John Berryman Poems
A collection of select John Berryman famous poems that were written by John Berryman or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
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by
John Berryman
And where, friend Quo, lay you hiding
across malignant half my years or so?
One evil faery
it was workt night, with amoroso pleasing
menace, the panes shake
where Lie-by-the-fire is waiting for his cream.
A tiger by a torrent in rain, wind,
narrows fiend's eyes for grief
in an old ink-on-silk,
reminding me of Delphi, and,
friend Quo, once was safe
imagination as sweet milk.
Let all the flowers wither...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Oh, lay my ashes on the wind
That blows across the sea.
And I shall meet a fisherman
Out of Capri,
And he will say, seeing me,
"What a Strange Thing!
Like a fish's scale or a
Butterfly's wing."
Oh, lay my ashes on the wind
That blows away the fog.
And I shall meet a farmer boy
Leaping through the bog,
And he will say, seeing me,
"What a Strange...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
O journeyer, deaf in the mould, insane
with violent travel & death: consider me
in my cast, your first son.
Would you were I by now another one,
witted, legged? I see you before me plain
(I am skilled: I hear, I see)-”
your honour was troubled: when you wondered-”'No'.
I hear. I think I hear. Now full craze down
across our continent
all storms since you gave...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Through the forest, followed, Henry made his silky way,
No chickadee was troubled, small moss smiled
on his swift passage.
But there were those ahead when at midday
they met in a clearing and lookt at each other awhile.
To kill was not the message.
He only could go with them-”odds? 20 to one-and-a-half;
pointless. Besides, palaver with the High Chief
might advance THE CAUSE.
Undoubtedly down...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Old Pussy-cat if he won't eat, he don't
feel good into his tum', old Pussy-cat.
He wants to have eaten.
Tremor, heaves, he sweaterings. He can't.
A dizzy swims of where is Henry at;
. . . somewhere streng verboten.
How come he sleeps & sleeps and sleeps, waking like death:
locate the restorations of which we hear
as of profound sleep.
From daylight he got maintrackt, from...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
I am, outside. Incredible panic rules.
People are blowing and beating each other without mercy.
Drinks are boiling. Iced
drinks are boiling. The worse anyone feels, the worse
treated he is. Fools elect fools.
A harmless man at an intersection said, under his breath, "Christ!"
That word, so spoken, affected the vision
of, when they trod to work next day, shopkeepers
who went and were fitted for...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
General Fatigue stalked in, & a Major-General,
Captain Fatigue, and at the base of all
pale Corporal Fatigue,
and curious microbes came, came viruses:
and the Court conferred on Henry, and conferred on Henry
the rare Order of Weak.
-”How come dims one these wholesome elsers oh?
Old polymaths, old trackers, far from home,
say how thro' auburn hairtidbits of youth's grey climb.
My beauty id off duty!-”
Henry...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Down on the cathedrals, as from the Giralda
in a land no crueller, and over the walls
to domes & river look
from Great John's belfry, Ivan-Veliky,
whose thirty-one are still
to hail who storms no father's throne. Bell, book
& cradle rule, in silence. Hour by hour
from time to time with holy oil
touch yet the forehead eyelids nose
lips ears breast fists of Kruschev, for...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Sick at 6 & sick again at 9
was Henry's gloomy Monday morning oh.
Still he had to lecture.
They waited, his little children, for stricken Henry
to rise up yet once more again and come oh.
They figured he was a fixture,
nuts to their bolds, keys to their bloody locks.
One day the whole affair will fall apart
with a rustle of fire,
a wrestle of...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Behold I bring you tidings of great joy-”
especially now that the snow & gale are still-”
for Henry is delivered.
Not only is he delivered from the gale
but he has a little one. He's out of jail
also. It is a boy.
Henry's pleasure in this unusual event
reminds me of the extra told at Hollywood & Vine
that TV cameras
were focussed on him personally...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
I heard said 'Cats that walk by their wild lone'
but Henry had need of friends. They disappeared
Shall I follow my dream?
Clothes disappeared in a backward sliding, zones
shot into view, pocked, exact & weird:
who is what he seem?
I will tell you now a story about Speck:
after other cuts, he put the knife in her eye,
one of the eight:
he was...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four
hearers in the racket of the market
with ancient signs, infamous characters,
new rythms. 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...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Under the table, no. That last was stunning,
that flagon had breasts. Some men grow down cursed.
Why drink so, two days running?
two months, O seasons, years, two decades running?
I answer (smiles) my question on the cuff:
Man, I been thirsty.
The brake is incomplete but white costumes
threaten his rum, his cointreau, gin-&-sherry,
his bourbon, bugs um all.
His go-out privilege led to odd red...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
The three men coming down the winter hill
In brown, with tall poles and a pack of hounds
At heel, through the arrangement of the trees,
Past the five figures at the burning straw,
Returning cold and silent to their town,
Returning to the drifted snow, the rink
Lively with children, to the older men,
The long companions they can never reach,
The blue light, men with...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Again, his friend's death made the man sit still
and freeze inside-”his daughter won first price-”
his wife scowled over at him-”
It seemed to be Hallowe'en.
His friend's death had been adjudged suicide,
which dangles a trail
longer than Henry's chill, longer than his loss
and longer than the letter that he wrote
that day to the widow
to find out what the hell had happened...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
How this woman came by the courage, how she got
the courage, Henry bemused himself in a frantic hot
night of the eight of July,
where it came from, did once the Lord frown down
upon her ancient cradle thinking 'This one
will do before she die
for two and seventy years of chipped indignities
at least,' and with his thunder clapped a promise?
In that far...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
He lay in the middle of the world, and twicht.
More Sparine for Pelides,
human (half) & down here as he is,
with probably insulting mail to open
and certainly unworthy words to hear
and his unforgiving memory.
-”I seldom go to films. They are too exciting,
said the Honourable Possum.
-”It takes me so long to read the 'paper,
said to me one day a novelist hot...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Westward, hit a low note, for a roarer lost
across the Sound but north from Bremerton,
hit a way down note.
And never cadenza again of flowers, or cost.
Him who could really do that cleared his throat
& staggered on.
The bluebells, pool-shallows, saluted his over-needs,
while the clouds growled, heh-heh, & snapped, & crashed.
No stunt he'll ever unflinch once more will fail
(O lucky fellow,...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me,...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Your face broods from my table, Suicide.
Your force came on like a torrent toward the end
of agony and wrath.
You were christened in the beginning Sylvia Plath
and changed that name for Mrs Hughes and bred
and went on round the bend
till the oven seemed the proper place for you.
I brood upon your face, the geography of grief,
hooded, till I allow
again your...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back.
He thought they was old friends. He felt on the stair
where her papa found them bare
they became familiar. When the papers were lost
rich with pals' secrets, he thought he had the knack
of ruin. Their paths crossed
and once they crossed in jail; they crossed in bed;
and over an unsigned letter their eyes met,
and...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
Noises from underground made gibber some
others collected & dug henry up
saying 'You are a sight.'
Chilly, he muttered for a double rum
waving the mikes away, putting a stop
to rumors, pushing his fright
off with the now accumulated taxes
accustomed in his way to solitude
and no bills.
Wives came forward, claiming a new Axis,
fearful for their insurance, though, now, glued
to disencumbered Henry's many ills.
A...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
During the father's walking-”how he look
down by now in soft boards, Henry, pass
and what he feel or no, who know?-”
as during hÃs broad father's, all the breaks
& ill-lucks of a thriving pioneer
back to the flying boy in mountain air,
Vermont's child to go out, and while Keats sweat'
for hopeless inextricable lust, Henry's fate,
and Ethan Allen was a calling man,
all through...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
My mother has your shotgun. One man, wide
in the mind, and tendoned like a grizzly, pried
to his trigger-digit, pal.
He should not have done that, but, I guess,
he didn't feel the best, Sister,-”felt less
and more about less than us . . . ?
Now-”tell me, my love, if you recall
the dove light after dawn at the island and all-”
here is the...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
The greens of the Ganges delta foliate.
Of heartless youth made late aware he pled:
Brownies, please come.
To Henry in his sparest times sometimes
the little people spread, & did friendly things;
then he was glad.
Pleased, at the worst, except with the man, he shook
the brightest winter sun.
All the green lives
of the great delta, hours, hurt his migrant heart
in a safety of the...Read more of this...