Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs

28: Snow Line
from 77 Dream Songs
by John Berryman

It was wet & white & swift and where I am
we don’t know. It was dark and then
it isn’t.
I wish the barker would come. There seems to be to eat
nothing. I am unusually tired.
I’m alone too

If only the strange one with so few legs would come,
I’d say my prayers out of his mouth, as usual.
Where are his notes I loved?
There may be horribles; it’s hard to tell.
The barker nips me but somehow I feel
he too is on my side.

I’m too alone. I see no end. If we could all
run, even that would be better. I am hungry.
The sun is not.
It’s not a good position I am in.
If I had to do the whole thing over again
I wouldn’t.

+++

Devastating, his poems. For all of you who haven’t read Berryman (as I hadn’t before this past week), pick up a copy ASAP. This is epic stuff.

Also, for my fellow former-Michiganders: Charles Baxter’s The Feast of Love. Beautiful, beautiful. Not only will it make you homesick, how it walks through Ann Arbor’s humble little streets, but also offers some of the most poignant commentary I’ve heard thus far on love and its complications. What else is there right now? Homesickness and lovesickness. Yep, that pretty much sums it up.