Saturday, October 25, 2014

Berryman





Song for John Berryman

Snow enshrouds the Mississippi.
January in Minnesota,
the world is silent and white.
He dreams of Florida.
He dreams deep into the night.
The ocean beckons like a mistress,

he longs for a kiss.
He once had a plan
but he failed as a pilot
and fell as a man.
The world is silent and white.
He dreams deep into the night.

January in Minnesota,
the ocean beckons like a mistress,
he longs for a kiss.
He once had a plan
but he failed as a pilot
and fell as a man.


My favorite Berryman poem:


Dream Song #279

Leaving behind the country of the dead
where he must then return & die himself
he set his tired face due East
where the sun rushes up the North Atlantic
and where had paused a little the war for bread
& the war for status has ceased

forever, and he took with him five books,
a Whitman & a Purgatorio,
a one-volume dictionary,
an Oxford Bible with all its bays & nooks
& bafflements long familiar to Henry
& one other new book-O.

If ever he had crafted in the past—
but only if—he swore now to craft better
which lay in the Hands above.
He said: I’ll work on slow, O slow & fast,
if a letter comes I will answer that letter
& my whole year will be tense with love. 












Friday, October 24, 2014

His Mind Was Bound By A Gray Sea


His mind was bound by a gray sea.
He could feel its power tumbling in his chest.
His eyes were cold but his skin was warm.
He saw things as they were not as others wished.

His songs are mostly forgotten now.
But somehow he is still with us, 
in the sound of the surf, 
in the rush of ocean waves echoing in our ears.








Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Oppenheimer in the Clouds

"'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."  The Bhagavad-Gita

He rode on top of a white cloud.
He rode on top of a white elephant.

But this wasn't the circus
and he was no clown.

He was the father of black holes
when the bombs began to fall.

He tried to close the coffin 
that he opened but it was too late.

Warheads multiplied like rumors.
Nobody kept them secret.

If you look high enough, you can see him.
He rides on top of a white cloud.

He rides on top of a white elephant.
He is the father of black holes.