John Berryman
DREAM SONG 1—John Berryman
Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,—a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.
All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.
What he has now to say is a long
wonder the world can bear & be.
Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed.
Today, John Allyn Berryman (originally John Allyn Smith) would've been 93 years old. Go to www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15206 to hear him read.
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CAN'T GIVE YOU UP, COME BACK TO ME
—Jane Blue, Sacramento
I’m a honeydew melon, didn’t you know?
I come from a house of straw
in the melon field. They didn’t know.
They thought the walls were wood and stucco,
they thought the house would last forever,
the house of the velvet sofa
and the lady chair. I spun through the rooms
singing abracadabra. I made myself up.
I was a harvester
of words, Precambrian
equisitum, horsetail growing on river banks
full of silicon, which became good
for scrubbing pots. They didn’t know.
They lived in a contraption
of old ideas, can’t give you up. Cornflower
come back to me. They mow you down
you come back up, azure eyes in the melon field.
I would be the lady chair
that nobody sat in, I would be kick and waltz
but never march. My drum was
rapture. No one knew. Lavender
on the dresser, how secret it was.
I come from a place of secret lavender.
I’m a honeydew melon, didn’t you know?
(from an afternoon of writing with Susan Wooldridge)
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Thanks, Jane! Jane Blue took yesterday's Medusa challenge; now it's your turn. What is the secret of life? Send Medusa your "secrets of life" poems, art and/or photography by midnight next Monday, October 29, and I'll send you a free copy of Kate Wells' new rattlechap, Spiral, or whatever other rattlechap you're missing. That's kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.
While we wait, here's one from David Humphreys:
HONEY FROM THE ROCK
—David Humphreys, Stockton
(from Psalm 81)
Desert whispers close in your ears
with wind blown sand and trees long
ago harvested for campfires, sheaves
of wheat and bundled wool with Lebanese
Cedar having built caskets fine as
Kentucky yellow pine or as Queequeg
would have had his Koa for a chieftain’s
carving, whichever flag or continent folded
and lain to rest with a taste of light honey-
suckle sunsets smelling of hammer-struck
granite for lasting awhile, eroding headstone.
Thanks, David!
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DREAM SONG 107
—John Berryman
Three 'coons come at his garbage. He be cross,
I figuring porcupine & took Sir poker
unbarring Mr door,
& then screen door. Ah, but the little 'coon,
hardly a foot (not counting tail) got in with
two more at the porch-edge
and they swirled, before some two swerve off
this side of crab tree, and my dear friend held
with the torch in his tiny eyes
two feet off, banded, but then he gave &
shot away too. They were all the same size,
maybe they were brothers,
it seems, and is, clear to me we are brothers.
I wish the rabbit & the 'coons could be friends,
I'm sorry about the poker
but I'm too busy now for nipping or quills
I've given up literature & taken down pills,
and that rabbit doesn't trust me.
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DREAM SONG 29
—John Berryman
There sat down, once, a thing on Henry's heart
só 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 he 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.
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—Medusa (what IS the secret of life?)
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:
Journals: The latest issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15) is available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or send $2 to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Next deadline is November 15. The two journals for youngsters, Snakelets and Vyper, are on hiatus; no deadlines this Fall.
New in October: Rattlesnake Press celebrated Sacramento Poetry Month on Wednesday, October 10 with the release of Spiral, a rattlechap by Kate Wells; Autumn on My Mind, a free littlesnake broadside by Mary Field; and #5 in the free Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor. Also released that night was Conversations, Volume One of the Rattlesnake Interview Anthology Series (a collection of B.L.'s conversations with eleven Sacramento poets), as well as a free broadside tribute to poet/publisher Ben L. Hiatt, commissioned by Rattlesnake Press and designed by Richard Hansen from poetry by B.L. Kennedy and artwork by Patrick Grizzell. All of these are available at The Book Collector, 100 24th St., Sacramento, or from rattlesnakepress.com, or write to kathykieth@hotmail.com/.
Coming in November: The Snake is proud to announce the release of Among Neighbors, a rattlechap from Taylor Graham; Home is Where You Hang Your Wings, a littlesnake broadside from frank andrick; and A Poet's Book of Days, a perpetual calendar featuring the poetry and photography of Katy Brown. Come celebrate the release of all of these on Wednesday, November 14, 7:30 PM at The Book Collector.
