I ("In a motion of night...")

FOUNDED IN 1912 BY HARRIET MONROE

VOLUME CIN NUMBERS 1-2

JOHN BERRYMAN

NINE DREAM SONGS

I

In a motion of night they massed nearer my post.

I hummed a short blues. When the stars went out

I studied my weapons system.

Grenades, the portable rack, the yellow spout

of the anthrax-ray: in order. Yes and most

of my pencils were sharp.

This edge of the galaxy has often seen

a defence so stiff, but it could only go

one way.

-Mr Bones, your troubles give me vertigo

& backache. Somehow, when I makes your scene,

I made to feel as if

de roses of dawns & pearls of dusks, dreamed up

by some ol writer-man, got right forgot

& the greennesses of showers.

Springwater grow so thick it gonna clot

and pleasing ladies cease. I figger, yup,

you is bad: ours.

I