KЛИHOM

In my desire to be as much like the protagonist of Joyce’s “A Little Cloud” as possible, I got really poetically emotional while walking across a bridge and decided to write a poem about it.  I wrote this in December 2006 and revised it recently.  I also wrote a companion piece in the spring of 2007 that I’ll probably put on here later.

For some backstory: John Berryman, who wrote the compelling Dream Songs, committed suicide by jumping off of the Washington Avenue bridge in the 1970s.  This poem is sort of an homage to Berryman, both in the liberties it takes with language and the restrictions it places upon it.  I’d also like to think that he would subscribe to the outlook that the poem takes.

Washington Avenue Bridge

Above the city I saw a patch of light:
The tireless multitudes had teemed their way
onto a low-hanging cloud.
The light once came from above:
Saint-Rémy skies swirled with heavenly riches,
an old order brushstrokes faithfully relate.
But new light comes from below;
it has a more human glow.
Flinging out our restless motion we create
A shining decision-cloud of our switches.

It could not have been too loud:
The sharp breath drawn that cold January day
for John Berryman, the coming on of night.

[Please don't reprint this, not that it's any good anyway.]