NOCTURNE TO A JAZZ GUITAR.

( In memory of David Williams )

GUITAR OPENING: series of driving chords.

FIRST VOICE Dai Banjo, one of some celebrity, and

Nick named thus where sir names have no bearing.

Born in the guilt steeped valley near the sea,

Now man of no mean talent, and some learning.

We find on stage as darkness falls swiftly

On hills and tips and straggled streets uncaring,

Strumming out a melody in the old twelve bar

( Banjo they called him though he played guitar! )

GUITAR: Playing twelve bar blues.

FIRST VOICE: Snug in the bowels of a lust dimmed den

Phrases Jangoed through the clouded throng

Intended mainly for himself as now and then

He indulged the thought of jazzmen who died

young

An Orpheus who played beyond their ken:

Laments unheard and beauty left unsung

In endless litany ran through his mind

As fingers sought the future left behind.

GUITAR: Plaintive lament.

FIRST VOICE: With small, but sturdy frame, Byronic curls,

He weaves and bobs, his eyes take in the hall

To linger on the few, new fresh faced girls

Before they get the patina: pale luster of

Innocence destroyed like pearls

Opaqued in pools of alcohol.

Before the strobe lights blear the face of youth

He seeks the one that will reveal the truth!

GUITAR: single echoing chord.

FIRST VOICE : End to begin in Sartian division

Watching the dancers circle, strut and space

So conscious of each I - me - it decision,

Parody of parrotry, each time blown face

Petals the lenses of his darkened vision to

Gibber edge the images that take their place

( All part of his early evening show

Please bear with him, there's all the night to go! )

SOUND OF A DISTANT CHURCH BELL.

FIRST VOICE: And in your travails you have come across

Mobius strips, fused levels gained in vain;

When every day you have a certain sense of loss

And never one in which you seem to gain.

Frustrations press and only drugs can gloss

Over and then obliviate the pain; the one

Certainty in sensual stimuli and let the

Cursed ambitions darkly lie.

And he's learned tricks to overcome these

traumas

Of wild regrets and visions unfulfilled:

Just run them through the mind in little dramas

At alienation through exposure he was skilled to

Leave the mind page bland, the backdrop calmer,

Exhaust the threat and fret is stilled.

( So Banjo thought as he mouthed another verse )

Thought is the expedition of our universe!

PARODY OF POP SONG SUNG IN OBSCURE WAY SO LYRICS ARE UNINTELLIGIBLE - as so many are! -

ACCOMPANIED BY GUITAR AND PIANO.

SUDDENLY ENDED BY A BLEAK CHORD, THEN CLICK OF CAMERA SHUTTER.

FIRST VOICE: Back in a blink

that tilt of terraces where he was raised,

a landscape long erased from sight,

but not from vision.

GUITAR: calming, nostalgic chords.

FIRST VOICE: mother Yeoman's house at the mountain end

with a drawer full of currants and nuts;

fat cat and kettle purring by the fire,

warm flannel ready to soothe scrapes and cuts.

GUITAR: dramatic strum

FIRST VOICE: Sprinter Jones dashing, yellow eyes

flashing, out to defend his

snobby nosed, balaclavad brood.

crouched in his shed on a crop

stitched plot,

biting off puppy tails to feed his ferrets,

Leyshon squints the poacher's moon.

SCRAPE OF PEN AND STREAM GURGLING.

FIRST VOICE down in the shadow by the slurry

_ slowed stream

old Brynmor with lordly, china blue

eyes, is writing the letters for

applicants and debtors in his

beautiful copper plate hand,

just for the entrance fee to the pub.

No saloon bar for him though

with his drips and his smells

- half his guts blown away

in the Dardanelles.

WHISTLE AND CRUMP OF EXPLODING SHELL.

SECOND VOICE : Billy, clean and comely, blond hair

parted carefully on the right,

waiting for one of his 'uncles' to call

( except on a Sunday night. )

SNATCH OF A CHOIR SINGING A WELSH HYMN.

SECOND VOICE: Joseph the grocer,

face like a sweaty ham, lurks in the

spicy gloom, greasy folds of an

apron hiding his lust like a loose

trousered Turk.

SOUND OF A TILL BELL CHANGING TO A BOXING BELL.

Bowen the boxer, cap over cauli lug,

bouncing along on the balls of his

feet, circling his shadow while his fat

wife is yapping her mole tufted jaws:

- gossip is gospel for all of the

street! -

SECOND VOICE councillor Evans, gold watch

respectable, plate holder and

deacon, - caught syphoning petrol.

Winnie the Dribblers house stank of

paraffin, Barbara had jap eyes,

Pat peed her knickers, all of the

Matthews were screamers and

kickers.

WHISSST!

FIRST VOICE in a flash all the memories pass.

SECOND VOICE: walking with Betty or maybe Beth?

down by the rancid river side.

squatting under a bridge arch

trying to hide from cold cobwebs of rain

and watching the turn of the tide.

LAP OF WATER.

SECOND VOICE - NOW WITH ECHO -

green, clean salty surge laced with elvers

and jelly fish stippled like gooseberries.

white whirling loom of a cuttlefish bone'

lazy flicker of a mud drugged sole.

then the ocean's fecundity made so absurd

by the defiant bob of a corky old turd!

he had laughed out aloud, heard the cackling

echo taken up by the seaguls subdued until then,

sparrows arrowed away and a solitary jackdaw

cocked his steel jacket head at them.

VAGUE POP SONG, PIANO AND GUITAR AGAIN.

FIRST VOICE: he croaked the last note remembering that

taste of rejection, bitter as fear.

'Too near the mike, mun!' the pianist

hissed as they bowed to feeble applause.

SMATTERING OF CLAPPING.

FIRST VOICE - OVER TO BEGIN WITH -

Love once confessed is easily outwitted;

But poets fail who dwell too much on that,

They must remain devoted, be committed

To sacrifice for fancy and not fact.

Though fancy fashions life, it is admitted

And facts are false in that they are 'exact'.

( to such early evening melancholy Banjo's prone.

it was the period when he felt the most alone! )

Can passion be dispatched by mentioned words

That conjure up an image of the past?

Time will twist the truth to show its innards.

Compacts composed on thighs will rarely last

As crystal hearts are broken into shards

That gash the ego deeper than a glass.

To live you must enjoy a little pain:

Learn not to catch your breath upon a name.

Banjo now takes solo on the stage

Mixing echoes of lost innocence with

Cold plucked dread of coming age.

All of it so puzzling,

Little of it so planned!

( meanwhile he sang a ditty sotto

voice to please the band )

THIRD VOICE -WELSH AND MID ATLANTIC.

beneath a chunky yellow moon

on such a perfect velvet night.

the sprawl of Orion on our left,

the hiss of the steelworks on our right.

And Sunday always a frustrating one

with the sex ridden press and packet peas.

And she would never take her drawers down

further than her knees.

QUIET SNIGGERING FROM THE BAND.

rolled on his back on brittle

springs of heather, quoting

Juvenal's lines on a good wet lay.

lips pursed in disgust she was

plying his handkerchief

wondering if they would catch

the 'Top Twenty' that day?

FIRST VOICE: Number finished he surveys the filling hall

with the smile of a cherub, but the

eyes of a troll.

GUITAR - single echoing chord -

THIRD VOICE Time for the band break when the

Local talent sought the spotlight,

Eager for the chance of fame.

CLINK OF GLASSES, TALK.

FIRST VOICE: Banjo sips his whisky and enjoys the game

Philosophizes on how nicety of

Calculation had replaced real thought:

Keep the style fluid and the power intact!

THIRD VOICE: On stage another puppet flogged the

Promise in his pants.

Bored women grinned and turned their backs.

As shadows of past sordid deeds will

Turn the purest thought to dross,

He saw her bearing through the crowd

Her hips spread not by child but sloth.

Then stalled above him with bursting

Slacks and blouse with legs and mouth akimbo.

WOMAN'S VOICE: 'You've been ignoring me all night!'

FIRST VOICE: He saw again sweat yellowed sheets and

Pillows glazed with mucus.

And she was coming on strong again:

Numbing his ear with a saucepan lid bra,

Bruising his ribs with an iron clad girdle.

'I'm not that drunk this time!' He said

And left her with the grinning bandsmen at

The bar.

To ponder the graffiti changes in the bog:

Like fossil traces show they once had lived.

But now the 'was here' and the names of slags

And comical advice

Were cancelled out by homo codes and

Boot boy brags.

It seemed to Banjo, this new writing on the wall,

Revealed the coming of another Reich!

He returned warily, then cheered to see the

Drummer chatting up the forced draught job

And they had refilled his glass!

THIRD VOICE: Ah water of life.

If you could only remain as holy and not

Just fuel up the bloody melancholy.

GUITAR - sad echoing chords.

FIRST VOICE: Band reassembled bashing out a beat.

PERCUSSION SOUNDS.

Then the crooner cried 'She was nobody's child,'

But only the bodies as they swayed

Betrayed desire, despair and real alienation.

Banjo then took up the tune and played

Each chord to echo more than last as his

Mind filtered in again to days that were long past.

SECOND VOICE: after the first school warm with colours and

music and singing, they were

marched to that barracks over the hill.

Now no time left for learning just a

breaking of will! and a headmaster

ranting on duty and truth with white hair

sprouting out of his ears like stuffing

coming loose, as he wiped his mouth

with the back of his hand - yet still reached

the front row and further with spit.

THIRD VOICE; ( caught flashing one day in a town nearby, but

got off with a plea about 'prostrate problems' )

here a bunch of idle time servers, pensioned

off from life, with no courage for their vices

only passion for their spites.

FIRST VOICE: he had gained their smug mugged praise

puking out the facts and apt quotations that

were thought an 'education' and yet somehow

failed to pass from school boy swot to an

academic ass!

next came the college and the cramming of

the isms and the schisms from crabby texts

and the format of the 'answers' they had sought.

following entwined parasites through what

once was living thought.

THIRD VOICE: he loved the parties and the sport, with

these he had no quarrel, and study now he

could devote to classy girls without those

valley morals.

And learned a lot from one such stoat

- no resting on his laurels - for those

with world enough and time to know the

joys, not revel in the sorrows.

FIRST VOICE: by the second year he had assumed the

proper attitude and joined the right societies

from brass necks coined the platitudes that

kept the populace in its place, while making

sure it showed a proper gratitude.

in the last year - grown quite cynical -

his methodology was clinical:

living with an influential 'Phaedra'

and the one essential truth:

only at the fount of knowledge

will you find eternal youth!

THIRD VOICE: flushed in the rays of his ascending star;

knowing how to handle her and learning

how to finger a guitar.

WOMAN'S LAUGHTER. FUMBLING GUITAR CHORDS.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Reader,

We have now reached the half way point in this discourse.

As you will have discerned, it is a complex, but not really successful

play for radio.

It started as a narrative poem written over a weekend and was

published under the title 'Dai Banjo and his Star Wagon' around

1980. People either seem to like or hate it; but the people I respect

a lot liked it for the most part, so on it goes.........

The idea being to show how the protagonist, Dave Williams, fails

to communicate through his work, art, philosophy and sex and ends up

disappearing into his own mysticism - the fate of many a talented

individual -

The text is further complicated by the verse form which starts as

ottava rima and then becomes looser until it ends single images

as the night progresses. This is meant to reflect the 'progress' of

Banjo.

There are more subjective concepts as well .e.g. 'Byronic' as this

is the verse form perfected by Byron. 'Jangoed' as Dave was a great

admirer of the jazz guitarist, Jango Rhinehart. 'Sartian' as he thought

a great deal along the existentialist lines of Albert Camus and J.P.

Sarte.

There are some of the tropes of Dylan Thomas as well, as the

play is intended as the opposite of 'Milkwood' in having an urban

setting and at night, yet the Welsh character is similar everywhere.

It had a successful performance in the 'Swansea Festival of Literature',

with the aid of two local groups and I played First Voice.

So................read on if you have the patience?

NOCTURNE FOR A JAZZ GUITAR cont.

FIRST VOICE: then, as with every picaro,

it was time to leave the scene,

with some skills and a scroll to take

back to his valley: still festering serene.

( of relatives I make no mention, but

can only say: he was an orphan raised

by kind and caring aunts since

seeing the light of day, )

now back as a graduate he must be

introduced to nice girls: bovine breeders

and/or chapel sharpened shrews where the

mortgage first mentality prevails amidst the

teachers and the preachers that are the

curse of Wales!

SOUND OF HYMN SINGING. CHURCH BELLS, TILL BELLS.

grown used to challenge and sensation

he scrabbled round the spoil heaps and

leaching cinders of lost hopes in vain,

trying to find the real world again.

until standing on a blackened rock

looking toward the smoking glower of a far town,

a trick of light and cloud perspective caught

- framed in a lattice work of cranes -

the glitter blue and silver of the sea.

THIRD VOICE: once tipped that wink of wanderlust

to follow was the only thing to do!

he packed at once and got the bus to

Swansea and signed on as D.H.U.

( deck hand unskilled )

a lowly member of the crew.

no teaching ticket for him, instead

he sailed aboard a tanker heading

light ship for Port Said.

SOUND OF SHIP'S ENGINES AND THE SEA.

FIRST VOICE: pounding out past Ushant,

slugging round Cape Finisterre, then came

grim St Vincent and all the while he was

reeling from the mal de mer.

On then ever eastward through the

Gates of Hercules sped our salt water imposter,

now a troubadour of the seas.

GUITAR AND CONCERTINA PLAYING SEA SHANTY.

FIRST VOICE: Tears now fill Banjo's eyes, so all the

Harbor lights and hurricanes are blurred

Into the one........so further sea nostalgia we

Will have to skip - he only ever made one trip! -

But there he found the tunes to

Whistle in the dark, and

There he learned to tell the

Player from the part.

SOUNDS OF SEA FADING AWAY.

THIRD VOICE: a year or maybe later

he landed far from broke

on a jetty in the Medway, quite near

the legendary 'Smoke'.

took a bed sit up in Camden

near the green of Regent's Park.

got a job as plumber's mate

on a council block estate.

SOUND OF HEAVY TRAFFIC.

living there to take his pick of

the chicks fresh form the sticks

looking for their break against the

city's sneering sophistry.

( few knew the rules to win the game

and make the cheque mate or the name.)

THIRD VOICE: anchored on an easy job

swinging on a tide of fancy.

FIRST VOICE: Dulcet dawns to wake undreaming

Wrapt in woman scented sheets in those

Tick-tocked, sleep-sighed, fridge-purred flats

Far from the toiling deep, the watch bell dint,

The bobbing compass bubble.

No rough shake this to rub up

Nipples with his early morning stubble!

WOMAN GIGGLING SOFTLY.

And so it was all summer brief,

Until autumn's amber chill brought its

Dead leaves down to sour the

Wellsprings of his being.

THIRD VOICE: the current girl was London Welsh,

torn between hiraeth and Hampstead camp:

Beardsley on her bedroom walls,

love spoons in her kitchen,

above the fireplace, a miners' lamp.

FIRST VOICE : She was into the theatah

Providing slides for that myopia

Wrapping all her foibles in flannel:

Musicals and Dylantopia!

THIRD VOICE: And suddenly he longed to see the

Purple loom of gaunt hills pride.

Places and not people were his

Image of the countryside.

That very night he chuckled through her

Simulated gasps and sighs and

When questioned on the cause of humour

For once he truly said: she was a better

Actress on the stage than she was

In the bed!

He sat upright and watched the mirror

Bloat his flaccid frame and faded tan.

The tensed his arms for their comforting swell.

'You really love yourself, you Narcissus!'

' He loved an image, not himself.' said he.

'Well custom's made it what I say!' she snarled.

'And custom's made a coward

Out of me!' he thought.

Next morning he departed

Singing as he went.

Glad to leave these people so effete

That those you join you still had to beat!

SNATCH OF ETON BOATING SONG. SOUND OF TRAFFIC.

CHILD'S VOICE: Hitching along the acrid concrete ways,

Mind filled with school mitching days

when rebels for the sun they trod the

powdered sand and sea spun pebbles.

boiled black winkles on drift wood fires.

cracked their kelp whips,

yelped their war cries through the

slithered echoes of the

booming Mumbles caves.

FIRST VOICE: clear days, green ways, mirrored in the waves.

WAVES BREAKING GENTLY ON A SHORE.

THIRD VOICE: Time for a pause, remainder of this was brass.

He sipped at a another glass of scotch.

Noticed a new barmaid: own teeth,

Straight back and longer legs than norma.

But........ inclined to podge around the kness,

Not much rhythm in her hips.........could

He be growing impotent or just hard to please?

FIRST VOICE: He watched in constant fascination as the

Dancers warped their fashion in a way

To fit and fuse the time.

'Great Pan is dead,' he chuckled to himself

Across Corinthian Gulfs waned with

Drowned faces.

Consumptive cough your lungs into the gutter

Hunchback flay your hump for dog food for

It still howls the moon above the noise of that

Machine that makes you run the faster from

Yourselves!

GUITAR IN FRENZIED CHORDS WITH DEEP ECHO.

THIRD VOICE: Last number of this set: a smooch,

'Fool on the Hill' reminding him of a

Sad eyed semi-whore picked up from the

Swansea shore.

She lived on Town Hill, up near the top.

Her partner working permanent nights to

Spend his days in the betting shop.

She sang in bed, eyes lightly

Closed upon a distant dream.

He'd joined in a duet on love in May

Until she pumped his breath away.

FIRST VOICE: Final break time for the band and

His last chance to prowl, he settled by

The senior barmaid: a strategic post.

'The score now on the new girl:

Married, single or better still divorced?'

WOMAN'S VOICE: 'Not your sort, Banjo bach!'

They were all his sort!

He went to her and did his spiel of

Mimicking the acts.

She laughed and chatted with a

Western lilt .............he

Spun around in some alarm when a

Firm hand gripped his upper arm.

THIRD VOICE: A pretty face, no make up, clear eyes.

WOMAN'S VOICE (CULTURED) I've come, you see.

THIRD VOICE: 'Hullo,' he said, revealing no surprise.

'That's great, so glad you made it.'

Trying to recall her name?

She'd come alone, he took the hint.

Sorry, time to go and do his final stint.

This line up isn't bad, but if she stayed,

There was a place where real

Jazz was played.

FIRST VOICE: So night draws on and

Staggers to a close.

Drunken girls grow shrilly tired.

Shyer males more sullen and morose.

That saddest time when even

Whispered hopes grow goarse.

BAND PLAYING ANTHEM.

THIRD VOICE: Ignoring band and bouncers leers,

She helped him to the car with

All his gear.

CAR DOOR CLOSES, ENGINE STARTS.

THIRD VOICE -OVER - Headlights drew his eyes his eyes dry as

He blinked and shook the club smoke off

Trembling like a dog.

She eased him: thigh to knee as

Fancy was turned to certainty.

DOOR OPENS ON JAZZ TRIO : PIANO, BASS AND DRUMS.

FIRST VOICE: Linked by the leads they

Entered the noise bulged room.

A pianist was clinking out cliches

Applauded by the uninitiated, but

Base and drum were swinging clear

Rhythms realized and stated.

Banjo sat in to play his part having

Earned the bread to indulge the art.

He found the notes that would define and

Not consume the dream .

Delighting in the glow, the bass and drum

Rang out the no more of the gods now

Dead, the not yet of the gods to come.

Again, again, the guitar lead sounded the

The seas that broke in mirrored shards

Along the iron reefs of grief.

Snatched leaves vein perfect from the air

To crumple them as bitter dust.

Gave glimpses of the answers to the

Questions none dared ask by

Tearing off the made up mask:

To be is to be mortal

UNCONCEALED!

GUITAR IN CLASHING CLIMAX.

Dullards stirred uneasily at this, for it

Made sham of all they valued in the price

That had been paid for them.

He spun one final thread or truth, then

Pulled the easy slip of syncopation:

Wear light armour; be nimble in retreat.

Make sure the symbol on your shield is

Yours.

Men are just men, not brothers, and only

He is free who does not have to

Check the chains on others.

THIRD VOICE: Her face came back to focus,

He thought he saw some understanding.

Now music was just another noise in

Elementary imitation.

He finished and they packed and left.

FIRST VOICE: She took the wheel.

He liked the certainty of that.

SOUND OF CAR JOURNEY.

The car lights limed elegant arches,

Squat, black stacks and toppled bricks of

Former industry, long past.

WOMAN'S VOICE; 'More like ruined monasteries,' she mused,

'Than citadels of earthly hope.'

THIRD VOICE: 'Perhaps the sulphur in the air,' he laughed,

'Gave them some religious bent, and

Anyway all subject people renounce life.'

FIRST VOICE: Now the new road cuts through the valley

Like a knife, no eddies in its enfilade

Estates for legends to lie and germinate.

THIRD VOICE: 'Keep moving so they know they are alive!'

WOMAN'S VOICE: 'I don't know when you're serious or not!'

THIRD VOICE: 'Serious? That guise of swine!'

WOMAN'S VOICE: 'Define a swine?'

THIRD VOICE 'Those who believe they must exist and

Ensure others think the same.

Yet the bane of priest and king is

Knowledge that a man is free.'

WOMAN: 'Studied at philosophy, I see.'

THIRD VOICE: ' The mirror's smashed that once

Revealed the rising class.'

WOMAN: 'My field's psychology, you know.'

THIRD VOICE: 'We function, but are more than just a

Function.'

WOMAN: 'I seek you where you cannot hide!'

THIRD VOICE: 'Those seeking certainty are those

Most terrified.'

WOMAN: 'You beginning to sound like a

Sermon yourself.

THIRD VOICE: 'Composed from bingo cards.

Be careful, I've been circumcised!'

CAR ENGINE STOPS, A FAINT BREEZE.

FIRST VOICE: They watched the dying moon

Paring the landscape's bones.

WOMAN, VERY SOFTLY: 'I hate the sun on plastic,

Greenery through glass and

Grasping hands that cup the

Fountains of the past.'

FIRST VOICE: Her eyes had closed. A warning

Glimmer dimmed the stars:

This night was nearing death.

She slept, he crept, guitar in hand,

Out of their pool of breath.

SNICK OF CAR DOOR CLOSING.

THIRD VOICE: Loping with long strides down a slope

Feeling the ferns dry crackle on his thighs

Breathing deep of their primeval scent.

Tracking the bank of a pobbled stream

To a grove that glowed in resinous gleam.

His eyes reflect the flower decked girls

Adance with flute and tambourine.

He stops and laughs:

Each dawn holds out a better day

When we recall the happy past.

He sits beneath the templed trees and

Tunes the sweat out of the strings:

Each chord a link with slavery removed.

He reads the cypher of the stars and sings

GUITAR ECHOING LIKE A LYRE.

SECOND VOICE IN A SINGING CHANT.

question why the old men threaten

what they fear most.

you young minds escaping yet

the grin skull.

watch the puppets flopping prone

before the dais of the dark, the

image on the shrouded throne.

young eyes piercing the brood hood.

old bones are honed to scalpels to

castrate the growing reason.

mystic flesh made fresh with tears to

revive the needed fears.

young hearts beat truer than a

march drum!

young hopes innocent of fear numb!

ENDS WITH SINGLE ECHOING CHORD.

FIRST VOICE: the east rim brims with light.

WOMAN'S VOICE: steel shod boots crush flowers back

into their dew.

THIRD VOICE: junkies stir to a weather cock's crow.

FIRST VOICE: the zealot's knife bars the throat of his child.

WOMAN: rain pellets its life into the river's chemical

sludge

THIRD VOICE: night workers reveal they are more than

bollacks for their machines.

FIRST VOICE: vipers settle their rat scabbed scales.

SECOND VOICE: eye lids stuck with sperm and mascara the

whore snores on.

CHILD'S VOICE Banjo completes his morning song as he

Sights the sunrise through a cloven hoof:

'Time and temple can't retain his dream:

No coda can contain the truth!'

THE END.

So..........................Banjo becomes a victim of his own mystique

like Heidegger. And no, he never smoked or imbibed any dope except

alcohol!

Some times the text is enigmatic, ambiguous even in an attempt to

catch the flavour of his talk and the images of his music. And it

could be said that his attitude towards women is cynical here. Yet in

fact he was a real romantic like many existentialists and his quotes

from Camus and Sartre were often a cover for a fierce love of people

and music.

Many could tell you what a brilliant teacher and generous soul he was

and what a difference he made to their lives. I am very proud he saw

me as a friend and still grieve his early death.

So..............you are entitled to think 'Nocturne' pretentious and

too subjective; but it needs reading a few times before the narrative

unfolding jells with the 'times past' consciousness of the narrators.

There is nothing else quite like it in Anglo/Welsh literature - which

is just as well, mayhap! - and I see it as a sort of documentary of

the 70's and the way we thought then before the clubs were totally

overwhelmed with greed and consumerism and drug culture got its

nihilistic grip.