(Dylan Marlais Thomas, born 27 October 1914)
We summoned Dylan Thomas’s spirit;
He was more than a little bit drunk, we all could hear it.
But we were charmed he had chosen to honor us
And even inebriated, his voice was still quite sonorous.
The fascination of what’s difficult
Worked out all right for you, it seems, old man,
As when Blavatsky’s esoteric cult
Helped you parse George’s automatic hand–
And who would doubt that Truth herself was caught
Dumbfounded in your raveled Celtic knot?
Sometimes morose but never sad
I’m vicious to what comes along.
They’ll dance and dance when I am dead
To that old grave-dancer’s song.
Caesar loved the Egyptian Queen
And conquered Europe to impress;
Napoleon, for Josephine,
Decided he could do no less.
The Roman styled himself divine —
His friends took pains to prove he erred;
For Russia’s lands the Frenchman pined
But he, too, found himself deterred.
Poor Julius! The Senate floor
Was where he met his Waterloo;
And Bonaparte proved just as poor,
For soon enough he met one, too.
Improve your Writing? Nothing to it!
Find an Adverb and eschew it!
And Adjectival abolition
Aids most any Composition!
Widely concurs the Writing Tribe:
It’s better far not to describe;
And rare’s the Pundit who disputes
That Things should not have Attributes.
From spite, for what He chose to style a crime,
God stole my hands and feet, my legs and arms,
And left me as you see: all head and spine,
And gave me fangs for teeth, cold blood for warm.
Did He think to stop me thus from doing harm?
“Make it new!” he cried, and then to show it’s
That important, promptly quoted
A dozen lines from a dozen noted
Long-dead poets.
Bag of Anything 