Hello Jon
. . A gamp is an umbrella, the term being adopted from a character in Martin Chuzzlewit, a novel by Charles Dickens, which features a disreputable character called Mrs Gamp, a midwife who always carried a bulky umbrella.
. . [I had guessed, here, that it more referred to midwife than umbrella, due to the context on his page.]
. . Yes, a village gamp in this context would be an unofficial midwife, as was Mrs Gamp. This is an old term for such an occupation and the lady would also be concerned with laying out the dead, births and baby nursing, sick nursing and other domestic duties that most people would leave to others. All communities had one, and "using them was hit or miss" is also consistent with this meaning, i.e. you were likely to suffer from their ignorance of medical matters.
. . Poke bonnets are a distinctive type of hat worn by women during Victorian/Edwardian times and particularly in the nursing profession. They were similar to those also worn by the American pioneer women. Poke bonnets were also particularly well known in Wales when he wrote this in 1954 and would have been a familiar sight during his childhood.
. . The singing mortuary man would be an employee of the local mortuary or even the undertaker who had a fine voice and would either sing in the pub (public house) to entertain his friends, or would be a leading member of the village or church choir, male voice choirs being a feature of social life in Wales. The men singing round the piano in the public bar would of course be singing the Irish ballad, The Rose of Tralee, a favourite pub song of the time.
. . Hands pocked from pits is indeed coal mining, which was a major occupation in Wales at that time. The coal dust lodged itself behind cuts and abrasions on the body and gave the skins a mottled appearance. Brolly is the most popular word for umbrella in Britain today. The meaning of the mildew king escapes me but mildew is an alternative name for honeydew which was a tobacco sweetened with molasses and much in vogue at that time and as he was sitting in the snug, ("swam together in the snuggery") a small private bar in most public houses at that time which was frequented by the older regulars, the term was most probably used for someone who sat there and smoked it continuously. Honeydew was also the trade name for a certain pipe tobacco at that time.
. . Rex Needle
http://homepages.which.net/~rex/bourne/countrypractice.htm

I've actually left in a couple changes: in the very first line, the book said "worlds", my ears heard Burton say "swirl" and think it much more fitting. Not too far be it from me to edit Thomas! ...tears of bewilderment and "contrition", as I had heard it, seems better than the book's "contribution", which I don't understand at all. Who knows; I may've heard right, and Burton had made the changes.

I didn't know what kind of literature it was; heck, if you go thru it and hit the enter key in the right places, it's valid poetry, or free verse. But really, does it matter?

This probably never had it's own title, so I'll call it

I like the taste of beer; its live, white lather, its brass, bright depths; the sudden swirl thru the wet brown walls of the glass. The tilted rush to the lips and the slow swallowing down to the lapping belly. The salt on the tongue; the foam at the corners.

"Same again, miss."
She was middle-aged.
"One for you, miss?"
"Not durin' hours; 'ta all the same."
"You're welcome."

Other young men, sleek haired, pale and stocky, with high cheekbones and deep eyes, bright ties, double-breasted waistcoats and wide trousers... some pocked from the pits, their broad hands scarred and damaged, all exultantly half-drunk, stood singing 'round the piano. And the tenor with a fallen chest led in a clear voice.

Oh!--To be able to join in the suggestive play or the rocking choir; to shout "Bread of Heaven", with my shoulders back and my arms linked with Little Moscow; to be called "Saucy" and "A One" as I joked and ogled at the counter, making innocent dirty love that could come to nothing among the spilt beer and piling glasses.

"Let's get away from the bloody nightingales", said Mr. Pharr.

"Too much bloody row", I said.
My iron head stood high and firm. No sailors' rum could rot the rock o' me belly. Poor Leslie Bird, the port sipper; and little Gil Morris, who mocked dissipation under his eyes with a blacklead every saturday night; I wish they could have seen me now, in the dark stunted room, with photographs of boxers peeling off the walls.

"Another cup o' poison, pa", I said.
Mr. Pharr tapped me on the shoulder. His hand fell slowly from a great height and his thin, bird's voice spoke from a whirling circle on the ceiling.
"A drop o' out-o'-doors for you an' me."

The gamps and bonnets, the white gym-shoes, the bottles, and the mildew king; the singing mortuary man, the Rose of Tralee, swam together in the snuggery. Two small men, Mr. Pharr and his twin brother, led me on an ice rink to the door, and the night air slapped me down. The evening happened suddenly. A wall slumped over and knocked off me trilby; Mr. Pharr's brother disappeared under the cobbles; here came a wall like a buffalo; dodge him, son! ....

*Have a drop o' Angostura, have a drop o' brandy, Fernet Branca, Polly, Ooo, the mother's darlin'! Have a hair of the dog.

"Feelin' better now?"
Who kept fillin' me glass? Beer ran down me cheek an' me collar. My mouth was full o' saliva. The bench spun. The cabin of the "Fishguard" tilted. Mr. Pharr retreated slowly; the telescope twisted, and his face, with wide and hairy nostrils, breathed against mine.

"Mr. Thomas is going to get sick. Mind your brolly, Mrs. Arthur." . "Take his head."

. . * The last tram clanked home. I did na' ha' the penny for the fare.
"You get off here. Careful!"
The revolving hill to my father's house reached to the sky. Nobody was up. I crept to a wild bed, and the wallpaper... lakes... converged and sucked me down.

. . * Sunday was a quiet day, tho Saint Mary's bells, a mile away, rang on, long after church time, in the holes of my head. Knowing that I would never drink again, I lay in bed until midday dinner, and remembered the unsteady shapes and far-off voices of the ten o'clock town. I read the newspapers. All news was bad that morning, but an article called "Our lord was a flower-lover" moved me to tears of bewilderment and contrition.

I excused myself from the Sunday joint and three vegetables.

* In the park, in the afternoon, I sat alone near the deserted bandstand. I caught a ball of wastepaper that the wind blew down the gravel path towards the rockery, and straightening it out and holding it on my knee, wrote the first three lines of a poem; without hope.

Note the shift to plosives and the increase in speed in the last line (made distinct by Mr Burton), and the (again) similarity to Hamlet in Thomas' long "Other young men..." and "To be able to join..." lines.

Note that Shakespeare lists seven things --separated by commas-- in one long sentence. There seems to be a power in this technique (if not used too often) as here:

"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes...."

"Other young men, sleek haired, pale and stocky, with high cheekbones and deep eyes, bright ties, double-breasted waistcoats and wide trousers... some pocked from the pits, their broad hands scarred and damaged, all exultantly half-drunk, stood singing 'round the piano."

"The fright, the pressure, the chill blue flashes, the blanket and the teddy bear comes; the hooded specter and the Wizard of Oz spin together in his snuggery."

Dylan Thomas' character (& himself) might be said to chose suicide, like Hamlet, but a slower one. Not with a bodkin, but a bottle.

Like Shakespeare, Thomas used many words but once --as far as I know-- about things that are equally as puzzling to people outside of his culture: "gamps and bonnets", etc.

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There is no dividing line between prose and poetry. Any good writing --or speech-- approaches poetry. Language transmits ideas; poetry conveys feelings, passions, understanding.
. . Good writing is like the old "Dogpatch Ham": every time you go back to it, there's more meat there!