffs, then
swerve, in a scythe of foam, to scare the life
out of the life-jackets. In Whitesands Bay
the wet-suits ply their trend with the surf,
observed by the little boats of puzzled gulls.

Can't you still see how an eel flashily
dislocates in the depths of a blue-green eye;
while a jellyfish opens its throbbing fist into a flower?
I am waiting now for the frame to break.
For then the sea, unloosed, will flow; flow in.

Bringing you to me, gently, on a wave.








Evening, Swansea Bay

Under the blood light to the west
The sun’s violence behind Oystermouth,

The quiet roar of the sea’s mindfulness

Calm opalescence: mutual modulation
Of water and light: sea-sky; sky-sea

Birds are writing black, inscrutable,
Dissolving lines over ideographs of ships

Random, purposeful, pin-point lights
The sky in the east regaining a lost blue

Nothing left to do this evening, except
Take heart; drink deep