Bill Berkson Poems

...  cantered light-heartedly downstream to their doom.
 — Patrick Leigh Fermor

Somebody down there hates us deeply,
...

for Vincent Warren

Behind the black water tower
under the grey
of the sky that feeds it
...

Drown on all fours
Pennies from a box flood the frump market
Blasts of nacre, triage under weather's speckled pool
...

I

It's odd to have a separate month. It
escapes the year, it is not only cold, it is warm
and loving like a death grip on a willing knee. The
...

Bunny Berigan first recorded "I Can't Get Started"
with a small group that included Joe Bushkin, Cozy Cole
and Artie Shaw in 1936.
Earlier that same year, the song,
...

The sun met the moon at the corner
noon in thin air

Commotion you later
choose to notice
...

I haven't remembered anything, only the names
and that their dates have been replaced by fees
toted up out of mischief:
...

Crossed fingers gird the planet, though small optimism obtains.

Will I read The Serious Doll in wraps, with its roller slur?

A book where everybody, reader and writer included, dies.
...

Half-ended melodies are purer.
To no longer perform in broad daylight,
the apple's a radish for it,
the winter chill a living thing.
...