Delusions, Etc., Page 4

  Certainty Before Lunch

  NINETY percent of the mass of the Universe

  (90%!) may be gone in collapsars,

  pulseless, lightless, forever, if they exist.

  My friends the probability man & I

  & his wife the lawyer are taking a country walk

  in the flowerless April snow in exactly two hours

  and maybe won’t be back. Finite & unbounded

  the massive spirals absolutely fly

  distinctly apart, by math and observation,

  current math, this morning’s telescopes

  & inference. My wife is six months gone

  so won’t be coming. That mass must be somewhere!

  or not? just barely possibly may not

  BE anywhere? My Lord, I’m glad we don’t

  on x or y depend for Your being there.

  I know You are there. The sweat is, I am here.

  The Prayer of the Middle-Aged Man

  AMID the doctors in the Temple at twelve, between

  mother & host at Cana implored too soon,

  in the middle of disciples, the midst of the mob,

  between the High Priest and the Procurator,

  among the occupiers,

  between the malefactors, and ‘stetit in medio,

  et dixit, Pax vobis’ and ‘ascensit ad mediam

  Personarum et caelorum,’ dear my Lord,

  mercy a sinner nailed dead-centre too,

  pray not implored too late,—

  for also Ezra stood between the seven & the six,

  restoring the new Law.

  ‘How Do You Do, Dr Berryman, Sir?’

  EDGY, perhaps. Not on the point of bursting-forth,

  but toward that latitude,—I think? Not ‘shout loud & march

  straight.’

  Each lacks something in some direction. I

  am not entirely at the mercy of.

  The tearing of hair no.

  Pickt up pre-dawn & tortured and detained,

  Mr Tan Mam and many other students

  sit tight but vocal in illegal cells

  and as for Henry Pussycat he’d just as soon be dead

  (on the Promise of—I know it sounds incredible—

  if can he muster penitence enough—

  he can’t though—

  glory)

  The Facts & Issues

  I REALLY believe He’s here all over this room

  in a motor hotel in Wallace Stevens’ town.

  I admit it’s weird; and could—or could it?—not be so;

  but frankly I don’t think there’s a molecular chance of that.

  It doesn’t seem hypothesis. Thank heavens

  millions agree with me, or mostly do,

  and have done ages of our human time,

  among whom were & still are some very sharp cookies.

  I don’t exactly feel missionary about it,

  though it’s very true I wonder if I should.

  I regard the boys who don’t buy this as deluded.

  Of course they regard me no doubt as deluded.

  Okay with me! And not the hell with them

  at all—no!—I feel dubious on Hell—

  it’s here, all right, but elsewhere, after? Screw that,

  I feel pretty sure that evil simply ends

  for the doer (having wiped him out,

  by the way, usually) where good goes on,

  or good may drop dead too: I don’t think so:

  I can’t say I have hopes in that department

  myself, I lack ambition just just there,

  I know that Presence says it’s mild, and it’s mild,

  but being what I am I wouldn’t care

  to dare go nearer. Happy to be here

  and to have been here, with such lovely ones

  so infinitely better, but to me

  even in their suffering infinitely kind

  & blessing. I am a greedy man, of course,

  but I wouldn’t want that kind of luck continued,—

  or even increased (for Christ’s sake), & forever?

  Let me be clear about this. It is plain to me

  Christ underwent man & treachery & socks

  & lashes, thirst, exhaustion, the bit, for my pathetic & disgusting

  vices,

  to make this filthy fact of particular, long-after,

  faraway, five-foot-ten & moribund

  human being happy. Well, he has!

  I am so happy I could scream!

  It’s enough! I can’t BEAR ANY MORE.

  Let this be it. I’ve had it. I can’t wait.

  King David Dances

  AWARE to the dry throat of the wide hell in the world,

  O trampling empires, and mine one of them,

  and mine one gross desire against His sight,

  slaughter devising there,

  some good behind, ambiguous ahead,

  revolted sons, a pierced son, bound to bear,

  mid hypocrites amongst idolaters,

  mockt in abysm by one shallow wife,

  with the ponder both of priesthood & of State

  heavy upon me, yea,

  all the black same I dance my blue head off!

  by John Berryman

  POEMS 1942

  THE DISPOSSESSED 1948

  HOMAGE TO MISTRESS BRADSTREET 1956

  77 DREAM SONGS 1964

  HIS TOY, HIS DREAM, HIS REST 1968

  SHORT POEMS 1967

  BERRYMAN’S SONNETS 1967

  THE DREAM SONGS 1969

  LOVE & FAME 1970

  DELUSIONS, ETC. 1972

  Copyright © 1969, 1971 by John Berryman

  Copyright © 1972 by the Estate of John Berryman

  All rights reserved

  eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

  ISBN 0-374-13798-6

  Second printing, 1972

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Doubleday Canada Ltd., Toronto

  Acknowledgments are made to the editors of The New Yorker, in which “Ecce Homo” and “King David Dances” were first published; and for other poems to the editors of Esquire, The Harvard Advocate, and The New York Review.

  eISBN 9781466879010

  First eBook edition: July 2014