Inviting the Light - Patrick Jones
At the start of the month, Patrick Jones contacted us about his new hybrid poetry release -both book and spoken word with music - recorded with two fellow welsh musicians: Ethan Jones (his eldest son) and James Jones (no relation.)
Of course Caffy and I jumped at the chance. Patrick is the common thread that weaves though every story of TheZineUK. The issue was, how to find the words. Something Patrick always seems to do with ease, and provide for us, but something that we were lost on for a while.
The self-published book arrived on a morning when I had heard yet another friend in Palestine had been lost under the rubble, so Inviting the Light become more poignant - but that’s not to understate how everyone can find comfort, rage and solace in this worthy successor to any of Patrick’s earlier works including 2019’s Even in Exile, the Victor Jara inspired album with James Dean Bradfield and Renegade Psalms the album with another honorary Zeenager John Robb.
For the reasons above, the stand out for me was Letter to a Guntower (Palestine June 2023) which contains the lines:
Yes there have been wars here before
but not like this
David morphing into a marauding Goliath.
Yet, it’s not just this that soars through the heart, both You (For my Father):
‘That silent morning, when I found you in bed, everything in its place..’
and Marcescence in Spring (To my mother):
‘I’ve been driving around for a week, with a black bag full of my mother’s clothes…’
deal with the passing of parents, here captured is that unique kind of loss that only those of us who have gone through it can explain.
Whilst the book could stand alone as a remarkable piece of art, I highly recommend checking out (and buying) the musical versions on Bandcamp below, the delicate mix of sustained string notes and punchy guitar bring the words to a vibrant life.
But, that is my words - of which if I had the time, I could write a thousand more - but perhaps the rest is best left to Caffy:
All of living life is poetry.
Prose-fusing words, poem laden views of Nature and eventually, poetic justice repeatedly salve and save our souls as we ‘Breathe Against The Hurricane’ of this grave new world.
Happy new… Oh. Wait. 2024 began too lost.
New Year’s Eve. In my home, we lit silent candles. Separated from crapitalism’s loudly tone-deaf explosions bombing us, outdoors, with colour but not yet death so that we can still wish the best all year (to most…)
Already blessed with that luxury of love, health, shelter, food and hope, here is another gift. A sinuous connection collection of self-expression articulating our unassembled collective feeling into self-healing.
The poems. The phrases. Clearing the ‘Anxiety Fog’ that had stifled my ability to write as the nightmares of reality took hold. Words as written friends that we escape with to build new reality.
The past few months have left many of us feeling helpless and hopeless as some of our equals are treated as worthless by others of our equals. Condoned, global sociopathic slaughter is beyond sane comprehension - it overloads deep depression in dystopia.
The robotic gloating of oppression over compassion is a heavy, cold grey mourning-mystery mist that clouds issues and hearts alike.
Are they all crazy? Are we all crazy?
A thinking, feeling world cannot unsee or unhear our daily infliction of harsh lessons but a shared instinct strengthen our hearts with a power that we can see, hear and feel through empathetic observations…
“And you can walk through the battlefields
Armoured
Protected
By your very essence”
(‘This Immortal Soil’)
The arts (of which Patrick Jones is a multimedia force of Nature) is truly a fabric of humanity.
We sing, dance, giggle and romance before we are fully conscious infants. Bless the life long childhood that poems form empowering relationships with.
Sculpting soul sparks into words, this flaming word star shares an audiovisual reflection of history’s most historic era with ‘Inviting The Light’.
The light accepted my invitation. My own words are coming back. I am…
“Unafraid to glow”