Iachi da, Dafydd, boyo! Seen much of your Dad of late?
He’s sixty-five now, isn’t he, or do I exaggerate?
I can still remember the days when Harry plaited
spaghetti strands into a foot-high Grecian caryatid,
I can still remember him as a jerking bantamweight
who wouldn’t punch for minutes but circum- and circumnavigate
the boxing ring, then suddenly, with neither eyelid batted,
early in the yawn chorus, lay the fellow splatted
on the floor, which saved a lot of cauliflower ears,
asparagus bottom lips, paralysis and tears.
I wish I’d had a proper father, one who stays and steers
a boy through his first and most adventurous years.
Mewn gwirionedd, Dave, he’s one in several million,
I think he must’ve lightened up the day he turned civilian.
Do you recall that holiday, when we stood and threw
those rocks across the river at a metal barbecue?
Each rock your Dad projected struck its target with a clank,
when most of our attempts killed fish or scattered down the bank.
I hope the owners of the place were easily placated,
returning to their home to find the driveway had migrated.
Do you remember when he sat you on his leather pillion
and drove us to the coast and to that field with the pavilion?
Tucked into the sidecar, skimming a chicane or two,
I could smell that festival before it sprang in view.
You got wedged up a hornbeam on the day that you first drank
and sat there slowly warbling reggae tunes and looking blank.
Old Harry clambered fifteen feet and you were liberated,
then three more pints of Scrumpy Jack was how we celebrated.
“I saw my Dad last week,” you said. “He’s had a little visit
from the boys in blue for doing something quite illicit.”
I chuckled, “What a silly sausage! Tax evasion, is it?
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll Gogogoch, me old mate! How exquisite!
Do tell, with all of the embellishment you can afford.”
You started to explain in a slight haze of filial scorn,
“A week or two ago now he got nicked,” and I guffawed
out loud, before you added, “for downloading child porn.”
