Going to Bed with Dylan Thomas
Tonight I’m going to bed with Dylan Thomas.
How’s that for a spectacular idea,
libidinous with fantasy and promise?
I’ll slide into a pair of silk pajamas,
pour myself a glass of red sangria
and raise a toast to honor Dylan Thomas.
I’ll sing his soulful songs and melodramas
(ah, that lilting onomatopoeia—
part Welsh, part fantasy, part promise) . . .
and chant with him his childhood panoramas
tinged with the implicit paranoia
known as “quintessential Dylan Thomas.”
I’ll hear the stresses, stanza breaks and commas,
the architecture of his prosody—a
fantasy, foreshadowing a promise
in cadences he can’t keep hidden from us.
So go ahead, call it a panacea,
libidinous with fantasy and promise—
But me? I’m off to bed with Dylan Thomas.
Marilyn L. Taylor, former Poet Laureate of Wisconsin, is the author of six poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Able Muse, Measure, and Light, among many other journals and anthologies. She was recently awarded the Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for verse in forms, and was a finalist for the X.J. Kennedy Parody Contest, the Howard Nemerov Sonnet award, and the 2018 Lascaux Review prize. She currently serves on the editorial staffs of Verse-Virtual and Third Wednesday poetry journals.