January 1939

Because the pleasure-bird whistles after the hot wires，

Shall the blind horse sing sweeter？

Convenient bird and beast lie lodged to suffer

The supper and knives of a mood.

In the sniffed and poured snow on the tip of the tongue of the year

That clouts the spittle like bubbles with broken rooms，

An enamoured man alone by the twigs of his eyes， two fires，

Camped in the drug-white shower of nerves and food，

Savours the lick of the times through a deadly wood of hair

In a wind that plucked a goose，

Nor ever， as the wild tongue breaks its tombs，

Rounds to look at the red， wagged root.

Because there stands， one story out of the bum city，

That frozen wife whose juices drift like a fixed sea

Secretly in statuary，

Shall I， struck on the hot and rocking street，

Not spin to stare at an old year

Toppling and burning in the muddle of towers and galleries

Like the mauled pictures of boys？

The salt person and blasted place

I furnish with the meat of a fable.

If the dead starve， their stomachs turn to tumble

An upright man in the antipodes

Or spray-based and rock-chested sea：

Over the past table I repeat this present grace.

Dylan Thomas