The lonely chapel of Soar Y Mynydd

could be the centre of our country

at least my version of it

the guns of the spare neighbouring farms

twitchiness around their triggers

lest another gun returns

let us acknowledge our killers

for they are of us

and not so different

our trajectories leading to

opposing outcomes

and while we’re facing our violent past

let’s recall our battle sites

not lauded

though they’re here

over a gate or a hedge

under a centuries-deep carpet

down a dip

off a minor road

with the signs deliberately changed

to the wrong direction

we fought too

we died too

but our sacrifices don’t count

in the toxic pre-Brexit empire

those mysterious mounds

those straight roads

the many narrow ways home

this is my country

you can have it

Watching Spanish football

on TV in a bar

a new form of guttural expression

that language that explodes

I’d been at the minibar

the waiter says he doesn’t

remember

Guernica

and the lost mass graves

of the vanquished

including my ancestor

Rhondda miner

Jutland stoker

medal winner

hillside boxer

circus bear wrestler

Civil Warrior

fighting for democracy

with his hands

and hand tools

murdered in Bilboa prison

by guards retaliating

against the last impassioned

throw of his knuckles

I drink alone in a Malaga bar

recalling the bare bones

of this story I was told

when I was a boy

dreaming of another dream republic

a better tomorrow

Ymhlith y sgrinau sy'n tynnu sylw

y celwyddau sy'n chwedlau

sy'n gelwyddau

yn gwastraffu degawdau

bywydau pobl sy ddim

mynd i oroesi'r dyfodol

paid meddwl amdanaf fel clerc

neu swyddog

ney cynghorwr

neu gweinyddwr

neu diawl dof y Llywodraeth

dw i'n was i'r ser

y lleuad

y mor

a'r haul

y byd heb nenfwd

bugail clustiau'r gwenith

yn symud mewn awel gymedrol

fel neidr yn nesau at ei amcan

The post office is not where it used to be

but the original building still stands

now with a different purpose

with the proud insignia of its past

betraying its creation myth

the clocks not synchronised

at midnight on New Year

everything playing at once

nothing changes

Jimmy Jangles has been a has been

and now does not know where he is

he hates days when there is no

scheduled postal delivery

and that some men think

of lesbians only in voyeuristic terms

he has failed to download the app

of elegies he required

so he finds himself

rearranged out of the town

in which he was born

walking a triangle of sodden fields

to the nods of starlings

Unsuspected cemetery

its thousand year sand graves

sifted away by storm

revelation

they had lived clasped

by the shore

and by the sea

vigorous and self-assured

that margin

on their oceanic trade routes

of exchanged objects

and the latest news from

beyond the dolphin-drawn horizons

of kings and their retinues

the gossip of far-flung tribes

precious stones and

famous sunsets

the bones of the infants

unusually survived

loved in the cuddle

of the cist

laid down with seared hearts

they said their toes pointed inwards

bunched that way

by the embrace of

disappeared shrouds