N J Griffiths

Category: Uncategorized

  • Update & Substack Link

    Hello to all those of you that frequent this blog and read the words I leave behind. I am gearing up to something at the moment, which I hope will be published in the next year. Until then, I will be posting here and on my Substack.

    All my love,

    Nia

  • Snow

    Small hands, clasped

    up to reach my cheeks,

    bursting through decades

    of understanding. I know

    what she doesn’t, she knows

    what I cannot. The

    funeral, the ashes and 

    the hair, and all the years

    between us. Think of this,

    girl, and the silence we’ll

    both leave behind us.

    © Nia Jane Griffiths 2024

  • Sea Bed

    I float above the sea
    you fled, I watch the waves,
    I bend to catch what’s left.
    I break. It doesn’t matter.

    I’m holding it inside my lungs
    I try to slow down, move
    only when I need to.
    I don’t. It doesn’t matter.

    Maybe this is power.
    I half believe that.
    I wanted to drown in you.
    If I did, it doesn’t matter.

    © All rights reserved. Nia Griffiths 2022.

  • Aftermath

    Skies stretch over nothing. 
    Truth barrelling down at you, 
    white light and brazen beyond
    God – when was the last time? 

    Words and silence arrive to
    splutter the guts of the matter over me.
    It was not you, not duality,
    not love, not secrets.
    Time bends and, softly,
    reveals. 

    Midnight did not bring
    your first sighting, Puss,
    nor give the Owl his wings.
    You are the sum of every hidden
    moment and only half its 
    part, now. 

    Words and silence bind you up, 
    sentenced to myth and past.
    There is just you, not duality, 
    not love, not secrets. 

    A loss of time, now fraction
    found. 

    © All rights reserved. Nia Griffiths 2020.

  • Freudenberg

    That grey-scale paperweight town still

    lies heavy on my mind.

    Thrust upon an ocean of gold

    and cherry leaves, it stood silent

    and unfinished;

    an outline of houses made with

    oil-black ink

    waiting for the warmth of

    paint.

    Some will tell you

    that if you head east

    towards the sun-warmed hills,

    the sketched out town will

    stare you down;

    row after row

    of asymmetric triplets,

    watching.

    I remember looking in,

    from afar.

    Thinking that the people there

    must echo the measured monochrome;

    tiny paper beings of

    ink, and soot.

    Or, if they didn’t,

    that it would be my task

    to turn to ash.

  • Playing Ball

    If he wants it,

    we’ll play coy with coloured

    pictures. Fill the open space

    like hungry ants. Invite the boys with 

    cameras round. No phones.

     

    If he wants it,

    we’ll whisper on untapped lines

    while we show them the 

    school again. Our great defence.

    Walls, lost in translation,

    line the room like towers.

     

    If he wants it,

    we’ll crawl into the ground

    and scatter; mice who know

    the call of an owl

    hunting too far to fly

    back home.

     

    If he wants it,

    we’ll burn like forest fires

    light our skin like peppered oil

    just to see it spread.

     

    © All rights reserved. Nia Griffiths 2019 .

  • Colours

    The man, after all of it, 

    watched on. Colours shimmered 

    in the blue of his eyes, 

    free of that darkened hue.

    He grinned a giant’s grin, 

    felt calm, felt free. 

    He, at last, saw himself

    reflected in minds and in hearts,

    in the memories of that perfect crowd ;

    of laughter

    of coffee shops

    of flowers deep in bloom 

    and of those tiny little moments that scatter into life. 

     

    © All Rights Reserved. Nia Griffiths 2019.

  • Bursting

    I watch him from above; 

    A tapestry of life rolling out

    on the tiny panel floor beyond.

     

    Through the darkness,

    I see his brows cloud over,

    pursing his lips with thought.

    I watch the tiny scattering moments,

     burst out, idly, into shadow.

     

    I clamber down into his world.

    I kiss his darkened eyes.

    If I could calm each voice and fingertip

    that curves his silent veins

    There would not be a word 

    that was not mine,

    nor a single undefined touch.

     

    To bring the sun in one perfect moment,

    one sweep of sugared salvation

    I’d give a universe of time.

    And yet my sacrifice is boxed

    And bound

    to short bursts of light

    alone.

     

    © All Rights Reserved. Nia Griffiths, 2019

  • Definitions

    I heard them in the park.

    After dark, two glass eyed women

    like forgotten trees, waiting.

    Through the silence their

    voices sang, floating the hills

    and swimming the valleys of my youth;

    winding the worn out path

    to me. I stood there,

    for a moment, almost alone.

    Thrust back to her voice.

    To all of their voices. Those

    women of steel

    of copper,

    of quilted pillows and quiet revolution,

    whose laughs could tear a mountain down,

    whose lightning  almost certainly had.

    In just a drop

    of their quilted voice,

    I could see the charcoaled skyline rise

    and fall before me like lifetimes;

    melodic and chaotic.

    I walked on. Past those

    almost forgotten fragments

    of home.

     

     

    Nia Griffiths, 2017

    © all rights reserved

  • Improv

    In the sway of the blues

    that followed,

    I think I remember

    a cry. Separate from the

    melody and in memory

    a beat

    which danced amongst

    the guitar strings.

     

    And if I were to listen

    closely,

    intimately,

    I think I might

    hear the bars,

    which surrounded it,

    pause;

     

    wait for some

    small thing

    that never quite

    returns.

     

    Nia Griffiths, 2017

    © all rights reserved