Hallucinatory Ballade #1 (after Berryman)

[RC James]

Maxwell felt, heart area,
a matter burdensome,
massive, so even a century
of bewailing, awake walking, never
set him down a way aright.
Recurring, Maxwell suffers sounds,
slight hacking next door, a smell.

And his other way thinks
a Warhol face a thousand years on
spinning still, will clear be past
what he calls innocence.
Here or there, not a matter,
try again, crying disallowed,
do it, just do it.



Berryman is pretty oblique and involuted in syntax, I tried to get some of that.  "will clear be past"  simply means "beyond."  I love the way he kinda turns the language on its ear, so to speak, and this is a homage to the man and his innovations.  RC

Hallucinations, fatigued, showed
Maxwell a type assassin to be,
but his blade had no reach,
no hacking and hiding pieces
obvious where friends could find.
In the index he keeps,
at dusk, taking count,
discovers he, everybody,
everybody’s here.