Welsh Journals

TOWN AND he watched from the cat-eyed bell-turret The sea-smokes and the flat town under them, The sheety roofs half-blessed by this faint blue Glove of mist, gently touching the Welsh flanks Of distant hills with long divided fingers; And the dome-leads, and the shining copper cocks Circling the milky bulk of tomb-like towered clock. Coal-smoke steamed across the byard-crested Ploughland of the near streets and roofs Patterned with a formal dew of slums. St. Mark's spire was a sharpened pencil, Towered Trinity a four-fanged tooth reversed, St. Paul's a ball and cross beneath a crowsfoot Lightning conductor. Southward towards The edgeless sea six infant orange stacks Issued in a row their sheepish smokes, A soft snort of grey like human breath. Huge and brilliant on their snowy tower Against the wipe of sun, gleamed the brass numbers And the sworded face of that gigantic four faced clock, The burning morning oval of its rim. Great cats dangled on their bannered wick, The lemon lions of the marquis stir Under the menace of black-breasted clouds. GLYN JONES. LAUGHARNE PASTORAL THE concrete under gale, the field, the pattern All vanish stark nightmares begin The lovesick slave lurks behind what's certain, At home a heavy tramp walks to the barn. Harlequins the layers of dreams, unfurled The people who go to make my world, The circling valley swarms with ghosts, Explosions in the head, the first, the worst.