Poems Inspired by John Berryman

The Curse

By John Berryman

Cedars and the westward sun.

The darkening sky. A man alone

Watches beside the fallen wall

The evening multitudes of sin

Crowd in upon us all.

For when the light fails they begin

Nocturnal sabotage among

The outcast and the loose of tongue,

The lax in walk, the murderers:

Our twilight universal curse.

Children are faultless in the wood,

Untouched. If they are later made

Scandal and index to their time,

It is that twilight brings for bread

The faculty of crime.

Only the idiot and the dead

Stand by, while who were young before

Wage insolent and guilty war

By night within that ancient house,

Immense, black, damned, anonymous.

Letting Go

By Michelle Luo

(Inspired by John Berryman)

Cedars and the westward sun.

The darkening sky. A man alone

Watching the dead, brown leaves fall,

Against the bold sunset.

He watches the empty swing

Hanging off the crooked tree branch

Swaying gently in the breeze.

He looks up at the silent, abandoned tree house.

It must be filled with cobwebs.

As the night approaches

All that is left are shadows,

Just memories of the past

He knows all men must grow old,

And see their children go

Away into the ruthless world,

Where their innocence is quickly snatched,

Leaving us behind, in the cold.

Dream Song 14: Life, Friends is Boring

By John Berryman

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.

After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,

we ourselves flash and yearn,

and moreover my mother told me as a boy

(repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored

means you have no

Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no

inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

Peoples bore me,

literature bores me, especially great literature,

Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes

as bad as achilles,

Who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.

And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag

and somehow a dog

has taken itself & its tail considerably away

into mountains or sea or sky, leaving

behind me, wag.

Boring

By Michelle Luo

(Inspired by John Berryman)

Life is boring, with its redundant cycle.

People tell me to “get a life”,

But why would anyone want one?

They’re just so

Boring.

It all bores me.

The TV shows bore me,

Because there is nothing interesting on.

The homework bores me.

The ‘classical’ music, which isn’t that well-liked anyway,

Bores me.

But somehow I manage to pull through everyday.

Only to repeat what I have already done.

When I look behind me

The times tend to wisp away,

And they are no longer there,

They are simply mere memories