JOHN TRIPP

Among the Skyscrapers

(Dylan Thomas in New York)

Here the grocer and the moneylender,

the pushing pens of the revenue,

couldn't reach him. He was safe

from bills and wife, if not from living.

He could have earned a thousand dollars

for his cabaret act round the bars -

standing the language on its head

with that fag hanging from his lip.

Imagine the evenings, the crescent of fans

and followers, waiting for the measured spill

of words in that swirling smoke,

lines of wet tumbler rings on the wood.

In amber haze the jugnights ran

with cryptic wit and sonorous whimsy;

he turned a cold shoulder to no man.

Here his great spirit stopped twitching.

Then later the moment on the sidewalk

as rain fell, the back-slappers dissolving

into their own lives. Suddenly

the old black factor, chill of aloneness.

Badly wanting evidence of heaven,

he performed beyond the bugling call

of any bard's duty, and died from shock:

'I have seen the gates of hell,' he whispered,

'and it's a long way from Swansea.'