John Berryman

by John Berryman

  will sing our souls to rest

  (in his earlier-78 recordings).

  Tomorrow we’ll do our best, our best,

  tomorrow we’ll do our best.

  The income tax is done, is done,

  and three full weeks before

  & it’s going to be O very bad

  but the medical expenses are more, are more,

  the medical & support are more.

  I left the place with one cracked toe,

  at noon I packed in haste

  out of that hospital O to go

  they wanted me to stay, to stay

  for an X-ray. I said ‘Doctors, pray

  the thing’s not dislocated or broken O

  any damned thing beside—

  if it is, you’re helpless—if it’s not, you’re a bore’

  O I left that ward on my right foot

  lurching on my left toe.

  It hurt like hell, but never mind—

  I hobbled on to free

  swinging my typescript book like a bee

  with honey back to the comb, the comb,

  bringing my lovelies home.

  The postal strike will end, will end,

  I sent that Nixon a wire

  because my ex-wife said I should—

  I always do what she says, she says,

  because my son sets me on fire.

  It’s home to my daughter I am come

  with verses & stories true,

  which I would also share with you,

  my dear, my dear,

  only you are not my daughter.

  Now my book will go to friends—

  women & men of wit—

  Xerox’d before we publish it, it,

  the limited edition & the public it,

  before we publish it.

  It’s Love & Fame called, honey Kate,

  you read it from the start

  and sometimes I reel when you praise my art

  my honey almost hopeless angry art,

  which was both our Fate—

  Part Four

  Eleven Addresses to the Lord

  1

  Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake,

  inimitable contriver,

  endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring Moon,

  thank you for such as it is my gift.

  I have made up a morning prayer to you

  containing with precision everything that most matters.

  ‘According to Thy will’ the thing begins.

  It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence.

  You have come to my rescue again & again

  in my impassable, sometimes despairing years.

  You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves

  and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning.

  Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs:

  how can I ‘love’ you?

  I only as far as gratitude & awe

  confidently & absolutely go.

  I have no idea whether we live again.

  It doesn’t seem likely

  from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view

  but certainly all things are possible to you,

  and I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter and to Paul

  as I believe I sit in this blue chair.

  Only that may have been a special case

  to establish their initiatory faith.

  Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.

  May I stand until death forever at attention

  for any your least instruction or enlightenment.

  I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty.

  2

  Holy, as I suppose I dare to call you

  without pretending to know anything about you

  but infinite capacity everywhere & always

  & in particular certain goodness to me.

  Yours is the crumpling, to my sister-in-law terrifying thunder,

  yours the candelabra buds sticky in Spring,

  Christ’s mercy,

  the gloomy wisdom of godless Freud:

  yours the lost souls in ill-attended wards,

  those agonized thro’ the world

  at this instant of time, all evil men,

  Belsen, Omaha Beach,—

  incomprehensible to man your ways.

  May be the Devil after all exists.

  ‘I don’t try to reconcile anything’ said the poet at eighty,

  ‘This is a damned strange world.’

  Man is ruining the pleasant earth & man.

  What at last, my Lord, will you allow?

  Postpone till after my children’s deaths your doom

  if it be thy ineffable, inevitable will.

  I say ‘Thy kingdom come,’ it means nothing to me.

  Hast Thou prepared astonishments for man?

  One sudden Coming? Many so believe.

  So not, without knowing anything, do I.

  3

  Sole watchman of the flying stars, guard me

  against my flicker of impulse lust: teach me

  to see them as sisters & daughters. Sustain

  my grand endeavours: husbandship & crafting.

  Forsake me not when my wild hours come;

  grant me sleep nightly, grace soften my dreams;

  achieve in me patience till the thing be done,

  a careful view of my achievement come.

  Make me from time to time the gift of the shoulder.

  When all hurt nerves whine shut away the whiskey.

  Empty my heart toward Thee.

  Let me pace without fear the common path of death.

  Cross am I sometimes with my little daughter:

  fill her eyes with tears. Forgive me, Lord.

  Unite my various soul,

  sole watchman of the wide & single stars.

  4

  If I say Thy name, art Thou there? It may be so.

  Thou art not absent-minded, as I am.

  I am so much so I had to give up driving.

  You attend, I feel, to the matters of man.

  Across the ages certain blessings swarm,

  horrors accumulate, the best men fail:

  Socrates, Lincoln, Christ mysterious.

  Who can search Thee out?

  except Isaiah & Pascal, who saw.

  I dare not ask that vision, though a piece of it

  at last in crisis was vouchsafèd me.

  I altered then for good, to become yours.

  Caretaker! take care, for we run in straits.

  Daily, by night, we walk naked to storm,

  some threat of wholesale loss, to ruinous fear.

  Gift us with long cloaks & adrenaline.

  Who haunt the avenues of Angkor Wat

  recalling all that prayer, that glory dispersed,

  haunt me at the corner of Fifth & Hennepin.

  Shield & fresh fountain! Manifester! Even mine.

  5

  Holy, & holy. The damned are said to say

  ‘We never thought we would come into this place.

  I’m fairly clear, my Friend, there’s no such place

  ordained for inappropriate & evil man.

  Surely they fall dull, & forget. We too,

  the more or less just, I feel fall asleep

  dreamless forever while the worlds hurl out.

  Rest may be your ultimate gift.

  Rest or transfiguration! come & come

  whenever Thou wilt. My daughter & my son

  fend will without me, when my work is done

  in Your opinion.

  Strengthen my widow, let her dream on me

  thro’ tranquil hours less & down to less.

  Abrupt elsewhere her heart, I sharply hope.

  I leave her in wise Hands.

  6

  Under new management, Your Majesty:

  Thine. I have solo’d m
ine since childhood, since

  my father’s blow-it-all when I was twelve

  blew out my most bright candle faith, and look at me.

  I served at Mass six dawns a week from five,

  adoring Father Boniface & you,

  memorizing the Latin he explained.

  Mostly we worked alone. One or two women.

  Then my poor father frantic. Confusions & afflictions

  followed my days. Wives left me.

  Bankrupt I closed my doors. You pierced the roof

  twice & again. Finally you opened my eyes.

  My double nature fused in that point of time

  three weeks ago day before yesterday.

  Now, brooding thro’ a history of the early Church,

  I identify with everybody, even the heresiarchs.

  7

  After a Stoic, a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean,

  Justin Martyr studied the words of the Saviour,

  finding them short, precise, terrible, & full of refreshment.

  I am tickled to learn this.

  Let one day desolate Sherry, fair, thin, tall,

  at 29 today her life the Sahara Desert,

  who never has once enjoyed a significant relation,

  so find His lightning words.

  8

  A Prayer for the Self

  Who am I worthless that You spent such pains

  and take may pains again?

  I do not understand; but I believe.

  Jonquils respond with wit to the teasing breeze.

  Induct me down my secrets. Stiffen this heart

  to stand their horrifying cries, O cushion

  the first the second shocks, will to a halt

  in mid-air there demons who would be at me.

  May fade before, sweet morning on sweet morning,

  I wake my dreams, my fan-mail go astray,

  and do me little goods I have not thought of,

  ingenious & beneficial Father.

  Ease in their passing my beloved friends,

  all others too I have cared for in a travelling life,

  anyone anywhere indeed. Lift up

  sober toward truth a scared self-estimate.

  9

  Surprise me on some ordinary day

  with a blessing gratuitous. Even I’ve done good

  beyond their expectations. What count we then

  upon Your bounty?

  Interminable: an old theologian

  asserts that even to say You exist is misleading.

  Uh-huh. I buy that Second-century fellow.

  I press his withered glorifying hand.

  You certainly do not as I exist,

  impersonating as well the meteorite

  & flaring in your sun your waterfall

  or blind in caves pallid fishes.

  Bear in mind me, Who have forgotten nothing,

  & Who continues. I may not foreknow

  & fail much to remember. You sustain

  imperial desuetudes, at the kerb a widow.

  10

  Fearful I peer upon the mountain path

  where once Your shadow passed, Limner of the clouds

  up their phantastic guesses. I am afraid,

  I never until now confessed.

  I fell back in love with you, Father, for two reasons:

  You were good to me, & a delicious author,

  rational & passionate. Come on me again,

  as twice you came to Azarias & Misael.

  President of the brethren, our mild assemblies

  inspire, & bother the priest not to be dull;

  keep us week-long in order; love my children,

  my mother far & ill, far brother, my spouse.

  Oil all my turbulence as at Thy dictation

  I sweat out my wayward works.

  Father Hopkins said the only true literary critic is Christ.

  Let me lie down exhausted, content with that.

  11

  Germanicus leapt upon the wild lion in Smyrna,

  wishing to pass quickly from a lawless life.

  The crowd shook the stadium.

  The proconsul marvelled.

  ‘Eighty & six years have I been his servant,

  and he has done me no harm.

  How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?’

  Polycarp, John’s pupil, facing the fire.

  Make too me acceptable at the end of time

  in my degree, which then Thou wilt award.

  Cancer, senility, mania,

  I pray I may be ready with my witness.

  DELUSIONS etc of John Berryman

  [1972]

  We haue piped vnto you, and ye haue not danced:

  wee haue mourned vnto you, and ye haue not lamented.

  On parle toujours de ‘l’art réligieux’. L’art est réligieux.

  And indeed if Eugène Irténev was mentally deranged everyone is in the same case; the most mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in others indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves.

  Feu! feu! feu!

  Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

  I

  OPUS DEI

  (a layman’s winter mockup, wherein moreover

  the Offices are not within one day said

  but thro’ their hours at intervals

  over many weeks—such being the World)

  Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick,

  and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into

  the fire, and oft into the water.

  And he did evil, because he prepared not

  his heart to seek the Lord.

  Lauds

  Let us rejoice on our cots, for His nocturnal miracles

  antique outside the Local Group & within it

  & within our hearts in it, and for quotidian miracles

  parsecs-off yielding to the Hale reflector.

  Oh He is potent in the corners. Men

  with Him are potent: quasars we intuit,

  and sequent to sufficient discipline

  we perceive this glow keeping His winter out.

  My marvellous black new brim-rolled felt is both stuffy & raffish,

  I hit my summit with it, in firelight.

  Maybe I only got a Yuletide tie

  (increasing sixty) & some writing-paper

  but ha (haha) I’ve bought myself a hat!

  Plus-strokes from position zero! Its feathers sprout.

  Thank you, Your Benevolence!

  permissive, smiling on our silliness You forged.

  Matins

  Thou hard. I will be blunt: Like widening

  blossoms again glad toward Your soothe of sun

  & solar drawing forth, I find meself

  little this bitter morning, Lord, tonight.

  Less were you tranquil to me in my dark

  just now than tyrannous. O some bore down

  sore with enticements—One abandoned me—

  half I swelled up toward—till I crash awake.

  However, lo, across what wilderness

  in vincible ignorance past forty years

  lost to (as now I see) Your sorrowing

  I strayed abhorrent, blazing with my Self.

  I thought I was in private with the Devil

  hounding me upon Daddy’s cowardice

  (trustless in stir the freeze: ‘Do your own time’).

  Intertangled all—choking, groping bodies.

  ‘Behold, thou art taken in thy mischief,

  because thou art a bloody man’ with horror

  loud down from Heaven did I not then hear,

  but sudden’ was received,—appointed even

  poor scotographer, far here from Court,

  humming over goodnatured Handel’s Te Deum.

  I waxed, upon surrender, strenuous

  ah almost able service to devise.

  I am like your sun, Dear, in a state of shear—

  parts of my surface are continually slipping
past others,

  not You, not You. O I may, even, wave

  in crisis like a skew Wolf-Rayet star.

  Seas and hills, the high lakes, Superior,

  accomplish your blue or emerald donations—

  manifest too your soft forbearance, hard

  & flint for fierce man hardly to take in.

  I take that in. Yes. Just now. I read that.

  Hop foot to foot, hurl the white pillows about,

  jubilant brothers: He is our overlord,

  holding up yet with crimson flags the Sun

  whom He’ll embark soon mounting fluent day!

  Prime

  Occludes wild dawn. Up thro’ green ragged clouds

  one sun is tearing, beset alders sway

  weary under swollen sudden drops

  and February winds shudder our doors,

  Lord, as thou knowest. What fits me today

  which work I can? I’ve to poor minimum

  pared my commitments; still I’m sure to err

  grievous & frequent before Evensong

  and both I long toward & abhor that coming.

  Yet if You and I make a majority

  (as old Claudel encouraged) what sharp law

  can pass this morning?—upon which, I take heart.

  Also: ‘The specific gravity of iron

  is one and one-half times the size of Switzerland.’

  Zany enlivens. People, pipe with pipes:

  the least of us is back on contract, even

  unto myself succeeding in sunrise

  all over again!

  All customary blessings,

  anathemas of the date (post-Lupercal,

  and sure The Baby was my valentine),

  I’m not Your beaver, here disabled, still

  it is an honour, where some have achieved,

  to limp behind along, humming, & keen

  again upon what blue trumps, hazy, vainless glory.

  In Alexandria, O Saint Julian

  gouty, chair-borne, displayed then on a camel

  thorough the insufferable city, and burned.

  In other places, many other holy

  bishops, confessors, and martyrs. Thanks be to God.

  Interstitial Office

  Bitter upon conviction

  (even of the seven women jurors