BYRON BEYNON - POEMS

Byron Beynon lives in Swansea, Wales. His work has appeared in several publications including Agenda, London Magazine, Poetry Wales, Poetry Ireland, Crannog and The Yellow Nib. Collections include Cuffs (Rack Press), The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions) and Nocturne in Blue (Lapwing Publications, Belfast).

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IN THE RAIN
​

​For long hours the horses have stood
in the rain,
in landscapes washed
by a stained canvas of sky,
quenched grass, a bruised green,
they occupy a torso of field
knowing the squall of the day will pass,
the focus of their stare
beyond hedges shaped by the wind;
from the Bucephalus of history
they sense ancestors at wars,
loaded carts and carriages pulled
through mud,
a focus within art,
the racing-reelers of cinema,
each eye haunted by echoes of arid plains
as the jewelled water exudes over them.
 
 

THE COAST NEAR COLLIOURE
​

​The distorted triangles of canvas
billow towards a nameless horizon.
The sea is alive,
an energy of unguarded motion
as the profusion of land
views the scene
with a fierce hunger.
It has already experienced
the weather of time,
unflinchingly it stares
beyond the breath of sky.
Seasons continue to visit here,
while the brush's churning
rhythms understands
the treachery of ebb and flow
brought by the perceptible tides.
 

AT KEATS HOUSE
​

​That fresh and calm May
he’d free from his imagination
the nightingale’s speaking radiance
with words settled and relaxed
on summer’s high wing;
surrounded by a fertile geography,
thoughts on fine weather,
health and books,
all written down in a warm letter
to his only sister that first
Saturday of the month,
he galvanised towards a positive vintage,
the mood drawn out like a thorn.
 
 

THE RESTAURANT
​

​Lingering on this tropical esplanade
I watch at low tide
the restaurant of mud
that softly feeds the waterbirds.
The second day of a Queensland winter
in a humid, rich June
as the carriage of the pelican
rests, shares the fizzy ground
with the straw-necked ibis
plodding his stilts
through the devouring
smell of the sea.

​THE RED LEAVES

​ 
The first red leaves of a Keatsian autumn,
a draught like fire piercing
the dawning air.
They will soon be gone,
beyond the jigsaw of branches,
spent sparks within a creative forge.
Already the unique days
are losing the race,
as individual melodies
fragrant with colour,
scent the hungering wind
as it jingles
a demanding score
that faces the dispossessed horizon,
an impulse of motion
that continued unseen.