("Henry's pelt was put on...")

JOHN BERRYMAN

JOHN BERRYMAN

FOUR DREAM SONGS

I

To Ralph Ross

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 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 steady plane. Please, please

come.

My friends,-he has been known to mourn,-I'll die;

live you, in the most wild, kindly, green

partly forgiving wood,

sort of forever and all those human sings

close not your better ears to, while good Spring

returns with a dance and a sigh.

u

Henry's pelt was put on sundry walls

where it did much resemble Henry and

them persons was delighted.

Especially his long & glowing tail

by all them was admired, and visitors.

They whistled: This is it!

Golden, whilst your frozen daiquiris

whir at midnight, gleams on you his fur

& silky & black.

Mission accomplished, pal.

My molten yellow & moonless bag,

drained, hangs at rest.

Collect in the cold depths barracuda. Ay,

in Sealdah Station some possessionless

hundreds exist & die.

The Chinese communes hum. Two daiquiris

withdrew into a corner of the gorgeous room

and one told the other a lie.

m

To William Meredith

The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and who's there?

-Easy, easy, Mr. Bones. I is on your side.

I smell your grief.

-I sent my grief away. I cannot care

forever. With them all again & again I died

and cried, and I have to live.

-Now there you exaggerate, Sah. We hafta die.

That is our 'pointed task. Love & die.

-Yes; that makes sense.

But what makes sense between, then? What if I

roiling & babbling & braining, brood on why and

just sat on the fence?

JOHN BERRYMAN

-I doubts you did or do. De choice is lost.

-It's fool's gold. But I go in for that.

The boy & the bear

looked at each other. Man all is tossed

& lost with groin-wounds by the grand bulls, cat.

William Faulkner's where?

(Frost being still around.)

w

Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four

hearers in the racket ofthe market

with ancient signs, infamous characters,

new rhythms. On the steps he was belov'd,

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

writers at all

chiefly in another country. No.

He by the heart & brains & tail, because

of their love for it, had them.

Junk he said to all them open-mouth'd.

Weather wöuld govern. When the monsoon spread

its floods, few came, two.

Came a day when none, though he began

in his accustomed way on the filthy steps

in a crash of waters, came.