O Mighty Beyond The Chimney - A Stutter For Berryman After His Eleven Addresses To The Lord, And For Hopkins Dark Sonnets Poem by Warren Falcon

for Nelle Vander Ark - mentor who gifted me Gerard Manley Hopkins
for M. Manus - who gifted me John Berryman on the psych hospital ward

'but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? '* - Gerard Manley Hopkins

'I don't try to reconcile anything' said the poet at eighty,
'This is a damned strange world.'** - John Berryman

'Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended! '*** - Gerard Manley Hopkins

I beg (as did Berryman as did
also Job) Do not give up on me
drag me (gently) pull me (tug
tenderly) gather me (dew me
softly cover) do not delay
Shepherding (O Numberless
One, Creator of the Majestic
Zero beyond all counting, that
I may be beyond the Ninety
and the Nine****) so woo me
(though a cold bed I am and
make) though human hand
pen/paw at Thee O Mighty
beyond the chimney yet

beneath

the bed

yet (pillow me) pillow me plead I
'that my chaff might fly'* that my
eyes dimned be turned toward
what glimmer remains of corners
dark recessing mind, O Lord,
would have You take (mine) mind
shake the stiffness necked naked
hairs numbered over all the fading

flesh of me

Now (love even me-sand-one-grain)
let Blood stain to Purity; what once
is rendered endures, that one moment,
may, where self-will wilts, (only) You
do what You Will to in me instill

Einfalle*****

Spill
then to me
in torrent, rinse, fling out drear
dark (say it Elizabethan) Sin,
score yet that long-longing for
You wrung.

Look. Shake me out.
Drained (I am) for wanting that
You (might YOU) Force me far
to me Freshest Be

What hands I have cannot grasp
or reach (draw You in) for

now my tongue must serve

all that or type (or pen thin

ink Indian******) to (You/Not You)

convey impossibly

>>>>>>>>>>>>


* from Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, 'Carrion Comfort'

** from the second of 'Eleven Addresses to the Lord' by John Berryman; you may read the entire 'Addresses' here, copy and paste: falconwarren.blogspot.com/2010/12/eleven-addresses-to-lord-john-berryman.html

*** from Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, 'Felix Randall'

**** King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.) Matthew 18: 12: 'How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? '

***** Einfalle - German word with meanings several - invasion, incursions (into) , clever idea, notion, whim

******India Ink [from wikipedia online] is a simple black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing...originated in China, the ink was brought to India in the 4th Century where additional elements were added to the ink process.