remembrance

given his showing up to teach at the U 
disheveled, jittery cigarette and cigarette and probably 
the drink, losing the very way there 
over river, river of all song, all American story 
which starts way north of St. Paul quiet or undone 
wandering south, not 
enraged mostly, something stranger. 
That’s one epic shard of John Berryman anyway.

Notorious. And par for the course in a classroom
destined, struck-by-lightning 
in sacred retrospect, the kind those long-ago students 
now can’t believe themselves 
so accidentally chosen, grateful though one 
probably claimed the poet absolutely 
bonkers then, out of his tree toward the end, 
so went the parlance. Wasn’t he 
always late—Give them back, Weirdo!—with those
brilliant papers they eked out, small dim-lit 
hours when a big fat beer would’ve 
been nice. Really nice. 
Fuck him, I hear that kid most definitely 
blurting were he young right now 
though the others—  From the get-go their
startle and reverence. But not even that malcontent 
did the damning I can’t believe 
they gave him tenure. 

Here’s where I think something else, think
of course it’s the Dream Songs that rattled him until—
as grandparents used to say—he couldn’t 
see straight. Like Dickinson’s bits of shock and light 
did her in between naps and those letters to
some vague beloved unattainable. Or Plath, her 
meticulous crushing fog. Maybe closer to Milton working 
his blindness—literally blind rage, if you want 
to talk rage—into pages soaked through with triumphant 
failure and rhyme, always 
that high orchestration, that alpha/omega big voice thing.  
And Satan, after all, as wise guy
and looming because for chrissake, Jack, get an interesting 
character in there! Someone must have
lobbed that right. 

All along, Berryman: how those Dream Songs surely
loosened a bolt or a wheel in his orderly
scholar-head, must have come at him 
like Michael the Archangel, 77 days of winged flash 
searing him to genius, some kind of
whack-a-mole version. Maybe like Gabriel
cutting that starry celebrity deal 
for a most dubious conception in the desert, near a fig tree, 
no proper human mechanics required. At last 
Berryman’s rage wasn’t rage 
but sorrow turned back on itself. With teeth. 

Henry my hero of crankiness and feigned indifference,
unspeakable industry, exhaustion 
and grief, half funny-crazy, half who-knows-what-
that-line-means. A henry whole 
universe of Henry, of 
there ought to be a law against Henry—pause 
and pause—Mister Bones: there is.  
Will be! Was! Not to say poetry’s
worth it or the most healthy fascination for the sane.
I’m just, I mean—is this love?  

There’s break, as in lucky, as in 
shatter. There’s smitten and there’s smite.

Haven’t found anyone 
From the old gang.
They must be still in hiding,
Holding their breaths
And trying not to laugh.

Our street is down on its luck
With windows broken
Where on summer nights 
One heard couples arguing,
Or saw them dancing to the radio.

The redhead we were 
All in love with,
Who sat on the fire escape,
Smoking late into the night, 
Must be in hiding too.

The skinny boy 
On crutches
Who always carried a book,
May not have 
Gotten very far.

Darkness comes early 
This time of year
Making it hard 
To recognize familiar faces 
In those of strangers.

He says I live far-far away as we build a robot
out of blocks. The heart's a dollar music box
 
he chose on his last birthday wringing every
handle for the song about a star. This year
 
a star ornament dashed all colors by an artist
the summer he was born. We hung it by
 
his window like the star he sings about at night.
 
It's not a star that fell inward long ago as its light
fled out. Every troubled night that first year
 
of his life I held him on my chest and called
his name into his sleep until he calmed
 
enough to watch the moon arc past the blinds
above us. Do you have two hearts
 
because you're a boy and a girl? You're a girl
but you're my dad and not and then he says
 
his mother’s partner’s name. Nothing changes
until it must I told myself when I lay down
 
on the surgeon’s table. Drowsy now he sings
again about the star which is a song about
 
a traveler grateful for the light to chart a course.