Back+packing for Iowa City, Ia.

So I'm done with grading now, the semester is officially over  :)  No more getting up while the sun's still in the east (that always makes me feel I'm a bird that's about to eat a worm---yuck), no more falling asleep while it's still dark (that always makes me wonder what cool stuff will happen in the night that I'll miss on account of being asleep---all that ever happens during the day is boring old work).  

And it's 12 days until I leave for Iowa  :)  I want to prepare well for it this year, so I borrowed John Berryman's "Dream Songs" from the library, and I'm hoping to read it before I leave.  It's subdivided into seven books, so I'm planning to read one book a day (but the later books are longer ... we'll see).  I already read Book I today!

And as long as I'm reading, I'll post one of the dream songs each day on the blog.  Here's one I loved:
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Dream Song 4

By John Berryman

Filling her compact & delicious body

with chicken páprika, she glanced at me

twice.

Fainting with interest, I hungered back

and only the fact of her husband & four other people

kept me from springing on her

or falling at her little feet and crying

‘You are the hottest one for years of night

Henry’s dazed eyes

have enjoyed, Brilliance.’  I advanced upon

(despairing) my spumoni.—Sir Bones:  is stuffed,

de world, wif feeding girls.

—Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes

downcast …  The slob beside her       feasts …  What wonders is

she sitting on, over there?

The restaurant buzzes.  She might as well be on Mars.

Where did it all go wrong?  There ought to be a law against Henry.

—Mr. Bones:  there is.