“It was not gay, that life.” You can’t “make me small,”
you “can’t put me down” or take away my job
I am immune,
although it is not gay. Why did we come at all,
consonant to whose bidding? Perhaps God is a slob,
playful, vast, rough-hewn.
Perhaps God resembles one of the last etchings of Goya & not Valesquez, never Rembrandt no. Something disturbed, ill-pleased, & with a touch of paranoia who calls for this thud of love from his creatures-O. Perhaps God ought to be curbed.
Not only on this planet, I admit; somewhere. Our only resource is bleak denial or anti-potent rage, both have been tried by our wisest. Who was it back there who died unshriven, daring to see what more could happen to a painter with such courage.
Source: Berryman, John, and Michael Hofmann. The Dream Songs , 2014, p. 257.
“The Word Hoplite is Scratched Out” Joseph M. Gerace. 2018. 6′ 3″ x 6′ 3″
I impute, with geometry, Hoplite. Consciously I do this to you, Too-Beautiful Poemtaker. Remember John to Philip wrote: “Don’t worry about it Levine, you’re ugly enough to be a great poet.” That’s filled with funny truth — oozes out of the recoiling seams, the reactionary-gunman seams. The Ugly Poet pities him — Perfect Gator — welcomes him to his soul. That child labor where hallucinations are made and thrown into the blood pool. Do you two remember the Battle of Thermopylae? Sit down, Hero, Xerxes — your pearly Perfect Gator — wants to entomb a hedge around his lengthy head. His dome is a lighthouse, don’t get it twisted with scalene teeth and bombing runs. Violence, he fancies himself president, dope commander. There. Over there. In the darkest dark. There it is. A carefully restored — the pearly acquiescence notes this before enveloping everything else — bust of Leonidas. His feathered features spark like desire. There exist no right angels in the black, you were correct. Always have been. But, no more! Desperate Darius sends emissaries to each Greek city-state clutching hundreds of printed out text messages describing’ Xerxes’s corpse. No two missals contain the same information, but each is precise in blood-line.
“I won’t dwell on these or on any details now. I have a good deal to do and I am exhausted in the eighth day of a heavy cold. This is just to tell you that life has a new mask on.” John Berryman, 10 October 1943
so do i
am exhausted
in the end of our minds
this instead
of our minds
this instead of our minds
instead of our minds this
the end of a heavy cold
the end minding the cold
speaker and
spoken to
our annual knowing
being offered up to us
i have a good deal to tell
on a term-to-term basis
instead of our minds
the eighth day of mum
as we begin less-than-life
has a new mask on
this is less-life than less with its
new mask hell-in-new-rochelle
any details now (exactly what
i don't yet know) i am exhausted
and at the end of our minds on an animal
incomprehensible bizarre touching mint
it does so and it is warm its being the beginning
offered up at the end of life has a new mask on
“The greens of the Ganges delta foliate.” Berryman
One should promote purchasable things
not people. One inspects the grey pain
interior. It is said that in a rabbi one discovers
the universe’s first wikipedia entry. “My skin itches
my skin’s cannibalizing brine,” Henry said. Feel any
one discipline is not an obscure witch. I merely
because you came on so strong. Emily don’t, said the
raggedy rabbi. The man drives his talon
into warmth. Warmth for the jain is
chubby. Just chubby. For the film to succeed
it must inhabit its fastidious corner. I am the hard one
must explain. Its unnamed elsewhere. No one denies
the yes of youth. Animal meat wrestles the delta
foliate. Talon languor in either statutes or statue
guarantees change. Powerwash. The pretty work of a dandy.
Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953
know i
don’t know i
don’t know i don’t know i don’t know i don’t
know i
don’t know i
don’t know i don’t know i don’t know
i
don’t know
i
don’t
know i don’t
know i don’t know i don’t
know i don’t know i
don’t get any frisson
of excitement
back
here
and in general i can say that
everything is much
the same
after that everything
is much
the same after that
everything is much the same and my bank account remains
the same after that everything is much the same
and my
bank account remains the same
after that everything is overis overdon’t know
i don’t know i
don’t get any frisson
of
excitement
back here and my
bank account remains the same
after that
everything is
much
the
same and my
view of excitement back here
and my bank
account remains
the same after that everything
is over excitement back
here and in general i can
say
that everything is
much the
same after that everything is much the same
after that is overn general
i can say that everything is much
the same and my bank
account
remains
the same
after that everything is
overame after
that
everything
is
much the same and my bank account remains
the same and my bank account remains the
same after
that is much
the same
and my bank account remains the same and in general
i can say that everything is
much the same and my bank account remains the
same after that everything is
much the
same and my bank account remains the same
and
my bank
account remains the same after
that everything
is
much the same
and
my bank account remains the same and my
bank account remains the same after that everything
is
much the
same and
my
bank account
remains the same
and my bank account
remains the same
and
my bank account
remains the
same
after
that
everything
is much
the same after
that
everything
is much
the same
and
my bank account remains the
same
after that is much the
same and
my bank
account
remains
the
same
after
that everything is much
the
same
and
my bank account remains the same
and my bank account remains the same
and my bank
account remains the same
and
my bank account remains the same and
my bank
account
remains the
same and my bank account remains
the same and my bank
account remains the
same and in general i can say that everything is
much
the same and
my bank
account remains the
same and my view of excitement
back
here and
“And we must now reckon with what we have done to our own blood.” Ta-Nehisi Coates, Black Panther, No. 1
know
everytime you
lamp-light in the
army
my
retired arms are
patterned in a basket
of week-old wild dildos
ask “What shattered
soon, Berryman?
Fiction is a
cop out."
keep
up
again
or miss our
mouth doom
mistaken
again
or
miss what's full
of sky and angel obvious
and desperately said
in suicidal (irradiated) light
he would
spit in my
peers
walking with my trampoline christian
multi-materials
no one locked an arrowhead
will jump a yellow
bus it's fundament this
aggressive carbon gown
governs my nursing
“‘Two-Eyes could bear no more’ like the dusty swan / Shut of its cage and doubtful what to do” Berryman
Winter landscape
The statue
The disciple
A point of age
The traveller
The ball poem
Fare well
The spinning heart
Parting as descent
Desires of men and women
World-telegram
Ancestor
Boston Common: a meditation upon the hero
The moon and the night and the men
The enemies of angels
Canto amour
Young woman's song
The song of the demented priest
The song of the young Hawaiian
The song of the tortured girl
The song of the bridegroom
Rock-study with wanderer
The long
New Year's Eve
Narcissus moving
The dispossessed
Scots poem.
“Now—tell me, my love, if you recall / the dove light after dawn at the island and all—” Berryman
Lack of night now
Vandalism: What’s funnier
Squash or a substantial orange yam?
In a manger? Spaghetti
Wake up with a headache
Not the night before, but
With death: What a dire truck
Skulls skulls skulls
Every man, doves,
In a mugshot
Looks like my father
For someone so obsessed
Shacked, dated, bored
I understand
The cup on mother’s head
Why you’d come, hawks,
Taking my jazz
They don’t aggress
Condottieri, becoming, of course
The subtext of acetylene
He should have come out and talked
INTERVIEWER: What was it like to take high tea with William Butler Yeats?
Cartwright calmingly my hero main part
was just recomment it Finally I did most of a more
though, big heart was extremely courteous, and I though,
big head, rathead her wonderful looking
in particulars
I reaping was just a cold bath, and when
lit it for Yeats, and still don't feel he was
just recomment back that surprise
he realized the said, “I had the fruits of my chamber." He
realized that surprise he was extremely courteous, and still don't
know
how much he day.
He was much he aged when
we went in. Finally I didn't know on
it's just a cold me down. So I were drunk early
succeeded the fruits of reached here?
And he was just recomment. I asked for
Mr. Yeats, and still don't feel
he drunk early succeeded various and asked for
Mr. Yeats, and my chamber. He was just the funniest
the day. He said he was left over.
The taller the fruits
of realized that surprise not asked for
Yeats.
Very kind. At a cold bath, and
we arrived in the sense to me
he was left over revise not asked
forget in. Finally I didn't know,
but in my own. So I were drunk
early succeeded various and
take off on my own. So I gave revise he
was extremely could see though, big heart was just
a cold bath, and I still don't know my
Who is Mr. Yeats? Who is Ben Jonson?
