Dream Song 4 Lyrics
Filling her compact & delicious body
with chicken páprika, she glanced at me
twice.
Fainting with interest, I hungered back
and only the fact of her husband & four other people
kept me from springing on her
or falling at her little feet and crying
'You are the hottest one for years of night
Henry's dazed eyes
have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon
(despairing) my spumoni. --Sir Bones:
is stuffed, de world, wif feeding girls.
--Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes
downcast . . . The slob beside her feasts . . . What wonders is
she sitting on, over there?
The restaurant buzzes. She might as well be on Mars.
Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry.
--Mr. Bones: there is.
with chicken páprika, she glanced at me
twice.
Fainting with interest, I hungered back
and only the fact of her husband & four other people
kept me from springing on her
or falling at her little feet and crying
'You are the hottest one for years of night
Henry's dazed eyes
have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon
(despairing) my spumoni. --Sir Bones:
is stuffed, de world, wif feeding girls.
--Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes
downcast . . . The slob beside her feasts . . . What wonders is
she sitting on, over there?
The restaurant buzzes. She might as well be on Mars.
Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry.
--Mr. Bones: there is.
About
Genius Annotation
According to Modern American Poetry, poems describing women in such a vulgar way were unheard of when this poem was written.
It’s almost as if his mind and his heart are in completely different places as he admires her from across the room. His mind is thinking of her in a very sexual and degrading way “What wonders is she sitting on over there?” While, his heart is observing her beauty and he gets sad as he realizes that he cannot have her “Henry’s dazed eyes have enjoyed, Brilliance.”
-Modern American Poetry by Helen Vendler
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/berryman/song4.htm
Q&A
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- 1.Dream Song 1
- 4.Dream Song 4
- 5.Dream Song 5
- 8.Dream Song 8
- 9.Dream Song 9
- 11.Dream Song 11
- 13.Dream Song 13
- 14.Dream Song 14
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