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.
