ruins in runes
for a ruin the tide has gone out
never to return the smile of sky
the epithet of the souls of men
and of women whose days were happy
there where the building carried truth
life lived as perchance directed
now ruins run with their tears
tides of their lives no more
the times of their lives
but of an execution
by slow strangulation
two feet meet in a wet yard in april
write sunday in welsh rain
and dare the sun to erase
the shining slab-stones
to warm the dripping benches
pining far across the yard’s memory
of a voice saying ‘come on’
rising in the spring from yesterday’s hills
a seed sits and asks your blessing
for tomorrow’s bloom is simply this
reflections on the reflection of a sculpture
is the reflection of a sculpture still the sculpture
does the shape of a sculpture change with its reflection
is that change the same as the changing reflection
angles can be hidden angels
closing one eye and then the other
changes the perspective momentarily
is the sculpture what it was
or is it what it seems to be
asking what is permanently
in this reflection the sculpture comes to life
without reflection the sculpture is a still life
or is it alive and it is we who are dead certain
on our way to a decision that is irrelevant to the sculptor
in whose hands the truth must ultimately abide
i have had this feeling but i cannot tie it down yet
and yet …
the ghost train
rising unbidden such memories as these
that shook wild their carriages of rage
where youth hard rode their hopes far down
and multi-coloured those long days of dull brocade
enjoying a visit to a national trust garden
until the thought buds
whose sweat paid for this
and which slummed worker died
early in mercantile’s cruel algorithm
for the enrichment of these few acres far from
the squalor that has composted the shit
to feed the manor’s benevolence
to quench any remorse
that might enflame
an elite’s smile
a poem by r s thomas
and as always with this man’s words
the gentle side of hardship is held vacant
on an age frozen to the hillside of
the walk we are all on and we stand
for a moment to reflect on what it is
that we know and what we wish we knew
as this man’s words we know and trust
to stop everything in its tracks
even the cold rain on the ageless stones
and the trees of life that bow closest to death
as the sun upon a gravestone with flowers
at the foot of our longing for more
grimm’s tales
those books of dark tales
half in the light half in the shade
we aged didn’t we
although we denied it
the cover of the cloth book
imprinted forever
knuckled white into dark recesses
we knew the end
and it never changed
however many times
