Berryman’s Sonnets by John Berryman Read Free Book Online

heard nothing but the sough of the sea
    And wide upon the open sea my friend
    The sea-wind crying, out of its cave to roam
    No more, no more . . until my memory
    Swung you back like a lock: I sing the end,
    Tolerant Aeolus to call me home.

[ 73 ]
    Demand me again what Kafka’s riddles mean,
    For I am the penal colony’s prime scribe:
    From solitary, firing against the tribe
    Uncanny judgments ancient and unclean.
    I am the officer flat on my own machine,
    Priest of the one Law no despair can bribe,
    On whom the mort-prongs hover to inscribe
    ‘I FELL IN LOVE’ . . O none of this foreseen,
    Adulteries and divorces cold I judged
    And strapped the tramps flat. Now the harrow trembles
    Down, a strap snaps, I wave—out of control—
    To you to change the legend has not budged
    These years: make the machine grave on me (stumbles
    Someone to latch the strap) ‘I MET MY SOUL’.

[ 74 ]
    All I did wrong, all the Grand Guignol years,
    Tossed me here still able to touch you still.
    I took the false turn on the fantastic hill
    Continually, until the top appears.
    Even my blind (last night) disordered tears
    Conducted me to-morning. When I grew ill
    Two years, I only taxed my doctors’ skill
    To pass me to you fixed . . The damned sky clears
    Into a decent sun (this week’s the worst
    Ever I see-saw) half an hour: this town
    My tomb becomes a kind of paradise . .
    How then complain? Rain came with a burst,
    Ridding the sky. Was it this evil clown
    Or surviving lover you called to you? . . twice.
    18 July

[ 75 ]
    Swarthy when young; who took the tonsure; sign,
    His coronation, wangled, his name re-said
    For euphony; off to courts fluttered, and fled;
    Professorships refused; upon one line
    Worked years; and then that genial concubine.
    Seventy springs he read, and wrote, and read.
    On the day of the year his people found him dead
    I read his story. Anew I studied mine.
    Also there was Laura and three-seventeen
    Sonnets to something like her . . twenty-one years . .
    He never touched her. Swirl our crimes and crimes.
    Gold-haired (too), dark-eyed, ignorant of rimes
    Was she? Virtuous? The old brume seldom clears.
    —Two guilty and crepe-yellow months
           Lise! be our bright surviving actual scene.

[ 76 ]
    The two plantations Greatgrandmother brought
    My bearded General, back in a world would burn,
    I thresh excited as I see return
    Odd in this symbol you me last night taught . .
    Your Two-fields rapt into the family ought
    To save us: sensitivity, elegant, fern-
    subtle, knit upon vigour enough to turn
    A nation’s strong decline. I grind my thought
    A bit more, and I bare the quick of the have
    And have not, half have, less than half, O this
    Fantasy of your gates ajar, gates barred.
    Poaching and rack-rent do you hope will save
    True to ourselves us, darling? owners, Lise!—
    Heiress whose lovely holdings lie
           too forkt for truth; called also Kierkegaard.

[ 77 ]
    Fall and rise of her midriff bells. I watch.
    Blue knee-long shorts, striped light shirt. Bright between
    Copt hills of the cushion a lazy green
    Her sun-incomparable face I watch.
    A darkness dreams adown her softest crotch,
    A hand dreams on her breast, two fingers lean,
    The ring shows like a wound. Her hair swirls clean
    Alone in the vague room’s morning-after botch.
    Endymion’s Glaucus through a thousand years
    Collected the bodies of lovers lost, until
    His own beloved’s body rustled and sighed . .
    So I would, O to spring—blotting her fears,
    The others in this house, the house, road, hill—
    As once she up the stair sprang to me, lips wide!

[ 78 ]
    On the wheat-sacks, sullen with the ceaseless damp,
    William and I sat hours and talked of you,
    I talked of you. Potting porter. Just a few
    Fireflies were out, no stars, no moon; no lamp.
    The Great Dane licked my forearm like a stamp,
    Surprisingly, in total darkness. Who
    Responds with peaceful gestures, calm and new
    This while, your home-strong love’s ferocious