By David J. Costello
Plump with sheep,
and bigger than the sky,
a rill of ruin
spills its broken buildings
down the mountainside.
They tumble into braille
so you can read their story
in the rubble,
like a sunken ship
that manages to thrust its mast
above the waves
to warn the wary
of the wreckage underneath.
Somewhere in this desolation
lies a sheer and monumental cliff
that’s tilted to a headstone.
There’s no inscription
chiselled on its surface,
no reminder of what’s
buried deep beneath
and yet you know,
in Cwm Penmachno,
all they quarried there was grief.
___
David J. Costello lives in Wallasey, England. He is a member of Chester Poets and North West Poets. His publishing credits include Prole, Orbis, The Penny Dreadful, Shooter, Magma and Envoi. David is a previous winner of the Welsh International Poetry Competition and was also a prize-winner in the Troubadour International Poetry Prize. No Need For Candles is his most recent pamphlet from Red Squirrel Press. Read more at www.davidjcostellopoetry.com.