ut I don’t mean Dylan Thomas actually. I mean Kevin Reilly, who played Dylan Thomas hundreds of times in a one-man show, Dylan Thomas in San Francisco. Kevin didn’t look very much like Dylan Thomas. The Dylan Thomas who visited America resembled a young Charles Laughton; he was “roly poly,” which Kevin was not. But Kevin was about Thomas’s height, and he captured very well the slightly befuddled (potted) air Thomas sometimes exuded—and then the transformation into sublimity as the poet began to recite his poems. Kevin had a resonant voice, and if it was not quite a match for Thomas’s deep Welsh music, it was more than adequate to bring us into the presence of those magical poems.

This morning’s San Francisco Chronicle (9/5/04) had an obituary for Kevin, who died recently at the age of 54. I’m told that a longer article is forthcoming.

Kevin Joseph Patrick Reilly was born into one of those large Irish families, and the obituary was almost entirely concerned with family: “Beloved son of Lorraine Reilly and the late John Reilly; cherished brother of Sharon (Brody), John, Dan, Joan and Susan….” The only mention of Kevin’s career as an actor was “Member of Actors Equity.” There was no mention of the poetry he wrote throughout his life and was only recently beginning to read in public—though he read many other people’s poems, including, once, a poem written by my wife Adelle. Kevin assured me that he was planning to read one of my poems but he never got around to it. He read Adelle’s poem at a paid gig I had arranged at the Lakeview Branch of the Oakland Public Library. Kevin called his appearance “Voices from Another Room.” His performance of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was particularly memorable. He also read, for the first time in public I believe and with some hesitation, some of his own poetry. He was shy about presenting his own work.

Kevin was a distinguished actor and was known especially for his award-winning portrayal of the tragic and murderous Dan White, a boyish Irishman from San Francisco who became “the most reviled man in the city.” He repeated the role of Dan White in the nationally-televised PBS production, The People vs. Dan White. He played Orson Welles in The Broadcast of the Century and Larry Parks in Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? He was also a founding member of The San Francisco Repertory Company, where he performed a variety of roles. I wrote about him once, “Mr. Reilly is a wonderful actor, and like all wonderful actors, he is a wonderful teacher. And he teaches in the best of all possible ways: by living embodiment.”

At Kevin’s death he was in the midst of preparing still another poetry presentation, this one involving several actors in addition to himself. It was to be a show about Emily Dickinson, for whom Kevin had developed a strong passion. A tireless researcher (but with little access to the internet), Kevin had spent considerable time hunting down material about Dickinson—including a passage written by Emily’s sister Lavinia.

I felt that Kevin had not reached the level of mastery in his poetry which he had reached in his work as an actor, but his poems were always intelligent and at times compelling. This is a poem he wrote for Emily Dickinson, who tied her poems in bundles called “fascicles”:

Fascicle Chimes

The words I never told you
I wonder if you knew
Far from the glimpse you gave us
And before the mourning dew

And only to have held you—
In glades above the rust
And only to have kissed you—
In the language that we trust

I stand alone in your corner—
Cut-man for a day
I gaze at the world in horror
As the ropes swell, throb, and sway

In the wake of a bell’s tolling
In stillborn tears I drown
But the voice, that voice so thrilling
I lift my head, and dare touch the crown.

There are many interesting things about the poem. I’m particularly struck by the line, “In the wake of a bell’s tolling.” The sense of the “wake” of a ship is certainly present, but a “wake” is an Irish ceremony held after someone’s death, which is of course what Kevin’s poem is. The word also suggests “awakening.” The “bell” ties in with the title’s “chiming” and with the swaying bell ropes, but it is also a pun on Dickinson as “the belle of Amherst.” Kevin’s fearful ambitions for his poetry are present, too: “I lift my head, and dare touch the crown.” Kevin may have thought of himself in relation to Dickinson as a kind of Quasimodo. As he reads her poems silently, it is as if he were ringing a bell, making a sound.

Kevin wrote another poem about Emily Dickinson as well:

Amherst Reflections

The quick of her dust stirring just so
Where gentle souls forget to breathe
How childish the eyes—how ancient the postures

What follows is, I believe, Kevin’s last poem—a villanelle. The form calls to mind Dylan Thomas’s most famous poem, also a villanelle, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”

Coupled Again Across the Yearling Skies

Coupled again across the yearling skies,
Quiet stirrings from where the chilblains grew,
See how the age of fear trembles and dies.

Come sunlit mornings in glistening sighs,
Soft sweet breath brushes an elusive hue,
Coupled again across the yearling skies—

Braving deep the night, embracing dark cries,
In a kiss, spinning pallet breaches blue,
See how the age of fear trembles and dies.

Chosen children pulse in blushing surprise,
Nestling now beyond the mocking adieu,
Coupled again across the yearling skies—

Breaking frameless the canvas gagging ties,
Up and up the dancing seedlings sing through,
See how the age of fear trembles and dies.

Come softly again behind angel eyes,
Rest warm drift, dream, the light day bows to you,
Coupled again across the yearling skies,
See how the age of fear trembles and dies.

Kevin called a 2003 collection of his poems Autumn Dialects, so he was definitely feeling his “age.” This is a rather mournful haiku from that proposed book:

No laughing child now
dark footprints upon the soul
cold winds, empty swings

In “Coupled Again Across the Yearling Skies,” he seems to be facing—and facing up to—the possibility of his own death: “Up and up the dancing seedlings sing through, / See how the age of fear trembles and dies.” The poem plays the idea of the “yearling”—something new, only a year old—against “the age of fear” which, like a feeble old person, “trembles and dies.” The age of fear is also perhaps the fear of age or the age at which fear begins; death is seen here as a “mocking adieu”—not something real but a mere simulacrum: “Rest warm drift, dream, the light day bows to you.” I’m not sure that this poem is as successful as “Fascicle Chimes,” but it is certainly interesting. It is also written in syllabics—ten syllables per line—a fact which sometimes causes, for me at least, a problem with the poem’s stress pattern: “Breaking frameless the canvas gagging ties” is not an easy line to speak though it is regular in the sense that it is ten syllables; “Come sunlit mornings in glistening sighs” is also ten syllables but from the point of view of stress it is only four as opposed to the poem’s usual five stresses. Kevin told me he liked the poem—especially as a first try at a villanelle. It is interesting to speculate on how much more he might have done with the form.

On September 30, 2004, the day of Kevin’s death, I received a package from him in the mail. We had spoken on the phone a couple of weeks before. His voice had been feeble but recognizable. We had a fine conversation, and though he described his health problems to me, he seemed to be hopeful about recovery. Kevin was a great fan of the Marx Brothers. He called his production company “S.M.A.R.O.L.M.A. Productions,” which stood for “Show Me A Rose Or Leave Me Alone,” a Harold Arlen/E.Y. Harburg song Groucho sings. The package he sent was a compilation of Marx Brothers’ films plus Gabe Kaplan’s imitation of Groucho, which Kevin recommended highly: “I know you’ll love it.” I phoned to thank Kevin and to see how he was feeling. I got his sister Sharon, who told me the news of his death. The last words Kevin had said to me were “See ya, buddy.”

I wrote this villanelle in memory of Kevin. I think of his quiet modesty (he was the least “theatrical” of actors), his intelligence, his deep sensitivity, his humor, his professionalism, his kindness to others. My poem is a way of keeping Kevin alive in my consciousness. I conceived of this villanelle as a lead-in to Dylan Thomas’s, which should be performed or read along with it. In this context, I hear “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” not in Dylan Thomas’s “voice so thrilling” but in Kevin Reilly’s:

Among the Irish, charm is how we face
The “troubles” that afflict us year by year:
The bitter day, the losing of the race,

And even death, which makes its way apace.
Despite the wormy residue of fear,
Among the Irish, charm is how we face

The little daily poisons that we taste.
We make a joke and take another beer.
The bitter day, the losing of the race

Seem quieter, and less of a disgrace.
Drink can make a clown a chevalier.
Among the Irish, charm is how we face

The energy depleted from its place
Of courage in our hearts, which see and hear
The bitter day, the losing of the race.

And Kevin, how I loved to see your face
Aflame with courage, passionate and clear.
Among the Irish, charm is how we face
The bitter day, the losing of the race:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

© Jack Foley