David Berman reads a long poem, with transcription

Transcribed David Berman poem found on youtube

 (I transcribed this in 2014, all errors are mine, of course. Title is guessed at.)

It’s Always January (Sentimental Hard Ons)

Sometimes I forget to change the water in my isolation tank

I like to mock the taxonomic spirit and face of the taxonomic aggressor

I appreciate small kindnesses, like the offering of donuts

I don’t see a lot of happy endings in my line of work

I’ve been accused of underestimating eternity

I’m not in the business of evicting minotaurs

I wish I was an excellent conversationalist

I regard the phone book as a mystery of astounding proportions

I’m afraid of just living knowing nothing for certain

I don’t want to live in this world without god on my side

I am concerned about my eroding personality

I have tried to accommodate the unbearable

I believe house pets enforce a culture of sleep

I believe it’s time for nerds to get back to being dorks

I believe there is something second rate about British greed

I want to be with people who don’t care about the same things I don’t care about

I’m not alright with the way things are but, I think getting things wrongs is worth looking at, too

I feel like an epileptic lashed to a carousel

I’ve always been surprised by the tenacity of the blimp industry

I grew up thinking that sex and violence were the answers to life’s mysteries

I could lick the frosting off these happy days if the nights were half as sweet

Nothing in the world is as dreadful to see as a note to myself in the morning

In the morning:

Pathological shrubbery

Psychological seashore

Stomach acid waterfall

Carpathian haystack

Scientology battleship

Saxophone gazebo

Protein mandolin

Venison hammock

Transparent carriages

Xerox stagecoach

Cryogenic banking

Seafood rebates

Sentimental hardons

Unsold cuisine

Dismembered newlyweds

Slaughterhouse lagoons

Mint sewage

Shivas fumes

Maggots chic

Lamb extermination

Coldcut heritage

Milkshake brain scan

Birdsong sayonara

There is no leisure with dignity in an unfinished world

When you work for god you have to dress nice every day

On the side of streets of morbid villes

On the blank ledger of a summer afternoon

Somewhere in the cycle of sleeping and waking

It’s a gargantuan disservice

It’s deliberate sabotage

It’s coordinated cruelty

Rancid rancidities

Bludgeoning expedience

Monolithic subjectivities

Selective incuriousity

Gratuitous provocation

Brutal self-preservation

Sadistic gratification

Legitimizing gluttony

Derailing solutions, hoarding nutrients, and normalizing the satanic

It’s an ethical political catastrophe

Auto-therapeutic rationalization

Modified limited hangout

Irredeemable deplorability

Bulldoze and browbeat, badger and bully, bludgeon and batter, rattle and torment

The quest for recognition, the art of gaining favor, the pursuit of approval

These pseudo-eccentric hillbillyisms, these anal sadistic public pig fuckers, these power-worshipping cowards, blowback override, lethal certainty

I’d like to fire a proton torpedo into a small thermal exhaust port

A locus of cohesion, a point of convergence

Either do justice and love goodness, or get the hell out of my life

These old men are not the same old men I knew when I was younger

Someone’s going to have to come up with the right combination of words

Surely I have been asleep all the days of my life

As time went on, in light of the above, do not imagine, little by little, somewhere in the middle, those who know this never quit

Whoever knows this won’t give up

I’m a religious foot dragger

An evolutionary goldbug*

(An Aluetian goldbug?)

A Babylonian time wrecker

A southwestern leprechaun

A glass pot grower

A spasmodic antagonist

An unsatisfactory grandmother

I propagate humdrum spectacles

I practice lopsided brinksmanship

I fashion muddle-minded horseshit

I concoct low-minded backtalk

I encourage moronic ventriloquism

Induce hysterical vomiting

And typically traffic in spurious infinities

Needless to say I’m my own idea of a man

I want you to set your forgiveness filters on hope

I want to take you to a guitar-shaped island with friendship and learning where pseudo-eccentric hillbillyisms are strictly forbidden, so come follow me

Before this is over, each of you will be subjected to some aggressive hospitality

A little economic penetration

Possible insubordinate wildlife

Recreational fact

Wooly management

Ratful of chatter(?)

I request you refrain from any intangible gambling, mindless secrecy, or adversarial commerce

Since I have zero knock-out arguments to use on people who flatly reject it clearly, so

Those who insist on displaying counterfactual mindset, well

I’m worried about the produce going bad

I’m pro-mystery, anti-exploration jackass

I’m going to burn your dreamland down

I’d like to blow a moon-roof in the back of your head

I deploy emotionally neutral interjections

I behold the body of the definite article

I think I have the ability to discern a waste of time before it begins, but like I said, I think getting it wrong is worth looking at, too

Sometimes I wake up fighting

Sometimes I confess to thoughts I don’t really have

Sometimes my armpits smell like old New York vestibules

Depression has me in deathlock

I feel like an epileptic lashed to a carousel

The fear is so strong it leaves me gasping

I’ve been called the Robinson Crusoe of office supplies

I am my own Valerie Solanas

For years I couldn’t wake up before noon and I despaired

In a haunted corner of a desert state the mid-evening montage of the day

I realized fate is a terrible travel agent

Wisdom is annoying of fools

And hope is propaganda of the heart

And destiny is a door that bangs on itself

And great art is an insult to whatever death is

And tomorrow we will laugh without jokes

The situation is bloodwork

Sitting at a desk in the morning

Watching a sun turn into spokes of a fruit tree

I am chanting: composition, horseshit, magic

As a backbeat to the wide and sorrowful mystery

I’m constantly wanting myself to realize something, to regard this criss crossing subtleness with untold lies of concentration

And hear what the 4^th mouse says to the 3^rd, like anvils of sunlight  that fall from high gymnasium windows, onto a bust of fica sculptedout of hackwood

Because it looks good written down, like a two-headed pig named reflections, or beach show birds launched in basic game night

A wig and a service revolver,

A small mountain flower

All’s I want is the world and eyes to see it with

So often it’s the unhappy little sounds city dwellers make when they’re waiting in line

It sends a man into the psychological mountain pounds where it’s always January inside the furniture

And even the life of a mushroom can be can be classified as a performance

To the steady minds, a train frozen until they’re finally able to recall each momentary phase of candle flame as a distinct historical object

Unlike the larger urban areas where saxophone solos appear as often and unexpectedly as the devil in Polish fiction, and one’s upstairs neighbor so calmly publishes a private newsletter

(can’t understand this part)

These little towns have no bothersome pool, no special customs or traditional songs unless you count the creep in the adjoining manor

These are places where people treat each other with respect

No one pressures anyone else to dance

Offers unwanted magazine tips

Or uncaring for the swamp plower imperialism

Or tries to say hello to you through a mouth full of blood

You will notice the downtown shops are just caves at the base of the mountain where you can buy

Various lotions for treatment of bankruptcy or divorce

Or find a barbershop hose proprietor cuts each customer’s hair to look exactly like his own

The townspeople are so cheerful

They even find falling down accidentally to be an agreeable experience

Understanding how all this came to be usually means a visit to the local library

Whose old books smell like wild carrots, where it’s not uncommon to hear chilling animal call coming deep from within the stacks

Which can really put the kibosh on any research you were hoping to accomplish while in town

Especially if the off putting experience happens to coincide with already nagging city (what?)

Without missing out on something like the street peddler arrival or the unease over how the males seem the mumble over the carpentry in the inn where you have been staying

So it’s not till you packed your bags and changed your ticket for early return, and are whirling backward through the train yard, you find you have the chance to wonder how you’ll explain your strange new haircut to the others at the office on Monday morning

Or ever shake that image of chicken blood sparkling on a stump

He ends this oration by saying he had a Jonestown, Guyana joke, but the punch line takes too long and they’re running out of time. (applause)