Monday, April 14, 2008

It's April, and so it's time

To blog some more. And since it's National Poetry Month, it's time for a poem.

And I offer you John Berryman, specifically a poem I once enjoyed reciting. In my youth, ennui seemed cool. Not only that, but my mother really did tell me she was never bored. And so she reprimanded me if I dared to say that I was.

Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.



1 comment:

Emily said...

Not only that, but my mother really did tell me she was never bored. And so she reprimanded me if I dared to say that I was.

My high school drama director would always tell us that "only boring people get bored."

I still get bored. Hmm ...