THE TALE MY UNCLE TOLD ME



See that barn, there? There's a story to that.

You had a ancestor was a buccaneer;

and he went pirating off to the Caribbean,

come home again with a shipload of gold.

Well, maybe not so much, shared with the crew -

but a nice little fortune for one.

So, soon's they get within sight of the Worm's Head,

your ancestor (who was a clever man, see,

like all his descendants), he calls up the crew, 

proposes a swearing match. Winner gets the lot.

Well now, they're all for it. Not a man there

but prided himself on his tongue for oaths.

So they set turns, began to fire away.

And the curses thundered out like cannonballs

spat from between their teeth, could have blown holes

in a Portugoose or a Spanish man o' war.

Imagine that lot, yelling the French to rout!

But no man a clear best. Well, your ancestor,

he waited them all out. Sense of drama, see.

Till they were shoving him, saying Go on mun.

Then he stepped forward, planted his feet firm

on the heaving deck, threw back his mighty head

- duw, duw, he was a fine man, mun -

and he opened his mouth and began.

 

Well damn your eyes mun, he said; but that

was only the start. Oaths flowed from him

like wine from a cask. He was uncorked all right. 

The style of him! Never a misplaced damn,

never a bloody adrift. Ach y fi

was nothing to him. Flaming buggers of hell

he called them, blisters on the bum of God,

the Devil's emeroids; said they hadn't the wit

to piss downwind (I'm only quoting, mind);

told them to frig their bloody ear'oles clean

and listen to him; told them to get their brains

out of their britches, give 'em room to think.

And there was more: Hell got more colourful

under his bruising tongue; the griddled bones

of saints were flaming, fit to scorch your ears.

His rhetoric whanged the air with cutlass words.

And all the time

the rhythm of it running like the swell

of his own element. The hwyl was on him.

  

And then a moment's calm, like the dog days,

before a storm of shouting, whistling, cheering -

because the others weren't a patch on him.

They were a load of miserable buggers,

couldn't string enough oaths from the yardarm

to hang a cat. So, guess who won? No contest!

And there's the barn he built with his pirate gold.

But duw, he was a fine man, mun.

 

 

 Joanna Boulter



(from 'On Sketty Sands', Arrowhead Press)