Delmore Schwartz

The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me ‘the withness of the body’

The heavy bear who goes with me,

A manifold honey to smear his face,

Clumsy and lumbering here and there,

The central ton of every place,

The hungry beating brutish one

In love with candy, anger, and sleep,

Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,

Climbs the building, kicks the football,

Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.

Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,

That heavy bear who sleeps with me,

Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,

A sweetness intimate as the water’s clasp,

Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope

Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.

—The strutting show-off is terrified,

Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,

Trembles to think that his quivering meat

Must finally wince to nothing at all.

That inescapable animal walks with me,

Has followed me since the black womb held,

Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,

A caricature, a swollen shadow,

A stupid clown of the spirit’s motive,

Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,

The secret life of belly and bone,

Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,

Stretches to embrace the very dear

With whom I would walk without him near,

Touches her grossly, although a word

Would bare my heart and make me clear,

Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed

Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,

Amid the hundred million of his kind,

The scrimmage of appetite everywhere.

By Delmore Schwartz, from Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge, copyright © 1959 by Delmore Schwartz. Reprinted by Permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. and Laurence Pollinger Limited.

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966)

Brooklyn-born Delmore Schwartz achieved considerable renown at the age of 25, when his first book, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, appeared. The book contained poetry, a play and its extraordinary title story, in which a young man sees a film of his parents’ engagement, and is driven to shout ‘Don’t do it. It’s not too late to change your minds, both of you. Nothing good will come of it, only remorse, hatred, scandal and two children whose characters are monstrous’. The poem we reprint here was one of a series ‘The repetitive heart: poems in imitation of the fugue‘, a section of his first book. This initial promise was never truly realized, and by the beginning of the 1950s Schwartz was depressed and alcoholic. He is probably best known today for two attributes. First, he is the Von Humboldt Fleisher of his friend Saul Bellow’s Humboldts Gift, and second, he is the dedicatee of European Son to Delmore Schwartz on the first Velvet Underground LP. Schwartz had taught the lead singer of the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, at Syracuse University, and became his drinking partner. Schwartz held rock lyrics in contempt, however, which is why the song on the album with the least words (reprinted below) was dedicated to him.

GEORGE DAVEY SMITH

European Son

You Killed Your European Son

You Spit On Those Under Twenty-one

But Now Your Blue Car’s Gone

You Better Say So Long

Hey Hey, Bye Bye Bye

You Made Your Wallpapers Green

You Want To Make Love To The Scene

Your European Son Is Gone

You’d Better Say So Long

Your Clown’s Bid You Goodbye

European Son Words and Music by Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker. 1967, Oakfield Avenue Music Ltd/Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc., John Cale Music Inc, USA. Reproduced by permission of Screen Gems-EMI Music Ltd, London WC2 0QY.





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