Dic Dywyll by Mike Jenkins

I have banished God

further than the Antipodes

since my so-called accident.

He was the owner

of those mills of death,

his manager the old Cholera.

The preaching of Cheapjack remedies:

holding up heaven as a cure.

 

They took my eyes

and struck them

into cannon-balls.

My mask and its perpetual night

is known to the pit-ponies.

 

Crossing the Iron Bridge

I hear the river’s voice

bring tune to my ballads,

the hooves of canal-horses

count beats and pauses come

as I breathe the welcome wind

from the west and eventual sea.

 

Night arrives and they all

share my mask: punchy drunkards,

rousing rebels and laughing ones

who sup to conquer daytime.

 

My daughter is the blackbird

giving flames to the begging hearth

of our basement with her song;

and I am the owl, I turn

to face their sufferings,

call them out to chase away

the chimney’s shadows. Masters

I magic to mice

under the death’s-head moon.

 

by Mike Jenkins

from Invisible Times

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Fun fact: Richard Williams, better known as Dic Dywyll (Blind Dick) but also sometimes as Bardd Gwagedd (The Bard of Folly) was a renowned ballader in nineteenth century Merthyr, who was blinded working at the Crawshay ironworks. His daughter, Myfanwy, was immortalised in Joseph Parry‘s song.

This link gives you a little bit more information about Dic Dywyll if you’re interested: http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-WILL-RID-1790.html

 

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‘Let Any, Who Will, Still Bask In The South…’ by Anna Akhmatova

“You are with me once more, Autumn my friend!”

Annensky

 

Let any, who will, still bask in the south

On the paradisal sand,

It’s northerly here – and this year of the north

Autumn will be my friend.

 

I’ll live, in a dream, in a stranger’s house

Where perhaps I have died,

Where the mirrors keep something mysterious

To themselves in the evening light.

 

I shall walk between black fir-trees,

Where the wind is at one with the heath,

And a dull splinter of the moon will glint

Like an old knife with jagged teeth.

 

Our last, blissful unmeeting I shall bring

To sustain me here –

The cold, pure, light flame of conquering

What I was destined for.

 

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (1957)

from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)

translation by D. M. Thomas