John Berryman
NEW YEAR'S EVE
The grey girl who had not been singing stopped,
And a brave new no-sound blew through acrid
air.
I set my drink down, hard. Somebody slapped
Somebody's second wife somewhere,
Wheeling away to long to be alone.
I see the dragon of years is almost done,
Its claws loosen, its eyes
Crust now with tears.
&
lust and a scale of lies.
A whisky-listless and excessive saint
Was expounding
his
position, whom I hung
Boy-glad in glowing heaven- he grows faint–
Hearing what song the sirens sung,
Sidelong he web-slid and some rich prose spun.
The tissue golden of the gifts undone
Surpassed the gifts. Miss Weirs
Whispers to me her international fears.
Intelligentsia milling. In a semi-German
(Our loss of Latin fractured how far our fate-–
Disinterested once, linkage once like a sermon)
I struggle to articulate
Why it is our promise breaks in pieces early.
The Muses' visitants come soon, go surly
With liquor
&
mirrors away
In this land wealthy
&
casual as a holiday.
Whom the Bitch winks at. Most of us are Iinsey–
woolsey workmen, grandiose, and slack.
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