A Poem In Fragments Beginning With A Line From Berryman Poem by Warren Falcon

[the poem begins with a line by John Berryman ending with the word 'honey']


Childness let's have us honey, flame intended,
names smeared on the glass, an accidental pane
times hands touching it delicate as trespass,
what is allowed lace of vision times want equals
at last a sum equals at last a remorse felt,
a memory - sunk into soft teas - steeping, turns
steaming said window said prints/views obscured
of nothing in particular or special, troubles only,
only of passing birds enamored of (their lighter
bones)or are they cloud and shadow? merely the
steep sun declining ashen into the Jersey side?

*

O come lover back the floor where we lay a'times
upon boards the cluttered clothes the depositions
times at least three and take me once again one
times infinity into your arms times two leave me
when you/we are done doing times zero a mere cypher
flown sheer up the flue into the blue ash which now
the sky is where (there is only one sky)a dove flies
into possibility of memory or not times countless
thousands times plus the time it takes for you to
exit shedding skins, shells (am a shell, water you?
you decide)times infinity into the one drain in-

*

to ocean reflecting blue sky of ash blew into what
remains of you on the beach bathing soft Junes,
boardwalk organ grinder smiling/sings 'amor fati'
mellifluously on as hairs their bodies follicles
delicate when under the glass espied over-spills
into o endlessly it's seams, it seems, into memory
which is already over-said overheard redundantly a
river and time, this one recalled, the cloud drift
and the river the tides beside the city both sides
is as ancient as it always was and is - in the beginning
was darkness over deep water and a word, any word

*

really would do form something out of deep, of dark,
of water which shapes only by outer circumstance itself
in this case a word leading up to this contraction of
bellies against each times two, and legs times four,
and lips times myriad ones gone before - of murmurs
O lover of thee I adore - I am unkindly left remembering
once was laughter spent seeking out between bodies' valleys
eternally shifting eluding capture, this, just to reintroduce
some levity for we were many day-ed times merry-merrily
played harming no one not even the mouse unmoved per-
haps, watching perhaps, still, still, from beneath the

*

god you insisted be excluded from all our nakedness
times one too many breaths exchanged, groped times
many ropes all our wanting the curtained dancer en-
tranced entered into upon a mystery how one could be
so, well, so marvelous and so cruel too as one wills
memory - an edge tears open: Fact: that there was love,
there was love after all I could see it smell it feel
it there dancing round the living room one holds on
to, and upon goodness worn out pulled from below down
and dark and deep such is this so it is the riddle it
is all now become since you departed, love, since you

*

departed I shall count backward by threes then fours
the door which once embraced you now never lets you
go no matter the black or blue tide of thee O lover,
what slips out ebbs black back into lapis, lapses in-
to what self is uttered/poured scored transparent upon
surfeit surface/faces which are even eyes which now
glaze with love lost beside the flue marked upon the
pane blue the mouse black upon the floor remains is
many, a multitude of petals times three the jasmine
unspurned at last at last/least return soft Junes the
lips of which are sometimes pink of lavender swollen

*

as if to kiss times three the antinomies a string of
pearls and thee O lover to me back 'splaying shyly
where the curtains sway/stand behind them the curtained
dancer entranced/entered into upon a mystery the organ
grinder smiling/singing 'amor fati' mellifluously on