Richard JOHNS

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Some Lines from Berrigan's Sonnets

The poem upon the page is as massive as
a dark trance all getting ambiguous
on a fragrant evening fraught with sadness.
Everything turns into writing. Someone,
when they see your face weave among incidents,
weeps in the morning to waken so shackled
with love. It hurts. I know you have something
to tell me: slow kisses on the eyelids
of the sun, letters birds beggars books,
warm and delicate words. Do you want me
to take off my dress? I fall on my knees
to the grace of the make-believe bed
that I still dream of, aching to be fucked.
It is night. And the sonnet is not dead.




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