Tag Archives: Welsh verse forms

Random Theory: cyhydedd naw ban

No bright, bleeding edge technology
can by itself inspire us to see
beyond the limitations that bind
us to solutions posed by old minds,
gurus and mentors with rigid ways,
and coaches still running ancient plays.

The revolution cannot be fought
using hackneyed strategy still taught
in broken and ineffective schools,
who at best offer us simple tools.
We need to seek beyond the hammer;
relearn to speak using new grammar.

But in the end, no shortcut or device
grants understanding of work, or price,
nor strips away a rigid mindset;
artificial means are not there yet.
What must be done requires human acts
that integrate ideas and facts,
creating blueprints for the future, now,
out of something unknown, new, somehow.

To that creation, our tools and toys
may add flash, bells, whistles, and some noise
as mere ways for focusing the brain.
Our duty to thinking must remain
so that the choices we weigh and rank
leave in their outcomes, ourselves to thank.

And revolution, if it then comes,
some fresh distribution of stale crumbs
amongst the cannon fodder still here?
How it will change the world is unclear.
The only certainty is still death;
the randomness of life is what’s left.

16 FEB 2017

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Our Sum: clogyrnach

What a world this one’s become:
to have begun both deaf and dumb,
then learn of singing,
the art of bringing
love winging;
see it come!

Who needs make-believe, I wonder,
when there’s rain, lightning and thunder
that illuminates,
feeds our dreams and fates,
tears our states
asunder.

What a world both past and now:
the evidence that we, somehow,
will someday arrive,
and may yet survive;
we’re a live,
precious bough.

Who would destroy the great balance
that gave to us this fighting chance
to mature and grow,
to be sure and know?
Such death slows
all life’s dance.

What a world this one’s become:
we trade love songs for battle drums,
spend our lives dying,
no longer trying;
denying
our parts’ sum.

10 FEB 2017

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A Thing Survives: byr a thoddaid

So: can a thing survive a fall,
then lift itself enough to crawl
from where it lands to some safe place, to heal
and hide its bruised, scarred face

until the foe that pushed it down
has doubt it ever was around,
then too late, as the counterstrike arrives,
regrets its choice to leave a thing alive?

26 JAN 2017

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Morning Breath: awdl gywydd

Through the mist of dawn it slips,
on its lips a whispered sigh
that echoes through the damp air.
Almost not quite there, it flies

between the slow waking trees
whose rough knees, still stiff with night,
begin their conversation, too –
with morning’s blue everywhere.

11 JAN 2017

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A Screen Door of Perception: a cywydd llosgyrnog

Perspective can be a strange thing.
Much like a worm on a string
or wind that sings through the trees,
it twists and turns this way and that
and doesn’t settle or grow fat,
standing pat or as you please.

Don’t try to grasp a hold of it;
you’ll be convinced to up and quit.
You may as well knit warm steam
or reconcile the night and day.
Besides, the tricks the light will play
at their best may be just dreams.

To see a thing for what it is!
To somehow think this some great bliss,
you sadly miss the whole view.
Without the real horizon line
that demarcates yours and mine,
how will you find what is true?

11 DEC 2012

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Speech Between the Fallen – a cywyyd deuair hyrion

Must I explain it once more?

Try hard to fight the boredom
that most likely will ensue
the moment you think useless
any viewpoint but your own,
and on your cragged and stony
field, let germinate a seed
of mine. I am not pleading
with you; I have friends enough
without you: fine and tougher
allies than you’ll ever make,
trees that strong winds have shaken
but whose roots remain well sunk.

This no rambling, drunken
speech from one who laughs too loud;
nor cryptic verse of clouded
rhyme enmeshed with metaphor.

I’ve said it now so poorly
that it makes no sense at all.

How low we both have fallen!

10 Dec 2012

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The Starting Point – a cywydd deuair fyrion

What matters most,
do you suppose,
at living’s end
when these doors close:

the riches cached,
the virgins wooed,
the years achieved,
the sins eschewed?

Or is it all
a pointless ruse,
that defeats all –
no win or lose,

a moment’s span
that simply goes,
regardless of
the path you chose,

into the mist
where none can see:
the starting of
eternity?

10 DEC 2012

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