Dream Song 131: Come touch me baby in his waking dream

John Berryman

Dream Song 131: Come touch me baby in his waking dream
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Let me touch you, baby—
Henry said in his waking dream
We haven’t done it in a long, long time

Poor disordered Henry murmured—
To himself in his sleep to his ratty pillow
Forgetting she’d left him years ago
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He can't remember ever being unkind—
But she’d got the fuck outta his life and
Didn’t leave anything behind

Henry climbed up the high ruined stairs—
Getting more & more insane the way
They say they do and act and stare
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Many of his close friends were half-sane—
They’d take a look at a Rorschach blot
And read it like National Enquirer dirt

That’s how Henry ended up insane—
Teaching dumb cluck undergraduate
Child idiots the Art of Rorschach Verse