Classic Poem

(for Dylan Thomas)

This morning I woke to the sound of bells
and to the dark sermons of black-frocked rooks.
The air was fraught with the breaths of angels
and the sky stood strangely above the roofs.

This morning I woke with the taste of stale
liquor lingering on my twisted tongue,
and entered the deep grey of my heaven-hell
with a cirrhotic liver and mucous lung.

This morning I woke to the coughs of cars,
to the clangour of crammed trams turning
corners, kissing the whey-faced hush of a nun.

This morning I woke opening strange doors.
In the skull’s temple: white candles were burning,
and the coins on my eyelids saw the same sun.