Poetry Blog No 129 Dylan on the Northern Line

                 DYLAN ON THE NORTHERN LINE

This poem is auto-biographical. When I was young I was inspired to try to write by reading other poets and listening to the lyrics of various song writers. In particular, early on I was thrilled by the "roll" of Dylan Thomas' language and was also interested in many of the lyrics of Bob Dylan. I was also inspired by W,B. Yeats and the songs of Paul Simon. Later on this extended to other songwriters and also Shakespeare and the Romantics. The Northern Line refers to a railway line in Sydney Australia that runs from the centre of the city to the northern suburbs like Ryde, Eastwood, Epping, Pennant Hills and so on and finally Hornsby. At the time I lived in Beecroft.

Mr Tambourine Man and A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall are, of course, two early Dylan songs.

"The first-named one" refers to Dylan Thomas - Dylan being his first name; the first, so to speak, famous Dylan and his actual name (Robert Zimmerman adopted the Dylan part of his name). None of this, however, is intended, in any way, as a slight on Bob Dylan.

"The doctor's morphine" refers to information about his death that ascribes it more to medical error than drinking (though he was a heavy drinker and this did not help his health). For more information see- http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/nov/27/books.booksnews

or Google death Dylan Thomas.

"The unknown millennium" - this poem was originally written just before turn of the century.  

Dylan Thomas at the BBC

DYLAN ON THE NORTHERN LINE

...though I sang in my chains like the sea.

-Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill

Now I was young and read you in the crowded trains,

down clattering tracks that racked to the city and back.

In the daily commuting I would dream of the change

(that we know never came) and I silently chanted

tambourine man and a hummed a hard rain.

But firstly, firstly it was you, the first-named one.

Your words were incantation while others read the news.

But the sewn flesh and the fire, the bold cryptic utterance,

all the colour of saying, was not mine to own

(I was awkward and lean; not golden, just green)

but the myth was enough-

and I dreamed as I passed the awakening dark

after sunset burned scrapers and streetlights and cars

needled the night. 

                             Now I'm older- the unknown millennium

is knocking on history's door. Long, long ago

you died in dark flames of depression and fame-

that doctor's morphine blotting out

all the middle-aged years and time's moderation.

But I was moderate always, except that for me,

deep in some secret heat of the heart, somewhere apart,

how I wished I could sing in my chains like the sea.