Two Poems by Jonathan Edwards

On Going to See the Bears at The Wild Place Project, Bristol, and Not Seeing Them

The bears were there, splashed all across the website,
roaring from the map-cum-leaflet, bears
or pictures of them, next to the word BEARS!
which loudly named them. The direction signs
of local roads bore bears, and on the polo
shirts of volunteers, there: more bears.
The pictures of the bears? They’re big and brown,
they’re bear-like, looking out through their bear eyes,
those faces you might look at and think Bears
and yes, you would be right. Across the hut
you buy a ticket from to see the bears
are many, many photos of bears. But

when we walk through the forest where they are
they aren’t, the bears. When we walk through the forest
that’s called The Big Bear Forest for God’s sake,
and we stand up there on the viewing platform
that’s called The Big Bear Viewing Platform, we
look really hard and we view this: no bears.
The afternoon is not a total loss:
if you look through the trees and squint a bit
and make a wish you may (or you may not)
just make out one dark space or one brown blob,
which may or may not turn its head right now.
In the day which my imagination

offered me, the bears were climbing trees,
were frolicking and rolling on their backs
like overgrown puppies, this one holding
the day right out on the palm of its hand
so I could just reach out and take it. Now,
late afternoon, sun coming through the clouds,
illuminating that brown patch we’ve all
been staring at all day, we see it here
at last. We hold our breath. That far away,
it could be tree stump and it could be bear.
Now, from the edge of the viewing platform,
a little boy is pointing. There! Look! There!

Richey Edwards Driving Home, February 1995

The car is snug with the warmth of the heater
and his body. Raindrops
do their dot-to-dot
on the windscreen, the wipers
play their backing track. His passport rests
on the passenger seat with tablets, a pile
of books. London

is behind him; mile after mile
appears, disappears in the cinema vérité
of the rear view. He gives himself to the certainty
of driving, makes
a drum kit of the steering wheel
with his fingers, sings along badly to all
his heroes. Now he grips the wheel

tight: a lorry
flutters its eyelashes at him,
overtakes. At the toll booth,
the teller looks at him once,
twice: he conjures a fistful
of change from the pocket
of his jeans and he’s

through, the time-stamped receipt
on the floor of the car. He rubs his eyes, sees
the sign for the services, but keeps
right on, in fact speeds up:
at the last moment, he cuts
across three lanes, towards
Little Chef, Shell. Here,

the car park is
almost deserted, WH Smith
selling darkness, the closed coffee shop’s
line of tables where no one
talks to no one about loneliness
all night. He lifts
a bottle of Smirnoff

from the glove box, steps out, carefully
locks the door behind him, pockets
the key, hitches
his jeans. His jacket
isn’t thick enough in all this
cold: he folds his arms, perhaps
grins a little. As he walks away,

he is already
male, Caucasian, twenty-seven,
last seen wearing… and these
are his footsteps – here, here –
crossing the car park now,
in the direction of this awful night,
this streetlit wind, and this forgetful rain.

Jonathan Edwards's first collection of poems, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and his poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2019. He received the Troubadour Prize in 2022. Jonathan lives in Crosskeys, South Wales, and is an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund.