The Ring by Gwyn Parry

See that field,

in ’39 a Heinkel crashed,

 

the bodies

scattered amongst the turnips

 

their uniforms

grey as morning.

 

I was the first there,

was just 29.

 

I looked through bits of wing and wire,

the Germans all dead.

 

I knelt down on my knees

and see this ring,

 

I wiggled it

from the pilot’s finger,

 

took it home

in my hankerchief,

 

cleaned off

the mud and the blood,

 

put it on

my little finger,

 

where late at night

it burned

 

my tongue a knot

of strange language,

 

shame

winking

 

from all corners

of the room.

 

by Gwyn Parry

That Summer by Emyr Humphreys

There was nothing to help us

Trapped in that ornamental summer

By sunlight and ubiquitous foreboding; the tides

The pebbles indifferent to our sore feet

Told us nothing: banner headlines

Congealed those lukewarm fish and chips.

 

From where we stood to the horizon

The future stretched like a brooding canvas

Awaiting a blood stained brush. There were rocks

and groundsheets to sleep on, nowhere to go.

Only the tanks knew where to assemble.

 

Who would win who would lose

Whose corpse would hang on the wire

Would come later. The seagulls knew

More than we did as they wheeled above us

Like fighter bombers, their droppings

Illegible leafets, mobilising their screeches

As they crossed and recrossed concrete

Frontiers reinforced in the Underworld.

 

It didn’t need to happen. It shouldn’t

But it would. Limbs still free

Twitched with the urge to run: the sea

Was a threat not a refuge: the sky

Was closing in. We could only turn and face

The mouth of the tunnel: only wait

For the machine to emerge and howl

On our behalf as it ran us down.

 

by Emyr Humphreys

Gurnos Shops by Mike Jenkins

An emaciated tree

clinging to its blackened leaves,

the wind snuffles chip-cartons.

 

The road’s an aerial view

of dirt-dragging streams,

its scabs peeled off by tyres.

 

Clouds collect exhaust-fumes.

A man takes his beer-gut for a walk,

his wife follows on a lead unseen.

 

They won’t climb up on plinths

where benches ought to be

and pose like shop-dummies.

 

Lamp-posts droop their nightly heads,

strays will do the watering.

Graffiti yells, but nobody’s listening.

 

by Mike Jenkins

In A Country Church by R. S. Thomas

To one kneeling down no word came,

Only the wind’s song, saddening the lips

Of the grave saints, rigid in glass;

Or the dry whisper of unseen wings,

Bats not angels, in the high roof.

 

Was he balked by the silence? He kneeled long,

And saw love in a dark crown

Of thorns blazing, and a winter tree

Golden with fruit of a man’s body.

 

by R. S. Thomas

From Song At The Year’s Turning (1955)

Love (III) by George Herbert

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.

‘A guest’, I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.’
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’

‘Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.

 

by George Herbert (1593 – 1633)

I Have Longed To Move Away by Dylan Thomas

I have longed to move away

From the hissing of the spent lie

And the old terrors’ continual cry

Growing more terrible as the day

Goes over the hill into the deep sea;

I have longed to move away

From the repetition of salutes,

For there are ghosts in the air

And ghostly echoes on paper,

And the thunder of calls and notes.

 

I have longed to move away but am afraid;

Some life, yet unspent, might explode

Out of the old lie burning on the ground,

And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.

Neither by night’s ancient fear,

The parting of hat from hair,

Pursed lips at the receiver,

Shall I fall to death’s feather.

By these I would not care to die,

Half convention and half lie.

 

by Dylan Thomas

Calling by R. S. Thomas

The telephone is the fruit

of the tree of the knowledge

of good and evil. We may call

everyone up on it but God.

 

To do that is to declare

that he is far off. Dialling

zero is nothing other

than the negation of his presence.

 

So many times I have raised

the receiver, listening to

that smooth sound that is technology’s

purring; and the temptation

 

has come to experiment

with the code which would put

me through to the divine

snarl at the perimeter of such tameness.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Experimenting with an Amen (1986)