Dim Haul Dros Gleision (No Sun Over Gleision)

There was no sun that day
when four miners lights went out for good;
the cave mouth stretched into an endless hymn
as hawks and kinder birds carved the sky
to guide spirits to their rest.
Heroes of an unforgiving underworld,
the earthly tomb,
kingdom of the black.
While I and all of Wales tipped hands to God
four blinded roots were pulled
and the red dragon's one lifted claw
was raised a little higher in honour of the men.
Gartref bois! Home!
From the eyeless santuary of the pit
to the Valleys call,
our father's land
where you will have the symphony of a nation's hearts
to sing you to your rest,

A bydd yr haul ddim farw nawr...
(and the sun won't die now)

@ Steven Francis poems 2011

In loving memory of Phillip Hill, Charles Breslin, David Powell and Garry Jenkins, rest in peace my Welsh brothers. Hedd Perfaith Hedd.

To Find Love In A Smal Town

Hatchet strikes spread the news
of ambulances and caravans,
to saturate the Malibu screen
and lubricate the laughter machine.
No rainbow'd fleet to dull phlemgy eyes
as petrol haired lolitas stroll in hotpants
and sip abonimable liquor.

For me, just me, the only me,
I brew in dented scuttles and absinthe bouts,
waiting for jester jawed serpents to ignite my illicit needle.
Infinite gore baptising comorant still heads
where concrete innards slop like suet
and I lay at the mercy of erect bone.

Unholy ideas of gangrene princes
set the world alight as bloody illuminations
are hoisted onto film in primal fits,
in codeine headlights,
to pluck nails from their rootsand
and drum until audiences are shellfish mad...

@ Steven Francis poems 2011