Altarwise By Owl-Light
Altarwise
by
owl-light
in
the
half-way
house
The
gentleman
lay
graveward
with
his
furies;
Abaddon
in
the
hangnail
cracked
from
Adam,
And,
from
his
fork,
a
dog
among
the
fairies,
The
atlas-eater
with
a
jaw
for
news,
Bit
out
the
mandrake
with
to-morrows
scream.
Then,
penny-eyed,
that
gentlemen
of
wounds,
Old
cock
from
nowheres
and
the
heaven's
egg,
With
bones
unbuttoned
to
the
half-way
winds,
Hatched
from
the
windy
salvage
on
one
leg,
Scraped
at
my
cradle
in
a
walking
word
That
night
of
time
under
the
Christward
shelter:
I
am
the
long
world's
gentlemen,
he
said,
And
share
my
bed
with
Capricorn
and
Cancer.
Death
is
all
metaphors,
shape
in
one
history;
The
child
that
sucketh
long
is
shooting
up,
The
planet-ducted
pelican
of
circles
Weans
on
an
artery
the
genders
strip;
Child
of
the
short
spark
in
a
shapeless
country
Soon
sets
alight
a
long
stick
from
the
cradle;
The
horizontal
cross-bones
of
Abaddon,
You
by
the
cavern
over
the
black
stairs,
Rung
bone
and
blade,
the
verticals
of
Adam,
And,
manned
by
midnight,
Jacob
to
the
stars.
Hairs
of
your
head,
then
said
the
hollow
agent,
Are
but
the
roots
of
nettles
and
feathers
Over
the
groundwork's
thrusting
through
a
pavement
And
hemlock-headed
in
the
wood
of
weathers.
First
there
was
the
lamb
on
knocking
knees
And
three
dead
seasons
on
a
climbing
grave
That
Adam's
wether
in
the
flock
of
horns,
Butt
of
the
tree-tailed
worm
that
mounted
Eve,
Horned
down
with
skullfoot
and
the
skull
of
toes
On
thunderous
pavements
in
the
garden
of
time;
Rip
of
the
vaults,
I
took
my
marrow-ladle
Out
of
the
wrinkled
undertaker's
van,
And,
Rip
Van
Winkle
from
a
timeless
cradle,
Dipped
me
breast-deep
in
the
descending
bone;
The
black
ram,
shuffling
of
the
year,
old
winter,
Alone
alive
among
his
mutton
fold,
We
rung
our
weathering
changes
on
the
ladder,
Said
the
antipodes,
and
twice
spring
chimed.
What
is
the
metre
of
the
dictionary?
The
size
of
genesis?
the
short
spark's
gender?
Shade
without
shape?
the
shape
of
the
Pharaohs
echo?
(My
shape
of
age
nagging
the
wounded
whisper.)
Which
sixth
of
wind
blew
out
the
burning
gentry?
(Questions
are
hunchbacks
to
the
poker
marrow.)
What
of
a
bamboo
man
among
your
acres?
Corset
the
boneyards
for
a
crooked
boy?
Button
your
bodice
on
a
hump
of
splinters,
My
camel's
eyes
will
needle
through
the
shroud.
Loves
reflection
of
the
mushroom
features,
Still
snapped
by
night
in
the
bread-sided
field,
Once
close-up
smiling
in
the
wall
of
pictures,
Arc-lamped
thrown
back
upon
the
cutting
flood.
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas (born October 27, 1914, Swansea, Glamorgan [now in Swansea], Wales—died November 9, 1953, New York, New York, U.S.) Welsh poet and prose writer whose work is known for its comic exuberance, rhapsodic lilt, and pathos. His personal life, punctuated by reckless bouts of drinking, was notorious. Thomas spent his childhood in southwestern Wales. His father taught English at the Swansea grammar school, which in due course the boy attended. Because Dylan’s mother was a farmer’s daughter, he had a country home he could go to when on holiday. His poem “Fern Hill” (1946) describes its joys.