I have a category of poets called "Poets I Normally Don’t Like Who Have One Good Poem I Love". Sylvia Plath is in it for "Lady Lazarus", and so too is John Berryman for this one. It’s a definite "read-out-louder", and the structure infuriates and seduces and amuses all at once. This poem — and only this poem of his — works for me.
Keep Your Eyes Open When You Kiss
Keep your eyes open when you kiss: do: when
You kiss. All silly time else, close them to;
Unsleeping, I implore you (dear) pursue
In darkness me, as I do you again
Instantly we part .. only me both then
And when your fingers fall, let there be two
Only, ‘in that dream-kingdom’: I would have you
Me alone recognize your citizen.
Before who wanted eyes, making love, so?
I do now. However we are driven and hide,
What state we keep all other states condemn,
We see ourselves, we watch the solemn glow
Of empty courts we kiss in .. Open wide!
You do, you do, and I look into them.
Do you like “Mirror” by Sylvia Plath? It’s cool if you don’t. :-) I just never get tired of reading it.
By the way, “Keep your Eyes Open” is a beautiful poem!
Mermade, I like the last two lines of “Mirror”:
“In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.”
But I think she’s wrong about the essential truthfulness of mirrors.
Divine! You read my mind! I will have to give this poem to my girlfriend.