Oh to be scared.......

I want to be scared

 I’m fascinated by the ability to scare, to be scared. Sometimes my expectations are dashed by whatever it is I’ve seen or heard or read, if it has failed to achieve the desired effects. I fear that perhaps I raise the bar too high. There was another world, where being scared came easier, when the world wasn’t quite so black and white, where things seemed more opaque.

 No God, no afterlife, no consequences

 We believe in nothing, we fear nothing. We have nothing to fear from the dead for we know they can’t come back now. There’s no God so why worry about consequences? There’s no price to pay in the hereafter for we know there isn’t one. There is just the now, just here in the present, with the past firmly behind us and the future straight ahead.

 Are we starring in our own horror?

 Perhaps that’s the best horror film of all, the world we’ve created for ourselves, and we’re acting in our own technicolour screamfest, each one of us playing a starring role. And like the characters in those old horror flicks, we’ve no idea we’re being watched. We don’t know what’s lurking behind us or ahead of us until we hear ourselves scream.

 Life in the 21^st century – horror at its best

 

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”   Sigmund Freud

Unedau gwag

Mae tu mewn I fy mhen yn ngwag
mae tu mewn I fy mhen yn ddu
does ddim byd arall yna
dim synadiau
dim meddylion
dim byd ond tywyllwch
tristwch, dagrau,
meddyliwn hyll
meddyliwn ddu

Hedd Wyn

Hedd Wyn was born Ellis Humphrey Evans, a sheep farmer from Meirionnydd whose interest in poetry had led to several competition entries in the Eisteddfodau. He was the eldest of 11 children.  When the Great War came he joined the army along with nearly 300, 000 other Welshmen. He joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and within a month of joining he was killed in the Battle of Pilken Ridge. In the same year his poem Yr Arwr won the coveted chair, but as he'd been killed in battle the chair was simply draped in a black cloth as the audience was given the bad news. Yr Arwr has since been described as one of the best winners of the Eisteddfod in the 20th century. Most of his poems focused on the horrors of war, including Rhyfel (War) and Y Blotyn Du (The Black Spot). The name he chose for himself is Welsh for white peace.

Yr Arwr


WYLO anniddig dwfn fy mlynyddoedd
A'm gwewyr glyw-wyd ar lwm greigleoedd
Canys Merch y Drycinoedd - oeddwn gynt:
Criwn ym mawrwynt ac oerni moroedd.

(There aren't any great translations of this poem that I could find, if anyone knows of any I'd be grateful for a link)




Y Blotyn Du


Nid oes gennym hawl ar y ser,
Na'r lleuad hiraethus chwaith,
Na'r cwmwl o aur a ymylch
Yng nghanol y glesni maith.
Nid oes gennym hawl ar ddim byd,
Ond ar yr hen ddaear wyw;
A honno sy'n anhrefn i gyd
Yng nghanol gogoniant Duw

http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/wyn.htm

The Black Spot
We have no right to the stars,
Nor the homesick moon,
Nor the clouds edged with gold             
In the centre of the long blueness.
We have no right to anything
But the old and withered earth
That is all in chaos
At the centre of God's glory.

Hedd Wyn

Rhyfel

A gwaedd y bechgyn lond y gwynt,
 A'u gwaed yn gymysg efo'r glaw

"The shouts of the boys is in the wind
and their blood is mixed with the rain."


Gillian is a freelance writer and copywriter, her contact details are here www.taith.net/