Aneirin Byron

Bard of Gwarchodwr

Out of town, on the hill above, Aneirin Byron slams the shutters wide. Ty Bach, his tiny cell, his only rest, one room to sleep, one room to live. Another of the name, behind the byre, the strawbox, secret, one to visit. He breathes the morning like the vanishing mist. Inward air rustles papers on his wooden desk.

Here his late-night offerings to his muse, his waxed and waning words, scribble on the page, yet to be ordered, or pass from mumble to meaning, from meaning to wisdom, or rise into beauty, breathtaken beauty, a sigh on the tongue, a song.

Looking down, as Byron must, his keen imagination like angel wings carries him over the town. His mind’s eye traces street, lane and stairway, over roofs of slate and shingle, the baked pantile, the tinshack sheet, sad-wood rafters poking out beyond repair.

Writer's Digest

I am a poet.
Such is my resolution,
My hope,
Or maybe destiny.
I write to pass the word.
I catch the slogans that fall from billboards.
The wine of language is a sour cup
And, when we drink the medium dry,
What speech remains but advertising,
Little breaks in the winds of change,
Testimony to our monumental creed.

If I am a poet,
I am one of many
Wasting words with every uncharted thought.
In my study,
In my throne room,
I strain away, cathartic,
Reading toiletries for inspiration
In the shackles of perforated paper chains
In an autumn of Izal leaves.

Too Many Things Are Done

After all the wisdom of our ages
The same souls rise
From silted dust to smirk,
Arms folded across guns,
Hands blood-red in the light…

Hands…

…behind masks of piety
…fashion death's-heads…
…clutch half-read holy scripture…

All the sad apostles. the unheard prophets,
Are leaving heaven, ghosts now,
Leaving in their shame.

By Ice Purified

February, the cauterized month,
Stems the old year’s bleeding.

Drag-marks in the snow:
The wings of birds’ or angels’
Feverish searching…

Beginning is for later;
Time has ended.

For the dead past, to remember it,
Some stain the earth.
Grim epitaphs, flushed and livid,
Too many schemes, too many ploys,
Rub against each other
And the dirty gravel roads
Jostle the skyline.