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“Dream Song 119” by John Berryman 🇺🇸 (25 Oct 19147 Jan 1972)
Fresh-shaven, past months & a picture in New York
of Beard Two, I did have Three took off. Well …
Shadow & act, shadow & act,
Better get white or you’ get whacked,
or keep so-called black
& raise new hell.
I’ve had enough of this dying.
You’ve done me a dozen goodnesses; get well.
Fight again for our own.
Henry felt baffled, in the middle of the thing.
He spent his whole time in Ireland on the Book of Kells,
the jackass, made of bone.
No tremor, no perspire: Heaven is here
now, in Minneapolis.
It’s easier to vomit than it was,
beardless.
There’s always the cruelty of scholarship.
I once was a slip.