GET THROUGH I imagine myself inside an Edward Hopper panting, sitting in a diner alone and motionless, the black coffee getting cold, waiting for something within me to change when suddenly the atmosphere eases and I hear a trumpet sound played by a lean, cool Chet Baker embracing my silent mood, reaching out across the evening shadows, touching my sleeve, taking me along with those strong adjectives of music which climb and soar above the oppressive streets and traffic, telling me calmly of a way to get through. ON TOUR With one glimpse Keats manages to catch in a June letter the Welsh mountains, his motion of days on tour, moving swiftly northwards he remembers Lancaster with its cacophony of shuttles, a transition brought by new experiences of activity, an action travelling forwards in thought. AN AFTERNOON IN THE PLACE DES VOSGES After the vortex of Parisian streets and traffic, we sat inside the calm square where lunch-hour workers relaxed and fledgling infants played near a peaceful museum, once Victor Hugo's house. Days that are windows reflecting the supreme air of spring, as an incorrigible bird sang its unrehearsed notes with an admired optimism. THE WINDOW The continuous search for the room with a view, to wake one morning clear-headed with naked eyes to witness the promise of a breathing landscape, optimistic yellow, garden-mint green, peaks of orange. I’d watch the delivery of colours, listen to a delicious language echo from purple hills, words pausing on a table-top as the sensuous air embraced the limbs of the trees, a prepared windowpane clearing itself like the tone of a determined voice. FORT CORNWALLIS, PENANG The heat of an afternoon enters with a trade of tourists; conception's myth entertained by a deliberate pose near a barrel's erect eye filled with flowers. Within a defensive wall rebuilt by convicts you can sense the swell of commands, perspiration draining from captured pores, a pungent aroma of sea breath, the sway of lost time, thinking of families they'd never see again. An uneasy warmth stalks the mind like a predator, about to flare up, poised to strike an oppressive blow.
“Byron Beynon coordinated Wales’s contribution to the anthology Fifty Strong (Heinemann). His work has featured in several publications including Agenda, Quadrant, Wasafiri, Cyphers, The London Magazine, Nixes Mate Review (Boston), Poetry Wales, English: Journal of the English Association, and the human rights anthology In Protest (University of London and Keats House Poets). Several collections, including The Echoing Coastline (Agenda) and Where Shadows Stir (The Seventh Quarry Press) which was launched at the birthplace of Dylan Thomas, Swansea in February 2023.”