in between drinks, at his cwmdonkin home,
dylan thomas means to complete his
light breaks where no sun shines
but in a flamboyantly theatrical moment, he sings,
as the pleasure bird whistles a welsh tune,
not of broken ghosts nor skinning gales,
this legend of pubs and posey cries out to nessa,
the dark beauty who haunts his sweet hell:
i am “man of my flesh, the jawbone riven.
know now the flesh’s lock and vice,
and the cage for the scythe-eyed raven,
know, o my bone, the jointed lever,
fear not the screws that turn the voice,
and the face of the driven lover.”
i “learnt man’s tongue,” he cries,
“to twist the shapes of thoughts into
the stony idiom of the brain.”
i learnt, he whispers, to cast out your black fears,
that you might hear symphonies
in your prayers.
come, nessa,
let us “go gentle into that good night.”
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