dylan, after reading a biography of you
I’m afraid I understand
your life way too well.
how at the end,
you threw back that whiskey
“neat” as they say:
and as you said:
“… eighteen straight whiskies,
I think that’s a record.”
yet your death, still hangs
in the chill of a glass
some nights.
and drinking late,
the whiskey calling, how I’ve felt
mistakenly immortal with you too:
knowing that burning in your mouth
from whiskey, as if some words
were still coming alive.
was that leaded taste
still heating an alchemy
into your well chosen words?
or was your esophagus burning
needing ice water
instead of those golden syllables.
who understands all this, in the end?
where did such words come from
and why did they leave you so badly:
like a ship in a bottle lost off laugharne,
dreaming, with one last false sailing, and a song too long
at the white horse tavern.
Alan Yount has published 136 poems, over the span of 50 years. He has published several poems in: “JerryJazzMusician,” over the last few years. The same journal Michael L. Newell has published many poems. This fall, he had two poems in “Big Scream,” the journal of the well known poet David Cope. For the summer issue, 2018, of WestWard Quarterly, he was the featured writer and poet. They published four of his poems. The issue had 50 poets.
Alan,
ReplyDeleteAs always your poetry creates the sense of being present in the feeling of what you are writing.
"knowing that burning in your mouth from whiskey, as if some words
were still coming alive.
was that leaded taste
still heating an alchemy
into your well chosen words? "
Feeling the misery & the mastery of these words.
Thank you for your endless talent.
Alan - As a Welsh reader and a Dylan fan (living indeed just 30 miles down-coast from Laugharne), I found this poem powerful and moving.
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