David Berman Poems

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
...

I know it's a bad title
but I'm giving it to myself as a gift
on a day nearly canceled by sunlight
when the entire hill is approaching
...

It's too nice a day to read a novel set in England.

We're within inches of the perfect distance from the sun,
the sky is blueberries and cream,
...

She woke me up at dawn,
her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels.

I sat up and looked out the window
...

It had been four days of no weather
as if nature had conceded its genius to the indoors.

They'd closed down the Bureau of Sad Endings
...

My life is almost over; that's a fact
Statistically derived but simply true;
I look into the mirror, but it's cracked
...

Where did you go, my dear, my day;
Where, oh where, did you go?
To market, to maker of market, to say
Too much of the little I know.
...

Coincidence. Perhaps coincidence
Explains it all. Why look far out, in deep
For mystical solutions to make sense
Of how a dream disturbed more than my sleep—
...

As one who, reading late into the night,
When overcome by sleep, turns off the light
And yields whatever he can sense by sight
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When dreams have turned to dust and dust to slime;
When all you ever were or hoped to be
Appears as no more than a jest of time,
A foolish jest, a tasteless parody
...