Welsh Journals

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Bethania THE curlews call tonight in carnal jest: The sun of day is dying in the West. dying from the vaulted sea caves Where riddling venoms Lash the disharmonic wits of men To a myriad spawn. -while twilight furies gash the salted doom And gibe the flood of arid sorrows Distilled in decimation Through knuckles of the creviced claw. -dying from the small town alleys Where barren skulls prate to an ageless infancy, Erect a poise beneath the chapel tombstone, Or crave a bended fear before a foreign pox. -while crooked fingers lean from ingles Noosing vapid idleness With dreams of goosebed gilt, magnetising Children pincered unto putrefaction. -dying from the mountains' ridges Whence wrinkled passions Strung kneeling fortune to the furtive stars In days dimmed within dust. — while mesmeric songs of dragon joy Lie motionless beneath this moon of midnight Viper-hoaxed. The sun of day is dying with a zest: The curlews take tomorrow from the West. JOHN LEGONNA.