The sleeping Welsh town once rose like Olympus

in stature, the air that came off the Irish Sea

pure and blessed

and whilst the salt combination of a world’s ocean

rocked against its brick stone valley girthed

and holiday hiding hole for many a child

from the docks of Liverpool

and the might of the Midlands’ industry,

Olympus now lays dormant.

 

Or so it appears as you scratch the surface of the giant,

its splendour not sleeping,

just neglected by those whose tastes have changed

beyond the picture postcard

of a Britain they believe to be stuck, immovable

outside the crazy golf as the slate grey

threatens a hole in one and the genuine thrill

of beating a whirring, wheeling windmill

and the groan of cup spun on its lip.

 

The laughter of children damned by a madhouse

in a country that dominates the thoughts

and the power slowly receding

from the gentleness of the gradient of the slope

that Nant Hill offers the serious and the stunning

and yet Olympus breathes, it stirs

and places the Priest’s belief that theirs is a heritage

worth preserving.

 

Prestatyn, a king in waiting, the lights of Liverpool

a connection lost in foggier times

but to whom the world calls out to,

for the only thing of value that the Victorian

society bought was the railway,

everything else in this stirring town

made the people who know their

beautiful home is but Olympus

in Wales.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015