modeling poem 2

304

An empty bottle and cigarette ash
are all the remnants of his lost loves;
Charles is gone.
Empty was a word he kept in his pocket;
removed only when his sheets were wrapped
with growing grief.

Alone again ran Henry in stride;
he searched the cupboards, books, and lies
for hidden poems.
-- Mr. Bones is clever you once said
No one is coming, so I ransacked it all.
No avail – truths

are told Henry to those that care
to find their friends not growing at all
or, maybe?
to those who have tired from looking.
I see the water, Mr. Bones.
Where are you?


The poem 304 is a model in the style of John Berryman’s The Dream Songs. The title is numbered 304 to show a period extended to thoughts of death which sometimes materialized towards the end of the dream songs. Being a fan of Yeats, Berryman used a strict structure of three six line stanzas with lines one, two, four and five composed as pentameter and lines three and six composed of trimeter. This model adheres as closely as personally possible to this structure. Being not well versed in the use of meter; I did the best I could. Present in this model is the use of the alter egos Henry and Mr. Bones. I chose not to alter the names of these characters because I thought their names were essential to the whole theme of a dream song, and since I have not truly written close to four hundred of them; their names will be that representation. Henry, a character who has suffered an “irreversible loss,” is the speaker of the dream songs and this poem. Similar to Berryman’s poems Henry alternates from speaking in first person, second person, and third person. Another aspect of this model that is similar to John Berryman is his continual reference to dead poets and friends. The name Charles in this model is supposed to reference Charles Bukowski a contemporary poet who died in 1973. “Charles is gone,” refers to his death. Also in the poem there are traits that mimic Bukowski’s lifestyle. From the first line where it reads, “An empty bottle and cigarette ash / are all the remnants of his lost loves,” represents the idea that Bukowski was an alcoholic that continually smoked cigarettes and was, by some people, considered a womanizer. Again when the poem reads, “Alone again ran Henry in stride; / he searched the cupboards, books, and lies / for hidden poems” is a representation of a trait of Bukowski, who repeatedly hide his poems from vengeful lovers who have come back to torment him. Another similarity of this model to Berryman is the use of water as a depiction of death. Berryman who threw himself from a bridge in Minneapolis finds understanding in death with the use of water. A stylistic trait of Berryman was the use of caesuras and dashes. The dash represents a missing facts and ideas, unknown to the reader, and the caesura, which is a break in the line, adds an audible pause when reading and or speaking the poem. These breaks in the poem create more than one reading or interpretation of the line. This is apparent when it reads, “Mr. Bones is clever you once said / no one is coming, so I ransacked it all.” This gives a reading of Henry saying Mr. Bones is clever as well as Henry saying “no one is coming.” These traits can sometimes confuse the reader and give them an overall feeling of alienation that was very apparent in the writing of John Berryman.