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?’
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
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,
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 MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
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