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Huffy Henry hid    the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,—a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry’s side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don’t see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.

What he has now to say is a long
wonder the world can bear & be.
Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed.

By John Berryman

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Though Homer insists she was mortal. (222)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Aquinas knew almost nothing about history. (223)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Maigret. (224)
#DMCastofCharacters

Does it go without saying that this upstairs presence would accentuate Protagonist’s sense of his aloneness? (225)
#Reader/Protagonist

Does it go without saying that he deplores being alone? (226)
#Reader/Protagonist

Vladimir Mayakovsky shot himself in the head. He may have been playing Russian roulette rather than definitely intending suicide.
But in either event had put on a clean shirt first. (227)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #ThisIsTheEndMyFriend

Mênin aeïde, thea. (228)
#DMBookshelf #DMquotations

George Gissing’s first wife became a prostitute. His second wife went mad. (229)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

No one nodding to him on the street in passing after all? Something more categorical? (230)
#Reader/Protagonist

I am completely alone here now? (231)
#Reader/Protagonist

Helen was not the first petticoat that caused a war. Says Burton in the Anatomy. (232)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMCastofCharacters #DMBookshelf #Bigotry

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Jim Carr was in class
and told me everything.
Her chalky fingers 
pointing at them,
she said crazy things
about pushing strollers
with her friends,
the colors that would 
bring you luck
in your wedding, 
her sister’s babies, 
and strangely enough,
reproduction stats.
“One in four infants…”
“The highest risk of…”
“Distended ovaries occur…”
She just kept going with those.

That’s when she lost it–
throwing chalk at the board,
breaking biology models, 
pushing books off desks−
everyone left. 
Ms. Hennings oblivious,
in a world of rage.
She was tearing 
the Krebs cycle
off the wall
when principal Clark 
and Mrs. Viebrock arrived.  

More poems from The Goodfish Poems

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Tolstoy’s wife copied out the entire manuscript of War and Peace in longhand seven times. (213)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMBookshelf #Numbers

An illiterate, underbred book. Said Virginia Woolf of Ulysses. (214)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMBookshelf #DMquotations #GreatsOnGreats

I can’t even pronounce the filthy thing. Said Wallace Stevens of the word womb in a poem. (215)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMquotations #Bigotry

All legends to the contrary, Empedocles did not leap into Mount Etna. Or even die in Sicily. (216)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DM Map

Byron was nine when he was introduced to sex by his nurse, one May Gray. (217)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons
I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew life before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Big woman,
You made a bad boy out of me

How well insulated would the ceiling of a former garage be? Would Ishmael/Meursault/Kurtz be aware of virtually every movement on the floor above? (218)
#Reader/Protagonist #DMCastofCharacters #DMBookshelf

Tony Trollope, he was naturally called. (219)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Madeleine Grey. The Chants d’Auvergne. (220)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons
Rule: Listen to any piece of music mentioned. 

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Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
   Sailed off in a wooden shoe,—
Sailed on a river of crystal light
   Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
   The old moon asked the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring-fish
   That live in this beautiful sea;
   Nets of silver and gold have we,”
            Said Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
   As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
   Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
   That lived in the beautiful sea.
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—
   Never afraid are we!”
   So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
   To the stars in the twinkling foam,—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
   Bringing the fishermen home:
‘Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
   As if it could not be;
And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
   Of sailing that beautiful sea;
   But I shall name you the fishermen three:
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
   And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
   Is a wee one’s trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
   Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
   As you rock in the misty sea
   Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

By Eugene Field

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