BEETHOVEN
A memory within music,
a ripening
with vineyards overgrown,
and your mind’s ear in tune;
alert with days
you look through a small window
at strangers,
the relentless wave-pulse,
uncorked knowledge
on a journey
through a territory
where time gathers
shards of meaning.
A frustration of the heart’s
burning sound,
your quiet breath of power
blurring with the grey rain.
SEA MUSIC
A neolithic land
drowned by the early
rising sea.
The legend of church
bells that ring
on calm evenings
beneath the waves of Cardigan Bay.
The fertile cousins
in Europe,
a genealogy of tales,
Holland’s dyke and the submerged
cathedral off the Breton coast,
with Debussy’s thoughts
listening for the music
to his piano prelude.
YELLOW
A change in the weather
like salt on ice.
Eyes close and the day
ticks away like sleep
and half-remembered dreams.
Threatening rattles,
voices beneath lids,
the wind is heavy
against the walking figure.
The girl in the yellow dress
toes the water,
her face is new
and free of windows.
She takes her age seriously
but the silence is frightening
like a lost rainbow.
BONNARD’S WINDOW
An enduring landscape
outside a Mediterranean house
entered with sunshine and shade,
arranged the furniture of the mind
by waking the morning’s mirror
in the early calm of day.
Yellow mimosa, maroon-
pink, apple-green, those blossoming
jewels stroked from nature
inside the hush of interiors,
a sensual medley of brush work
for the key of iridescent light.
Byron Beynon lives in Wales. His work has appeared in several publications including The Adelaide Literary Magazine, The London Magazine, North of Oxford, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales, Grey Sparrow and the human rights anthology In Protest (University of London and Keats House Poets). Collections include Cuffs (Rack Press) and The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions). A selection of his work is forthcoming from Moonstone Press (Philadelphia), entitled A View from the Other Side.