John Berryman
I'm reading my book backward. It sounds odd.
It came twenty minutes ago. The hell with god.
A student just called up
about a grade earlier in the year.
The hell with students. And my mother ('Mir')
did the indexes to this book.
There's madness in the book. And sanenesses,
he argued. Ha! It's all a matter of
control (& so forth) of the subject.
The subject? Henry House & his troubles, yes
with his wife & mother & baby, yes
we're now at the end, enough.
A human personality, that's impossible.
The lines of nature & of will, that's impossible.
I give the whole thing up.
Only there resides a living voice
which if we can make it we make it out of choice
not giving the whole thing up.