I by Mike Jenkins

I is the biggest word

in the English language –

some people yawn bored

as soon as you mention it.

 

I know people who erect crosses

made from it

and then refuse to carry them.

 

I know people who would

like to keep changing it

every week like fashionable clothing.

 

I know people who hate it so much

it’s become an obcession,

like a priest always ranting against sin.

 

In English, ‘I’ begins the sentence:

the other words queue up behind it

waiting for their instructions.

 

You must write ‘I’ with a capital letter.

but ‘we’ with a small one.

Why? … well… as in God and Great Britain.

 

i know a person who tried to make it

mock itself, to disguise an ambition.

i know a person who thinks it will outlive

the exploring body, the inflated mind.

 

by Mike Jenkins

from Empire of Smoke

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Capel Calvin by Idris Davies

There’s holy holy people

They are in capel bach –

They don’t like surpliced choirs,

They don’t like Sospan Fach.

 

They don’t like Sunday concerts,

Or women playing ball,

They don’t like William Parry much

Or Shakespeare at all.

 

They don’t like beer or bishops,

Or pictures without texts,

They don’t like any other

Of the nonconformist sects.

 

And when they go to Heaven

They won’t like that too well,

For the music will be sweeter

Than the music played in Hell.

 

by Idris Davies