Thursday 13 March 2014

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


Sonnet 115

All we were going strong last night this time,
the mots were flying & the frozen daiquiris
were downing, supine on the floor lay Lise
listening to Schubert grievous & sublime,
my head was frantic with a following rime:
it was a good evening, an evening to please,
I kissed her in the kitchen-ecstasies-
among so much good we tamped down the crime.

The weather's changing.  This morning was cold,
as I made for the grove, without expectation,
some hundred Sonnets in my pockets, old,
to read her if she came.  Presently the sun
yellowed the pines & my lady came not
in blue jeans & a sweater.  I sat down & wrote.

John Berryman
(25th October 1914 - 7th January 1972)


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