All That I Owe the Fellows of the Grave

All that I owe the fellows of the grave
And all the dead bequeathed from pale estates
Lies in the fortuned bone, the flask of blood,
Like senna stirs along the ravaged roots.
O all I owe is all the flesh inherits,
My fathers' loves that pull upon my nerves,
My sisters tears that sing upon my head
My brothers' blood that salts my open wounds

Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop,
My fallen filled, that had the hint of death,
Heir to the telling senses that alone
Acquaint the flesh with a remembered itch,
I round this heritage as rounds the sun
His winy sky, and , as the candles moon,
Cast light upon my weather. I am heir
To women who have twisted their last smile,
To children who were suckled on a plague,
To young adorers dying on a kiss.
All such disease I doctor in my blood,
And all such love's a shrub sown in the breath.

Then look, my eyes, upon this bonehead fortune
And browse upon the postures of the dead;
All night and day I eye the ragged globe
Through periscopes rightsighted from the grave;
All night and day I wander in these same
Wax clothes that wax upon the ageing ribs;
All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet.
Then look, my heart, upon the scarlet trove,
And look, my grain, upon the falling wheat;
All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet.

Ever since I have watched The Edge of Love about Dylan Thomas' life during the Second World War I have since dug out my book of wee Welsh poems! In it I stumbled across All That I Owe The Fellows Of The Grave. It struck me today because after reading Jenah's blog here I am fully disillusioned with the world. Ok, ok, I was probably really disillusioned before, but I did come to realise this by reading this poem last night before work with a glass of (I would like to say wine but I was a classy bird and drunk a glass of...) Lambrini (leftover Christmas goods- it would lose its fizz if I didn't drink it!) He wrote this- what? Seventy years ago about a war that was "for good" to get rid of the "bad". Whether that war was right/wrong, necessary or not I am not venturing into. A lot of live lost, but with this thing going on in the Gaza strip... well, what can say? What has changed? How have we as human beings changed?

This poem I imagine in my head is how those families of the three little boys who had died and the sisters, and all the people killed in this mess feel... but I wonder when all those who have committed crimes will ever feel like this?

And almost as a post-script today I heard a little story from one of my colleagues who takes groups of visitors on tours. He took a group of Americans from the state of Georgia when 'prompted' by my colleague's comment of how our state works i.e. monarchy and parliament rather than a presidency as par of the tour, they made a solemn promise to him that they would kill the recently-elected-soon-to-be President Obama within six months. My colleague exclaimed he did not know what to say! He looked like he was munching on lemons from what I could tell. Again, the disillusionment I felt was staggering. In this age of 'liberalism', 'freedom' and 'modernity' we still uphold in some places in the world bigotry, stasis and evil. Exclamations of "gee you have them here too", to which the majority of us would say "Who?" I guess we can already guess the answer would be "n*****s", but the shock is not any the less. How much has this world changed? Really?

Answer: In many ways, lots, but in the fundamental ways we still ahve a long way to go, which the past week's news bulletins show. Disillusionment, sadness and pessimism summarise my feelings today.