Gilestone Standing Stone
the map tells me
not much
(there are so many megaliths
hereabouts)
on the point of giving up
there
it is
three metres tall
girthy
like a pollarded oak
its reason
now lost in depopulation
maybe
it was erected here for its view of the Usk
a satirical set up
an eighteenth century joke
which is how more decisions are made
than one might think
we are so pathetic
our need to figure things out
be gulled be a sook
presumption of meaning
is one of our worst traits
Gareth Writer Davies: Hawthornden Fellow (2019). Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (2014 and 2017) and the Erbacce Prize (2014). Commended in the Prole Laureate Competition (2015) and Prole Laureate for 2017. Commended in the Welsh Poetry Competition (2015) and Highly Commended in 2011. His pamphlet Bodies was published in 2015 followed by Cry Baby in 2017, The Lover’s Pinch in 2018, The End in 2019 and Wysg in 2022.