John Berryman Talks to God

Eleven addresses to the Lord

#1

Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake,
inimitable contriver,
endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring Moon,
thank you for such as it is my gift.

I have made up a morning prayer to you
containing with precision everything that most matters.
'According to Thy will' the thing begins.
It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence.

You have come to my rescue again & again
in my impassable, sometimes despairing years.
You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves
and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning.

Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs:
how can I 'love' you?
I only as far as gratitude & awe
confidently & absolutely go.

I have no idea whether we live again.
It doesn't seem likely
from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view
but certainly all things are possible to you,

and I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter & to Paul
as I believe I sit in this blue chair.
Only that may have been a special case
to establish their initiatory faith.

Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.
May I stand until death forever at attention
for any your least instruction or enlightenment.
I even feel sure you will assist me again. Master of insight & beauty.

--A poem from John Berryman included in his book LOVE & FAME.

I include this poem because of its bravery and seeming integrity. No way I can ascribe to his level of faith, or even his desire for faith; however the attempt is inspired. Is he whistling in the dark? I think so, although he admits as much. In addition, he was a poet who attached great import to irony, and the thought that he didn't have his tongue somewhere pressed against his cheek is difficult to believe. Whenever I read the section about his belief in the miraculous appearances to Peter and Paul, I always wonder what color his chair really was. All that being said, I wish I could have written it. His potency as an imaginative carver of clever wit has, in this instance at least, been curtailed. His rococo flights of fancy are absent. And though he luckily doesn't become a mystical communicator with God, he shows a "foxhole during bombardment" attempt at honesty, hope and belief. I read the poem as an honest inquiry from a troubled man into the innocent realm also seen in certain Russian fiction. Beseeching, cajoling, promising: whatever he feels it might take to be accepted and forgiven, but not slavishly or even overly literate. Merely a sinner sharing a pint with God.

John Berryman was admitted into the Pantheon which houses noted 20th century American poets because of his DREAM SONGS, incredible first person feats of philological showmanship and psychological insight, often dealing with guilt, alcoholism, sin, suicide and despair. And somewhere in that murky pool of serious intent is great humor and amazing poetry. His character "Henry" is the over-educated, egocentric, lusty everyman in Academic corduroy who walked the earth (because his automobile had been confiscated by the court on multiple DUI convictions) during the 1950's through the 1970's. He was on a short list of America's best and brightest until his rather famous suicide. There was a rash of that sort of thing going on within poetry circles at that time.

Why do I continue to read Berryman? Maybe his poems tap into an instinctual grasp for some essential truth always just out of reach, call it neurotic self-diagnosis. His intelligence is formidable, his talent equally so, and yet he never breaks through any new level of insight that each of us haven't also been frustrated at. This big, bright, drunken bear is also common in his foibles and perversity. Berryman writes about tragedies and delights, albeit with a Rabelaisian flourish. He uses words and concepts perhaps like De Kooning used line and color: masterful, complex, original and somehow bestowed with a unity of intelligence. I recommend the DREAM SONGS and LOVE & FAME, stay away from his earlier work unless your pretensions need a workout.
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