I was asked to contribute a poem for the anthology The Honest Forger published by cultue and democracy press. This was launched in Llantwit Major on March 7th 2026. As I was unable to attend, I recorded a filmed vsersion of the poem “Iolo Morganwg Goes Viral. Here it is….
Iolo Morganwg (1747-1826) goes viral
One coffee an hour
buys him peace and reflective quiet
here at his corner table at the back of Costa
where the wench at the counter and the boy
bussing tables have assured him that the sugar
is fairly traded and not from slave plantations.
If he angles himself sideways to the street
no-one can see the writings on his screen,
nor that he stirs, with every second cup,
laudanum into his skinny latte.
It was always noisy here;
the cattle market filling the high street,
the rattling of carts,
the cries of sheep and calves, arguments
over the price of yearlings and corn.
But this is also the roost of his imagination;
he is a crow who wheels above and away from the town,
over the castle, the drover’s way,
the London coach clattering down the Newport road.
And the laudanum takes away the mewling child
climbing its mother at the next table,
the roaring beasts and their noisy farmers,
the stench of shit and blood,
until he is off again walking the Flimston lanes
and looking out towards the grey sea.
There’s flames at Silstwn and a sea dragon rising up on its haunches,
Gwynfryn’s farm filling its open maw;
the second time it scorches the pastures up as far as Penllyn;
at its third appearance, on the shingle St Illtyd himself stands,
resolute before the beast, holding up the cross
he has fashioned from branches of yew.
He calls out the name of the Lord and then the Cymric saints.
The monster retreats, skulks back to Ireland,
beyond, perhaps as far as the Americas,
and is seen no more in these parts.
Only Iolo visions this, only he can record these happenings.
On the stone of the ancients
found in a field in Llanilltud Fawr, he has read the runes
and checked on Google.
Another tale from his land, polished like an Ogwr pebble,
wave-smoothed, made real on the screen.
He presses SEND.