It's Dream Song season

N, hope yr day is going well. The wind is blowing little orange scraps of trees called leaves all around the city. It is nearly 4pm & almost dark. Berryman's Dream Songs lie in my lap. I do not understand them today. His lexicon is bizarre, his form flippant. Yet, when I think of what a Poem is in my mind, my only answer is Berryman, to imitate him, to live his life. Song 14 may be my favorite poem of all time:

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

(repeatingly) '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, especially great literature,

Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes

as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.

And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag

and somehow a dog

has taken itself & its tail considerably away

into mountains or sea or sky, leaving

behind: me, wag.

Wow! It is one of the most transparent of all the Songs, but it can really be digested if you hear Berryman read it. YouTube has a video of him reading it. Check it out.

So here we have it. John Berryman, Paul Celan, John Ashbery. That's all we need. Me thinks.

I had ham & eggs for breakfast this morning.

xoxo

d