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“Dream Song 95” by John Berryman 🇺🇸 (25 Oct 1914 – 7 Jan 1972)
The surly cop looked out at me in sleep
insect-like. Guess, who was the insect.
I’d asked him in my robe
& hospital gown in the elevator politely
why someone saw so many police around,
and without speaking he looked.
​
A meathead, and of course he was armed, to creep
across my nervous system some time ago wrecked.
I saw the point of Loeb
at last, to give oneself over to crime wholly,
baffle, torment, roar laughter, or without sound
attend while he is cooked
​
until with trembling hands hoist I my true
& legal ax, to get at the brains. I never liked brains—
it’s the texture & the thought—
but I will like them now, spooning at you,
my guardian, slowly, until at lenght the rains
lose heart and the sun flames out.