Sonnet #23

They may suppose, because I would not cloy your ear - If ever these songs by other ears are heard - With ‘love’ and ‘love’, I loved you not, but blurred Lust with strange images, warm, not quite sincere, To switch a bedroom black. O mutineer With me against these empty captains! Gird Your scorn against above all this word Pompous and vague on the stump of his career.

Also I fox ‘heart’, striking a modern breast Hollow as a drum, and ‘beauty’ I taboo; I want a verse fresh as a bubble breaks, As little false... Blood of my sweet unrest Runs all the same - I am in love with you - Trapped in my rib-cage something throes and aches!

by John Berryman