Dylan is what his Swansea was

 Dylan is what his Swansea was

Dylan is what his Swansea was

as it sly s down every hillside

that holds the town in black

and smoking

he is full of the hooters of ships

and works on new year’s eve 

as slowly articulate as the Tawe

that rends the town in half

a river 

through the parks and swings

his mind bayward seaward

as seasoned as the driftwood brogue 

that is a shadow across his stage

all through 

his is that dark flow

that stubs a muted toe

rambling on a pub-back walk

weaving to and fro

Dylan is the gull’s scream 

the bobbed ducks in the park

the footlights on the flow on

all the Swansea streets he knew

as the townies to The Mumbles flow

down all the times 

he did absorb the essences

of what he was he grew

until they hung on his every word

and begged him not to go

stay on and on and come again

and say it again and again and then some more

Swansea pub-docked in a worded glow

he went and sailed away

and then he was no more

than all of Swansea 

between the covers

of his books by my bed

I know this as a Swansea boy

let nothing more be said