Dylan Thomas
Reviewed by: Michael Sympson michaelsympson@prodigy.net Date: 6 October 2001
“The fellow half was frozen as it bubbled / Corrosive spring out of the iceberg’s crop, /The fellow seed and shadow as it babbled / The swing of milk was tufted in the pap, / And the unplanted ghost.”
“The spire cranes. Its statue is an aviary, / From the stone nest it does not let the feathery / Carved birds blunt their striking throats on the salt gravel, / Pierce the split sky with diving wing in weed and heel / An inch in froth. Chimes cheat the prison spire, pelter / In time like outlaw rains on that priest, water, /Time for the swimmer’s hands, music for silver lock / And mouth. Both note and plume plunge from spire’s hook. / Those craning birds are choice for you, songs that jump back / To the built voice, or fly with winter to the bells, / But do not travel down dumb wind like progigals.”
“The seed-at-zero shall not storm / That town of ghosts, the trodden womb / With her rampart to his tapping, No god-in-hero tumble down / like a tower on the town / Dumbly and divinely stumbling / Over the manwaging line.”
Wow! According to Dylan Thomas’ fans - I know a few - Shakespeare had slapped Dryden on his back with joy, when he saw Dylan entering Elysium. Elysium is a rather curious place, where mankind’s geniuses must wait their time. Only after the last trace of his books here on Earth had been destroyed, a genius is permitted to enter the ivory portal to the bliss of oblivion. On my last visit Elysium looked like a cute medieval town, without electricity and plumbing, wood frame houses under steep shingle roofs and a restaurant with a view. Tourists would love to shoot pictures in the market place at the canopied well and the memorial plaque. It reads: “ In honour of Caliph Omar, who ordered the books of Alexandria’s great library to be burned in public baths.” There are other plaques and narrow but picturesque lanes hide, under ivy and clustering roses, colorful names like “Attila’s Gym,” “Torquemada’s Rotisserie,” and even “Joseph Goebbels’ Catwalk.”
Unfortunately idle visitors are permitted only on rare occasions; their visas expire after 24 hours. In the meantime, afterlife can be a long stretch. Many take on a job - Shakespeare owns the town’s pharmacy and oversees the mint, Dante runs a poultry farm, and Dryden is the mayor’s secretary. The mayor himself is a bald headed figure with a sweet expression under sunken eyes and an unpronounceable name. Before the flood he had composed a cuneiform poem on clay tablets which by now should have safely crumbled to compost and dust. He had already handed over the town’s keys to his successor and was on his way to the portal where his friends had prepared a farewell party. But Charles Dickens - the town-crier - caught up and informed the poor soul that some blithering archaeological busybody just had unearthed and restored the clay-fragments and even prepared to publish a translation. The man broke in tears.
Very soon newcomers discover, that there is a sexlife after death, but once you screwed your brains out, what else is there left to do? The forests surrounding the town, are dense and infinitely wide. But the food is good. Marcel Proust is handing out leaflets: He and Oscar Wilde are joined proprietors of the Restaurant. There is also a jail. It is filled only with publishers and under the supervision of warden Thomas Jefferson, who, I am told, has completely reformed his opinions. If a genius feels like it, he can ask Mr. Jefferson for the key, and beat up to his heart’s delight one of the prisoners. There are days when geniuses queue up in line and nobody yet has ever missed his turn. So doubtlessly Dylan Thomas is there too, I wonder whom he is beating up right now, but I am not so sure about the slap on Dryden’s back.
My guess is they will transfer Dylan to the camp for visitors in transit. (Sorry Garreth!)
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