David Berman Was Alive and Living in Chicago
A tribute to a late great from Meghan Harrison
Discordia does not, it turns out, hate everything. Every other week, we share a piece of new or gently-used work from an artist who's earned our respect. This week, our celebration of the life of songwriter-poet David Berman (Silver Jews, Purple Mountains) continues. Berman passed away six years ago today.
There is art that moves us, and there is art that moves with us. This is Fellow Travellers.
David Berman Was Alive and Living in Chicago
Transparency is relentless; Any patient can tell you. The first moon that isn’t yours Is a pill cut exactly in half By the shadow of the earth. The only medicine is time, Which is also fatal. There’s no money in the public clover. The ruinous gleam collects On bicycles and knees. Dry insect bodies hiss like sprinklers. Under the sodium lights, In the country songs, In the bus station bathrooms, Loneliness gathers its community. A jukebox suffers the Analog shake of withdrawal. At the end of any journey, the blurred But unmistakable face of God’s Letterhead: "To whom it may concern, Your work isn’t right for us At this time. Please consider submitting To the crushing weight of the inevitable." Total retirement is a molecular impossibility, No matter how badly one wishes to withdraw From popular society or the great Lottery of the black hole—the winning ticket Printed on the inside of your skull, a papercut In your thinking that made you see Every flatterer as a hollow suit, every open palm As a setup for the punchline. I hope you come back for the world Ironically, as a conqueror, in A triumph of ice—classic water.
Note: A July 2019 profile of David Berman in The Ringer was originally headlined “David Berman Is Alive and Living in Chicago.” The headline was edited after his death several weeks later.
Find more of Meghan’s work at meghanharrison.net.
MEGHAN HARRISON is a writer and performer based in Toronto.
Interested in being a Fellow Traveller? Email your poetry, prose, visual art, etc. to discordia.sucks@gmail.com. We pay (not much), and pieces are collected a few times a year in a small print edition.
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