Dream Song 92: Room 231: the fourth week by John Berryman
Something black somewhere in the vistas of his heart.
Tulips from Tates teazed Henry in the mood to be a tulip and desire no more but water, but light, but air. Yet his nerves rattled blackly, unsubdued, & suffocation called, dream-whiskey'd pour sirening. Rosy there
too fly my Phil & Ellen roses, pal. Flesh-coloured men & women come & punt under my windows. I rave or grunt against it, from a flowerless land. For timeless hours wind most, or not at all. I wind my clock before I shave.
Soon it will fall dark. Soon you'll see stars you fevered after, child, man, & did nothing,— compass live to the pencil-torch! As still as his cadaver, Henry mars this surface of an earth or other, feet south eyes bleared west, waking to march.
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