Authors: John Berryman
77 Dream Songs (7 page)
Henry stabbed his arm and wrote a letter
explaining how bad it had been
in this world.
Old yellow, in a gown
might have made a difference, ‘these lower beauties’,
and chartreuse could have mattered
“Kyoto, Toledo,
Benares—the holy cities—
and Cambridge shimmering do not make up
for, well,
the horror of unlove,
nor south from Paris driving in the Spring
to Siena and on…”
Pulling together Henry, somber Henry
woofed at things.
Spry disappointments of men
and vicing adorable children
miserable women, Henry mastered, Henry
tasting all the secret bits of life.
75
Turning it over, considering, like a madman
Henry put forth a book.
No harm resulted from this.
Neither the menstruating stars (nor man) was moved
at once.
Bare dogs drew closer for a second look
and performed their friendly operations there.
Refreshed, the bark rejoiced.
Seasons went and came.
Leaves fell, but only a few.
Something remarkable about this
unshedding bulky bole-proud
blue-green moist
thing made by savage & thoughtful
surviving Henry
began to strike the passers from despair
so that sore on their shoulders old men hoisted
six-foot sons and polished women called
small girls to dream awhile toward the flashing & bursting tree!
76
Henry’s Confession
Nothin very bad happen to me lately.
How you explain that? —I explain that, Mr Bones,
terms o’ your bafflin odd sobriety.
Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones,
what could happen bad to Mr Bones?
—
If
life is a handkerchief sandwich,
in a modesty of death I join my father
who dared so long agone leave me.
A bullet on a concrete stoop
close by a smothering
southern sea
spreadeagled on an island, by my knee.
—You is from hunger, Mr Bones,
I offers you this handkerchief, now set
your left foot by my right foot,
shoulder to shoulder, all that jazz,
arm in arm, by the beautiful sea,
hum a little, Mr Bones.
—I saw nobody coming, so I went instead.
77
Seedy Henry rose up shy in de world
& shaved & swung his barbells, duded Henry up
and p.a.’d poor thousands of persons on topics of grand
moment to Henry, ah to those less & none.
Wif a book of his in either hand
he is stript down to move on.
—Come away, Mr Bones.
—Henry is tired of the winter,
& haircuts, & a squeamish comfy ruin-prone proud national mind, & Spring (in the
city so called).
Henry likes Fall.
Hé would be prepared to líve in a world of Fáll
for ever, impenitent Henry.
But the snows and summers grieve & dream;
thése fierce & airy occupations, and love,
raved away so many of Henry’s years
it is a wonder that, with in each hand
one of his own mad books and all,
ancient fires for eyes, his head full
& his heart full, he’s making ready to move
on.
ALSO BY JOHN BERRYMAN
POETRY
Poems (1942)
The Dispossessed (1948)
Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956)
His Thought Made Pockets & The Plane Buckt (1958)
Berryman’s Sonnets (1967)
Short Poems (1967)
Homage to Mistress Bradstreet and Other Poems (1968)
His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (1968)
The Dream Songs (1969)
Love & Fame (1970)
Delusions, Etc. (1972)
Henry’s Fate & Other Poems, 1967–1972
(1977)
Collected Poems 1937–1971 (1989)
The Heart Is Strange
(2014)
PROSE
Stephen Crane: A Critical Biography
(1950)
The Arts of Reading
(with Ralph Ross and Allen Tate)
(1960)
Recovery
(1973)
The Freedom of the Poet
(1976)
Berryman’s Shakespeare
(1999)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 1959, 1962, 1963, 1964 by John Berryman
Copyright renewed © 1992 by Kate Donahue Berryman
Introduction copyright © 2014 by Henri Cole
All rights reserved
Published in 1964 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
This paperback edition, 2014
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Paperback ISBN: 978-0-374-53452-3
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eISBN 9781466879614
First eBook Edition: September 2014
