Two Boiler Makers

I dreamt I was at The Miner’s Arms,

At precisely way back when.

The mist lay low and heavy,

That night in Pontrhydyfen.

And the people of the valley,

Slept softly in their beds.

Digging at the seam of life and dreams,

That swirled around their heads.

The barkeep had many faces,

Of people I had known

All gently out of focus,

As I sat there in my own.

A man appeared at my side,

His steps had not been heard.

A hand placed on my shoulder,

Then he sat without a word.

His face had many ages,

Through poverty and wealth.

His eyes had seen great splendour,

Despair and failing health.

Pock marks tried to thinly veil,

God’s generosity.

Perfection made from all his flaws,

With a rugged dignity.

No awkwardness existed,

No feelings of attrition

Why each of us was cast that night,

In the others apparition?

Two Boiler makers,

Were placed upon the bar.

His piercing eyes, they beckoned me,

To join him in a jar.

At first I heard a whisper,

A tremor from the vales.

Cascading through the mountains,

Of our beloved Wales.

When at last he spoke, the mountains rose,

And fell into the seas,

The room was his cathedral,

With angels on their knees.

The voice of generations,

From the past and through all time.

Was sitting there beside me,

In majesty sublime.

We talked about the reasons,

Each of us were there.

We found it had no merit,

Then drank without a care.

He told me of price he’d paid,

For his fame, at all cost.

His thirty pieces of silver

And the people he had lost.

The women who had loved him,

His regret of ruined lives.

Harvesting the hearts of gold,

Of all his loving wives.

He spoke of She, who’d changed his life,

And all their wondrous things.

And how they’d ruled in Hollywood,

In The Valley of the Kings.

He regaled the many stories,

Of Harris and O’Toole,

Of Flynn and Fairbanks Jr

Enthroned on his bar stool.

How he’d reigned in Camelot,

And became the Prince of Danes.

Those Bardic words fell from his lips,

Like cloudless summer rains.

As the drinks they kept on flowing,

The stories never ceased.

Gielgud and Olivier,

Released a raging beast.

Baker and Spinetti,

How Dylan made him sad.

How his father bought him,

So cheaply from his Dad.

The guilt he felt for his success,

Gilted prizes that he’d chased.

And how the Lords of Theatre,

Considered it a waste.

I never got to tell him,

I’d portrayed him on the stage.

And how I’d felt his presence,

His anger and his rage.

How I’d tried to mimic,

The way he walked and how he smoked.

The way he drew his audience,

The way he told a joke.

I didn’t tell him of the rumour,

That he and I were kin.

My family were Jenkins,

Just the same as him.

How my Great Grandfather, Daniel,

Had walked from Pontrhydyfen.

And fell in love with Elsie,

Never to return again.

I never felt to mention,

What he meant to me.

How his life had cast aside,

Impossibility.

I never said, because he knew,

I saw it in his eyes.

He knew the legacy he left,

On the day he died.

I will stop that dream from fading,

But one thing is for certain.

I never will forget the night,

I spent with Richard Burton.

By Lyndon Jeremiah