There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart…

I was perusing my local library this afternoon, looking for ways to satisfy my new-found thirst for the artists of the Beat Generation, when I stumbled upon the book The Dream Songs by John Berryman. This piece stood out to me, in particular, and as I am as much an auditory beast as a visual, I was excited to find a clip of him reading his work aloud.

Dream Song 29 by John Berryman

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart
so heavy, if he had a hundred years
& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time
Henry could not make good.
Starts again always in Henry’s ears
the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind
like a grave Sienese face a thousand years
would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,
with open eyes, he attends, blind.
All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;
thinking.

But never did Henry, as thought he did,
end anyone and hacks her body up
and hide the pieces, where they may be found.
He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing.
Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.
Nobody is ever missing.

(I touch your book…and feel absurd.)

Although Allen Ginsberg is well-known for his Beat epic “Howl,” I am particularly fond of this piece. One of the things that has so endeared it to me – and the primary reason that I even thought about it tonight – was that I have a recording of Ginsberg reading it himself (to which I’ve included a link) that makes the poem that much more engaging. So, without further ado:

A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras!  Whole families
shopping at night!  Aisles full of husbands!  Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!–and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops?  What price bananas?  Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman?  The doors close in
an hour.  Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets?  The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be
lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Berkeley, 1955

A Supermarket in California

But I’m sleeping alone these days…

In a recent episode of This American Life, host Ira Glass read a poem which – for some reason or another – I thought should be more widely known. Penned by American poet and short-story writer Raymond Carver, this piece perfectly embodies the vulnerability we all face during those hours in which we drift out of consciousness.

The Scratch by Raymond Carver

I woke up with a spot of blood
over my eye. A scratch
halfway across my forehead.
But I’m sleeping alone these days.
Why on earth would a man raise his hand
against himself, even in sleep?
It’s this and similar questions
I’m trying to answer this morning.
As I study my face in the window.