Blog about John Berryman’s Dream Song 265 (“I don’t know one damned butterfly from another”)

Hey.

Hey look. Look, hey.

This is a bait and switch. The bait was a promise in the title of the post for a Blog about John Berryman’s Dream Song 265, “I don’t know one damned butterfly from another.” Hey, I’m sorry, but the switch is that I have nothing to add here—I mean what could I add here?—-like what hey I want to say, is, just read Berryman’s poem—-

I don’t know one damned butterfly from another
my ignorance of the stars is formidable,
also of dogs & ferns
except that around my house one destroys the other
When I reckon up my real ignorance, pal,
I mumble “many returns”—

next time it will be nature & Thoreau
this time is Baudelaire if one had the skill
and even those problems O
At the mysterious urging of the body or Poe
reeled I with chance, insubordinate & a killer
O formal & elaborate I choose you

but I love too the spare, the hit-or-miss,
the mad, I sometimes can’t    always tell them apart
As we fall apart, will you let me hear?
That would be good, that would be halfway to bliss
You said will you answer back? I cross my heart
& hope to die but not this year.

Hey, okay. I encourage you to quit now, or better yet, reread our boy Berryman. But I’ll add a little, even though I said I wouldn’t.

I don’t know one damned butterfly from another

—but I think you know about beautiful fragile transmuting things

my ignorance of the stars is formidable,

—same

also of dogs & ferns

–I know a bit about dogs; less about ferns

except that around my house one destroys the other

–I hope it’s the dogs destroying the ferns if I have to pick a side, although I’m not unsympathetic to ferns.

When I reckon up my real ignorance, pal,
I mumble “many returns”—

–This is a great rhyme. I feel like I’m the speaker’s pal here too—maybe it’s all the wine I’ve put down my fat throat, but I feel like I get what he’s doing here. I have some fat real ignorance my ownself.

next time it will be nature & Thoreau

–Oh give us a Transcendentalist vamp Johnny! (Or is it Henry?)

this time is Baudelaire if one had the skill

–Oh if one had the skill oh (I think you have the skill Johnny Henry)

and even those problems O

–Oh Oh O Ho oH O hO

At the mysterious urging of the body or Poe

–I’m reminded here of Dream Song 384 where Henry digs up his dead suicide father’s corpse from the grave: “I’d like to scrabble till I got right down / away down under the grass / and ax the casket open ha to see / just how he’s taking it, which he sought so hard / we’ll tear apart the mouldering grave clothes ha.” The manic ha is more indebted to Poe though than any grave openings or casket axings.

reeled I with chance, insubordinate & a killer
O formal & elaborate I choose you

–Hey but this is about Berryman’s art, his poetry, always his fucking poetry. Formal and elaborate? Out here choosing?

but I love too the spare, the hit-or-miss,

–Oh hey me too. I mean that’s my jam too Henry John.

the mad, I sometimes can’t always tell them apart

–I can’t either.

As we fall apart, will you let me hear?
That would be good, that would be halfway to bliss

–I think we’d all like to be let to hear.

You said will you answer back? I cross my heart
& hope to die but not this year.

-Not this year