77 Dream Songs by John Berryman Read Free Book Online

please.
    —Vouchsafe me, Sleepless One,
    a personal experience of the body of Mrs Boogry
    before I pass from lust!

70
    Disengaged, bloody, Henry rose from the shell
    where in their racing start his seat got wedged
    under his knifing knees,
    he did it on the runners, feathering,
    being bow, catching no crab. The ridges were sore
    & tore chamois. It was not done with ease.
    So Henry was a hero, malgré lui,
    that day, for blundering; until & after the coach
    said this & which to him.
    That happy day, whenas thepregnant back
    of Number Two returned, and he’d no choice
    but to make for it room.
    Therefore he rowed rowed rowed. They did not win.
    Forever in the winning & losing since
    of his own crew, or rather
    in the weird regattas of this afterworld,
    cheer for the foe. He set himself to time
    the blue father.

71
    Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four
    hearers in the racket of the market
    with ancient signs, infamous characters,
    new rhythms. On the steps he was beloved,
    hours a day, by all his four, or more,
    depending. And they paid him.
    It was not, so, like no one listening
    but critics famed & Henry’s pals or other
    tellers at all
    chiefly in another country. No.
    He by the heart & brains& tail, because
    of their love for it, had them.
    Junk he said to all them open-mouthed.
    Weather wóuld govern. When the monsoon spread
    its floods, few came, two.
    Came a day when none, though he began
    in his accustomed way on the filthy steps
    in a crash of waters, came.

72
    The Elder Presences
    Shh! on a twine hung from disastered trees
    Henry is swinging his daughter. They seem drunk.
    Over across them look out,
    tranquil, the high statues of the wise.
    Her feet peep, like a lady’s in sleep sunk.
    That which this scene’s about—
    he pushes violent, his calves distend,
    his mouth is open with effort, so is hers,
    in the Supreme Court garden,
    the justices lean,negro, out, the trees bend,
    man’s try began too long ago, with chirrs
    & leapings, begging pardon—
    I will deny the gods of the garden say.
    Henry’s perhaps to break his burnt-cork luck.
    I further will deny
    good got us up that broad shoreline. Greed may
    like a fuse, but with the high shore we is stuck,
    whom they overlook. Why,—

73
    Karesansui, Ryoan-ji
    The taxi makes the vegetables fly.
    ‘Dozo kudasai,’ I have him wait.
    Past the bright lake up into the temple,
    shoes off, and
    my right leg swings me left.
    I do survive beside the garden I
    came seven thousand mile the other way
    supplied of engines all to see, to see.
    Differ them photographs, plans lie:
    how big it is!
    austere a sea rectangular     of sand by theoiled mud wall,
    and the sand is not quite white: granite sand, grey,
    —from nowhere can one see all the stones—
    but helicopters or     a Brooklyn reproduction
    will fix that—
    and the fifteen changeless stones in their five worlds
    with a shelving of moving moss
    stand me the thought of the ancient maker priest.
    Elsewhere occurs—I remembers—loss.
    Through awes & weathers neither it increased

    nor did one blow of all his stone & sand thought die.

74
    Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry
    did will not bear thought.
    Feeling no pain,
    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