This afternoon, discomfortable dead
Drift into doorways, lounge, across the bridge,
Whittling memory at the water’s edge,
And watch. This is what you inherited.
Random they are, but hairy, for they chafe
All in their eye, enlarging like a slide;
Spectral as men once met or crucified,
And kind. Until the sun sets you are safe.
A prey to your most awkward reflection,
Loose-limbed before the fire you sit appalled.
And think that by your error you have called
These to you. Look! the light will soon be gone.
Excited see from the window the men fade
In the twilight; reappear two doors down.
Suppose them well acquainted with the town
Who built it. Do you fumble in the shade?
The key was lost, remember, yesterday,
Or stolen—undergraduates perhaps;
But all men are their colleagues, and eclipse
Very like dusk. It is too late to pray.
There was a time crepuscular was mild,
The hour for tea, acquaintances, and fall
Away of all day’s difficulties, all
Discouragement. Weep, you are not a child.
The equine hour rears, no further friend,
Intolerant, foam-lathered, pregnant with
Mysterious grave watchers in their wrath
Let into tired Troy. You are near the end.
Midsummer Common loses its last gold,
And grey is there. The sun slants down behind
A certain cinema, and the world is blind
But more dangerous. It is growing cold.
Light all the lights, heap wood upon the fire
To banish shadow. Draw the curtains tight.
But sightless eyes will lean through and wide night
Darken this room of yours. As you desire.
Think on your sins with all intensity.
The men are on the stair, they will not wait.
There is a paper-knife to penetrate
Heart & guilt together. Do it quickly.
From The Heart Is Strange: New Selected Poems by John Berryman, edited and selected by Daniel Swift. Copyright © 2014 by Kathleen Berryman Donahue. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All Rights Reserved.
