Dylan Thomas

Suite Ste. Luce 1-4 /14

Empress 068.jpg

 

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

Suite Ste. Luce
1-4 / 14

 1

Black backed gulls,
nature’s alarm clocks,
waking the seaside
with their glaucous rattle.

High tide? Low tide?
We have drifted on our life raft
far from the grasping hands
of city clocks.

Gulls breakfast on the beach.
Day’s rhythm all at sea.

 2

6 am? 7 am? 8 am?
What do they mean?

The planet’s slow revolution?
This sun arc sketched in its stretch of sky?

Salt spray combing seaside fingers
through a young girl’s hair.

A man in a red boat, fishing.

3

Bare toes grip
damp wrinkled sand.

 Worms have written
runes in their arcane
wriggling script.

What do they tell us,
these secret messages?

Sunburned now,
the bare beach itches:
like tanned leather,
like salt on a fish skin
nailed drying to a frame.

4

The salt air drives its freshness,
needles knitting through my chest.

Slowed heartbeat of the dormant beach,
the tide’s blood flowing,
in and out,
inflating, deflating
the beach’s sandy lung.

 

 

House of Dreams 4-6 /6

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

House of Dreams
4-6 /6

4

Pressed between
the pages of my dream:

a lingering scent;

the death of last
year’s delphiniums;

 the tall tree
toppled in the yard;

 a crab apple
breaking into flower;

a shard of grass
as brittle
as a bitter tongue
at winter’s
end.

5

A leaf lies down
in a broken
corner
and fills me
with sudden silence.

I revise
our scrimshaw history
carving fresh tales:
ivory runes on new
found bones.

6

A vixen
hunts for my heart.

She digs deep
at midnight

unearthing
the dry teeth
you buried
from my borrowed
head.

House of Dreams 1-3 /6

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

 House of Dreams 1-3 /6

1

The clematis unfolds
bruised purple on the porch.

Jazz piano:
beneath the black
and white hammers
of ivory keys,
old wounds crack open.

A flight of feathered notes:
this dead heart
sacrificed on the lawn.

I wash fresh stains
from my fingers
with the garden hose.

2

The evening stretches out
a shadow hand.

I feel my heart
squeezed like an orange
by long, dark fingers.

Somewhere,
the white throat
trills its guillotine
of vertical notes.

I flap my hands in the air.

They float there,
white butterflies,
amputated
in sunlight’s
net.

3

The light fails fast,
I hold up shorn stumps
flowers for the night
wind to heal.

The pale magnolia
bleeds into summer.

White petals
melt on the lawn:
early snow.

Sparrow sings
an afterlife
built of spring
branches.

 

 

Monet at Giverny 13-16 /16

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

Monet at Giverny
13-16 /16

13

fish aloft like birds
skimming wet sunshine

spring’s first swallow
rising from the depths
to snatch a golden note
quivering in the air

14

thunder raises dark ripples

lightning a forked tongue
insinuated into paradise

an apple tossed away
caution thrown over the shoulder
as sharp as salt

15

winds of change

that first bite
too bitter to remember

 16

timeless this tide
this ebb and flow

oh great pond-serpent

biting yourself

forever

 

Monet at Giverny 9-12 / 16

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

Monet at Giverny
9-12 /16

9

the lady of the lake
holding out her hand
handing him an apple
l’offrande du coeur
a scarlet heart of flame

 monochromatic this island
brown earth in a crimson lake
the world reborn in tulips

10

especially
when the dying sun
molten fire spreading
its limpid light

sky brimming over into pond
trapped in low clouds
a slash of colour here
and there a tree
a fountain of gold

 the sun an apple
blushing
on a setting branch

11

silver-white the money plant
moonlight between fine-tuned fingers
its rattle of seeds

blunt the moon’s bite
raked from water
gaunt its gesture
matched ripples
face to face
with the moon

12

upside down these clouds
bright in their winter boats

the night wind blows
clean dry bones
across the sky

 

 

Monet at Giverny 5-8 /16

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

Monet at Giverny
5-8 /16

5

wisteria and his curly blue locks
Narcissus clad in an abyss of lilies
imperial his reflection and perilous

slowly he slides to sleep
merging into his imaged dream

a vaulted cathedral
his earthbound ribs
the blood space immaculate

6

night and day and sun and clouds
leapfrogging over water

something survives
sepia tints
dreaming on and on

exotic this sudden movement
Carassius auratus flowering

 7

Clos Normand and the Grande Allée
closed to him now
folded his flowers
their petals tight at his nightfall

dark their colours
mourning for his mornings of light
fled far from him now

8

can we soften this sunstroke of brightness
le roi soleil threatening to blind us?

rey de oros
the sun glow braiding itself
an aureate palette

a susurration of leaves

 

 

Monet at Giverny 1-4 /16

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

Monet at Giverny
1-4 /16

1

his lily pond
a mirror shattering
shards of clouds
flames beneath the lilies
fractured fish

2

the executioner stripes evening
a+cross the sacrificed horizon

in blood we were born
in earth will we rest

our flesh turned to bread
empurpled this imperial wine
streaming with day’s death
these troubled waters

3

green footprints the lily pads
a halo
this drowned man’s beard
liquescent

like the gods
he dreamed
he walked dry over water

flowering goldfish
this thin line of cloud

4

maples flash ruby thoughts
ripples flowing outward
as heavy as a henge

this altar tumbling
downwards
through a liquid sky

Building on Sand 7-9 /9

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Building on Sand
7, 8, & 9 /9

7

Tight lips.
A blaze of anger.
A challenge spat
in the wind’s face.

High-pitched
the rabbit’s grief
in its silver snare.

The midnight moon
deep in a trance.

If only I could kick away
this death’s head,
this sow’s bladder.

Full moon
drifting
high in a cloudless sky.

8

After heavy rain
the house shrinks.
Its mandibles close.

 A crocodile peace
descends from the jaws of heaven.

I no longer fit my skin.
Iguana spots itch.
Walls encircle me,
hemming me in.

 The I Ching sloughs my name:
each lottery ticket,
a bullet.

 None with my number.

9

Late last night I thought
I had grasped the mystery:
but when I awoke
I clasped only shadows and sand.

 

 

Building on Sand 4-6 /9

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Building on Sand
4, 5, & 6 /9

4

There are striations
in my heart, so deep,
a lizard could lie there,
unseen, and wait
for tomorrow’s sun.

A knot of
sorrow in daylight’s throat;
the heart a great stone
cast in placid water,
each ripple
knitted to its mate.

Timeless,
the worm at the apple’s core
waiting for its world to end.

Seculae seculorum:
the centuries
rushing headlong.

5

Matins:
wide-eyed
this owl hooting
in the face of day.

Somewhere,
I remember
a table spread for two.
Breakfast.
An open door.
“Where are you going, dear?”

Something bright has fled the world.
The sun unfurls shadows.
The blood whirls stars
around the body.

“It has gone.” she said. “The magic.
I no longer tremble at your touch.”

6

You can drown now
in this liquid
silence.

Or you can rage against this slow snow
whitening the dark space
where yesterday
you placed your friend.

The silver birch wades
at dawn’s bright edge.

Somewhere,
sunshine will break
a delphinium
into blossom.

Building on Sand 1-3/9

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Building on Sand
1-3/9

1

Everywhere the afternoon|
gropes steadily to night.

Some people have lit fires;
others read by candlelight.

 Geese litter the river bank,
drifts of snow their whiteness,
stained with freshet mud;
or is it the black
of midnight’s swift advance?

They walk on thin ice
at civilization’s edge.

Around them,
the universe’s clock
ticks slowly down.

2

 Who forced that scream
through the needle’s eye?

 Gathering night,
the moon on the sea bed
magnified by water.

 Inverted,
the big dipper,
hanging its question
from the sky’s dark eye lid.

 Ghosts of departed
constellations
walk the night

Pale stars scythed
by moonlight
bob phosphorescent,
flowering on the flood.

3

 The flesh that bonds;
the bones that walk;
the shoulders and waist
on which I hang
my clothes.

Now they stand alone
beneath the moon
and listen at the water’s edge
to the whispering trees.

 They have caught the words
of snowflakes
strung at midnight
between the stars.

 Moonlight is a liquor
running raw within them.