Dream Song 36 by John Berryman
I heard Berryman read this one on Poetry on Record. I went and looked him up because I was intrigued by what the Dream Songs were and wanted to know a little more about him. I was sad to learn that he had a traumatic childhood (father committed suicide), battled depression and alcoholism, saw many of his friends and contemporaries die (naturally or by their own hands), and eventually committed suicide. Though clearly all those factors would impact his writing, I’m not making any assumptions because Berryman apparently did not consider himself a Confessional poet. Still, I will always think of his troubled life when I read his work.
Dream Song 36
By John Berryman
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?
—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.)
