JOHN BERRYMAN IN THE VILLAGE

Students party liners and the only friend
Make a tribute for him in an evening of superlatives.
Tonight for an hour you won't hear anything
About Gingrich or Judge Ito. Waves of pleasure
Appear grow in substance and cross over them
In a regular pattern. A culture Hero in a series
Of extended Dreams he fortells the bitter end.
She follows him to an abandoned beach.
Is it murder or suicide? The powder burns
Are never admitted in evidence. Mr. Bones
Plays blackface. The horribles applaud like sheep.

Henry makes love to a married woman and exposes her
In sonnets. He holds Milton and Dante close to his heart.
As a midwestern poet from Oklahoma or Minnesota
He speaks to God in the dramatic third person.
He visits the gardens in Kyoto for the stones
And sees closeup Ganges lepers the fire and smoke
In the funeral pyres they build for them.
Alone at the end with the longest poem the desk
And floor cluttered with odd slips some only half written
In bad script he collects them in the morning saving some
And stuffing the rest in boxes with cryptic markings.

As a budding poet he goes all the way to Ireland
To light a cigarette for Yeats an old guy
Gone with disease. Himself a 60-year-old altar boy
With a hardon he has a nose for snatch.
The son of an indulgent Mom a turnon for guys
He tries the Twelve Steps and they lead him
To a bridge where he ends it on an embankment
Though he dreams all along of a watery grave.
He's in heaven now with Delmore Schwartz. They both suffered
A lot. Dealing with symbols only Yeats didn't and proves it
The way he dodges bullets in the American Civil War.

Writing only two poems a year Jane Cooper doesn't know
He's going to be a great poet. They're all surprised.
He tells Levine his work is crap marking it
"X" for "Disaster" and a check for "Hot."
As a teacher he attacks selfsatisfaction and lethargy.
Lecturing his shirt is wet with sweat.
He does his best to be passionate and attractive to them
And he has his eye out for admirers and sex partners.
Beautiful people don't make it. He says he's ugly
And needs to be for art's sake. When Gaugin sees Vincent
He says No one ever painted a chair like that.

NY 11/15/94