Poem
Emily Berry
Drunken Bellarmine
Drunken Bellarmine
Drunken Bellarmine
In this spirit of affliction I beheld two things,that shame is also revelry, and a body
is a spillage, or an addiction. I do not know
if this thing belongs to me, tipped-up set of weights
that promises, but never delivers, equilibrium.
I cannot make manifest this collection of feelings,
but look at me: I want to be loved for the wrong reasons.
I mean I want to be hated for the right reasons.
I have been lonely. Every time I say the word ‘I’
I am ashamed. When I say ‘I want’ I am triply
ashamed. I want my shame to be a kind of proof
that deduces the world, and that’s the worst
shame of all. I have been theatrical, entropic,
parting with myself for company. This heartsore
will not stop weeping and look, the sky is sick,
knitted too tightly; my face is up your sleeve
like a card trick. DON’T LOVE ME: I am guilty,
fatalistic and sticky round the mouth like a dirty baby.
I am a shitting, leaking, bloody clump of cells,
raw, murky and fluorescent, you couldn’t take it.
© 2015, Emily Berry
\'Drunken Bellarmine\' was jointly commissioned by The Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection, both at Southbank Centre, for an event called Artpoetry: Poets Respond to Paintings which took place at The Poetry Library on the 1st July 2015.
Emily Berry
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1981)
Emily Berry was born in 1981 and, other than time at university in Leeds, is ‘quite a diehard Londoner’, in her words, having lived there all her life. She has studied Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and in 2008 received an Eric Gregory Award. In the same year, her pamphlet Stingray Fevers joined tall-lighthouse’s Pilot series, edited by Roddy Lumsden. In March 20...
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Drunken Bellarmine
In this spirit of affliction I beheld two things,that shame is also revelry, and a body
is a spillage, or an addiction. I do not know
if this thing belongs to me, tipped-up set of weights
that promises, but never delivers, equilibrium.
I cannot make manifest this collection of feelings,
but look at me: I want to be loved for the wrong reasons.
I mean I want to be hated for the right reasons.
I have been lonely. Every time I say the word ‘I’
I am ashamed. When I say ‘I want’ I am triply
ashamed. I want my shame to be a kind of proof
that deduces the world, and that’s the worst
shame of all. I have been theatrical, entropic,
parting with myself for company. This heartsore
will not stop weeping and look, the sky is sick,
knitted too tightly; my face is up your sleeve
like a card trick. DON’T LOVE ME: I am guilty,
fatalistic and sticky round the mouth like a dirty baby.
I am a shitting, leaking, bloody clump of cells,
raw, murky and fluorescent, you couldn’t take it.
Drunken Bellarmine
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