John Berryman

Dream Song # 384:

The marker slants, flowerless, day’s almost done,

I stand above my father’s grave with rage,

often, often before

I’ve made this awful pilgrimage to one

who cannot visit me, who tore his page

out: I come back for more.

I spit upon this dreadful banker’s grave

who shot his heart out in a Florida dawn

O ho alas alas

When will indifference come, I moan & rave

I’d like to scrabble till I got right down

away down under the grass

and ax the casket open ha to see

just how he’s taking it, which he sought so hard

we’ll tear apart

the mouldering grave clothes ha & then Henry

will heft the ax once more, his final card,

and fell it on the start.

I am human after all.