This first one is influenced by Charlie Mark's post about the Prison Officers Union's call for a General Strike.
It is a part of Idris Davies' long poem Gwalia Deserta
Do you remember 1926?
Do you remember 1926? That summer of soups and speeches,
The sunlight on the idle wheels and the deserted crossings,
And the laughter and the cursing in the moonlit streets?
Do you remember 1926? The slogans and the penny concerts,
The jazz bands and the moorland picnics,
And the slanderous tongues of famous cities?
Do you remember 1926? The great dream and the swift disaster,
The fanatic and the traitor, and more than all,
The bravery of the simple, faithful folk?
'Ay, ay, we remember 1926,' said Dai and Shinkin,
As they stood on the kerb in Charing Cross Road,
'And we shall remember 1926 until our blood is dry.'
As the recent news from the Eisteddfod demonstrate, mixing poetry and prose can be fatal.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember 1926,
ReplyDeletebut you certainly will...
you were probably in your sailor suit, am I right? ;-)
My contribution, Alwyn
ReplyDeleteThe Bloggers' Dance
Are you still dancing
Across the pages of the Web,
Where thought spins ever-decreasing circles,
And words spill like matchsticks
On empty ears?
Whatever happens to those words
Scattered in poetic juxtaposition,
And strewn around the archives of the blogs
Which flame and fall like shooting stars
And then expire?
Or are you dancing to a different tune,
Where words and thoughts do not proliferate,
Where dance becomes the vehicle
Of the soul, and so inflames the being
With lust for life?
Alan
We blogged on Idris Davies last year:
ReplyDeletehttp://cardiffrespect.blogspot.com/2007/07/socialism-proposes-transformation-of.html
And some other choice cutlets:
http://cardiffrespect.blogspot.com/search/label/poetry
In solidarity,
The LEFT Alternative
What about the Welsh Red Poets - they have some excellent stuff
ReplyDeleteand of course Graeme Davies