Henry’s Drunken Conversation With Dylan Thomas, 1964

“you’re wanted by the Polease
and my wife thinks you’re dead.”
Junior Brown’s homage to the work
of Yoko Ono

Oh, screw you Dylan Thomas
thinking you’re John Lennon
cheating on Cynthia with that Jap

anese artist, tartist.
The hell with Fern Hill
that little mound of dirt and lust.

Huh, do not go gentle into that good night.
Well, you know what?
Stick it up your behind!

You’re the fool from Liverpool
sitting with a black bird on a hill---
nature will send you the bill.

When you were young and easy
you made the rest of us queasy.
Drinking yourself silly in New York Citty,

sucking on the future New York school titty.
You can’t mourn the death of poetry by fire
outside of a Bismarck North Dakota pagoda.

It was, after all, my dirtiest year in heaven.
John running wild in Hollywood with May Pang,
wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.

Once, waking up in the white giant’s thighs
in the Welsh countryside,
God’s Beatle-haircut in the middle of Abbey road

didn’t bode well, but I don’t know if it’s Dylan or John
who’s been shot.
Let’s see what you got!

Give poetry a chance,
give peace a chance.
Nobody’s been invited to the cavern dance.

John’s playing the guitar in a star,
Dylan’s writing in a slur
as Caitlin purrs.

The bartender in Beatle boots
is in cahoots.
Aren’t the children getting tall? Dylan cries in his beer.

Henry nods in acquiescence,
the hell with peasants.
A naked John Lennon clings to Yoko

on the cover of Rolling Stone.
You can’t nickel and dime
the goddamn crime!

The New York skyline glistens
like twin towers if you hold up two fingers.
You stupid fool, you shouldn’t linger.

Oh, screw you Dylan Thomas thinking
you can replace John with the screaming hymens
of 12 year-old girls on the Ed Sullivan Show.