The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan

by Alice Notley

  Unhurriedly.

  I didn’t hurry either, Lee.

  I stopped & watched them walk back up toward

  & down into their lake,

  Smoked a Senior Service on a bench

  As they swam past me in a long dumb graceful cluttered line,

  Then, taking my time, I found my way

  Out of that park;

  A Gate that was locked. I jumped the fence.

  From there I picked up the London Times, came home,

  Anselm awake in his bed, Alice

  Sleeping in mine: I changed

  A diaper, read a small poem I’d had

  In mind, then thought to write this line:

  “Now is Monday morning so, that’s a garbage truck I hear,

  not bells”

  And we are back where we started from, Lee, you

  & me, alive & well!

  The Ancient Art of Wooing

  A master square weaver, one’s favoured medium,

  That is what is behind the boom.

  Brusquely hugely schemefully ignored

  Free in the language of wooing, but not included

  The close elaborate current square panorama

  quiver now one quivers

  The aerial view of vineyards spreading out, encircling

  the house

  Backlit, color coming from within, light & dark

  closely akin to skin

  This slow constant weave seems badly adapted

  To the grave overpowering expression of

  a decorative opulent emotion.

  Oh, does it? Behind this boom one can see one is getting

  After the false starts & necessary resistance,

  one’s bones’ worth.

  On display they in the center become alive. They

  are handsome in themselves.

  The possible in mural scale model in Marriage

  is formalized.

  Late November

  What said your light

  you know, an answer refusing

  I go to my store I maintain

  animal inextricably between

  illuminated, on the line

  something lords in chair

  all fixtured silvered

  heart, your curtain, air

  breathy air stirs white

  knowing refusing running

  Waitomo Cave, New Zealand

  couldn’t catch the day, its curve, its more

  Committed robbery with the Smothers Brothers

  cops pursue us infinitely

  At Loma Linda

  “The pressure’s on, old son.”

  “We’re going to salvage just about all you have left.”

  “Right. And I’m going with you.”

  “I’m also staying right here with you.”

  “It’s the way you’ve been going about it that worries us.”

  “All this remote control business.”

  “I’m the principal stockholder and I’m moving my equities out.”

  “He believes if he’s hard enough on a body they’ll give way.”

  “It’s funny to have lived all this time in the midlands

  And not seen all these lovely things about.”

  “Where’s the Doctor?” “I am the Doctor.”

  “Is everything ready for surgery?”

  “Yes, & you don’t need a sauna to get steamed up, here.”

  “You’ll find the patient’s files in these cabinets here.”

  L.G.T.T.H.

  Queen Victoria dove headfirst into the swimming pool, which was filled

  with blue milk.

  I used to be baboons, but now I am person.

  I used to be secretary to an eminent brain surgeon, but now I am quite

  ordinary. Oops! I’ve spilled the beans!

  I wish mountains could be more appealing to the eye.

  I wash sometimes. Meanwhile

  Two-ton Tony Galento began to rub beef gravy over his entire body.

  I wish you were more here.

  I used to be Millicent, but now I am Franny.

  I used to be a bowl of black China tea, but now I am walking back

  to the green fields of the People’s Republic.

  Herman Melville is elbowing his way through the stringbeans toward us.

  Oscar Levant handed the blue pill to Oscar Wilde during the fish course.

  Then he slapped him.

  I used to be blue, but now I am pretty. I wish broken bad person.

  I wish not to see you tonight.

  I wish to exchange this chemistry set for a goldfish please.

  I used to be a little fairy, but now I am President of The United States.

  Peking

  These are the very rich garments of the poor

  Tousling gradations of rainbow, song & soothing tricks

  With a crooked margin there & there is here: we

  Are the waiting fragments of his sky, bouncing

  a red rubber ball in the veins.

  Do you have a will? And one existing so forgets all

  Desuetude desultory having to move again, take power from snow,

  Evening out not more mild than beastly kind, into a symbol.

  I hate that. I think the couple to be smiles over glasses, and

  Questions not to find you, the which they have. O Marriage

  Talking as you is like talking for a computer, needing to be

  Abacus, adding machine, me. Up from the cave’s belly, down

  from the airy populace

  That lace my soul, a few tears from the last the sole surviving

  Texas Ranger,

  Freed, freely merge with your air, dance. Blue are its snowflakes

  Besprinkled blue lights on his eyes, & flakes. For her

  I’d gladly let the snake wait under my back, and think, to walk,

  And pass our long love’s day. Landscape rushing away.

  From A List of the Delusions of the Insane,

  What They Are Afraid Of

  That they are starving.

  That their blood has turned to water.

  That they give off a bad smell.

  Being poor.

  That they are in hell.

  That they are the tools of another power.

  That they have stolen something.

  That they have committed an unpardonable sin.

  Being unfit to live.

  That evil chemicals have entered the air.

  Being ill with a mysterious disease.

  That they will not recover.

  That their children are burning.

  Chicago English Afternoon

  He never listened while friends talked

  Less original than penetrating, very often

  Illuminating He worked steadily to the even

  Current of sound sunlit oblongs bramble transfer

  White South nothing is gained by assurance as

  To what is insecure beer in bed, & an unused point

  Beside me on the bench time of, major energy product

  Over Bellevue Road that silence said

  To mean an angel is passing overhead my baby

  Throws my shoes out the door & one cannot go back

  Except in time “Yes, but he is exultant; the ice

  Meant something else to him” highly reduced

  For the sake of maintaining scale Goodbye To All That

  “I have only one work, & I hardly know what it is.”

  It was silence that stopped him working, silence in which

  he might look up

  & see terror waiting in their eyes for his attention.

  “Ladies & Gentlemen, you will depart the aircraft

  At the Terminal Area to your Right. Thank you for flying United.”

  She (Not to be confused with she, a girl)

  She alters all our lives for the better, merely

  By her presence in it. She is a star. She is

  Radiant, & She is vibrant (integrity). She animatesr />
  And gathers this community. Half the world’s population

  Is under 25. She permits everybody to be themselves more often

  than not.

  She is elegant. I love her.

  She writes poetry of an easy & graceful

  Intimacy. She is brave. She is always slightly breathless, or

  Almost always slightly. She is witty. She owns a proud & lovely

  Dignity, & She is always willing to see it through.

  She is an open circle, Her many selves at or near the center, &

  She is here right now. Technically, She is impeccable, &

  If She is clumsy in places, those are clumsy places. She knows

  Exactly what she is doing & not before She is doing it. What

  She discovers She discovered before She discovers it, and so

  The fresh discovery of each new day. Her songs are joyous songs,

  & they are prayers, never failing to catch the rush of hope

  (anticipation)

  Despair, insanity & desperation pouring in any given moment. She

  Knows more than She will ever say. She will always say

  More than she knows. She is a pain. She is much less than

  Too good to be true. She is plain. She is ordinary. She

  is a miracle.

  Innocents Abroad

  TO GORDON BROTHERSTON

  Fluke Holland:

  —The Tennessee Third

  Stew Carnall:

  He was horrifed: The Little Pill.

  Coy Bacon:

  A nincomparable nanimal:

  Hunk Jordan:

  His Ghost.

  Margo Veno:

  Pigtails : ink

  Rugby Kissick

  “Sally Bowles”

  Helen Keller:

  “Nuff said.”

  Sue Bear:

  Car Crash. (Change)

  Joe Don Looney:

  Rexroth’s Tune

  Cream Saroyan:

  “Her first is a song.”

  Trane DeVore:

  Hands Up!

  Kid Dorn:

  I am dog.

  Ava Smothers:

  Defies calipers

  St. Paul. (Bag.)

  Still. Say it ain’t so.

  Sister Moon

  Where do the words come from? (come in?)

  Where did that silt? How much lives?

  A rock is next to the bee.

  The window is never totally thought through.

  So

  “Silver” is used to stand for something nothing

  really ever quite is. Let it stand against.

  Or in other words what next?

  There’s time enough

  A lot of unalloyed nouns. for a list to occur

  between the lines.

  Weather, as all strata in a possible day.

  Sleet against window glass. A cigarette starts sounding.

  You can see how “a depth” makes “west” and “south” agree.

  A philosophy: “I guess yes.”

  milks & honeys, stuns, salutes, flashes . . .

  now & again, “a glimpse”

  An Orange Clock

  Sash the faces of lust

  Beast. And get your salutation

  An Electric Train wreck in the eye

  Everything good is from the Indian. A curtain.

  The word reminds me of Abydos and spinach.

  I am not a pygmy soothed

  By light that breathes like a hand

  Sober dog, O expert caresses

  In the twisted chamber, for you the silent men, &

  Flowers, so as to weave the inhabitants

  This small immobile yellow coat persona:

  And you must receive songs in its name, O

  Library of rapid boons

  Irrespective of merit. & now I do not know his name.

  Sash the faces of lush

  Beast. & Get Your Salutation.

  Gainsborough

  I belong for what it is worth

  To the family of the Phoenix; also

  Dragon blood flows in my veins;

  And when the time came to assign “us” berths,

  Instead of “Proletarian,” it was under “Criminal”

  I found my name, albeit without

  Difficulty, although it took some time. Neither

  Among the last nor, happily, the first. It was Alphabetical

  & “By the Numbers” in those days. Plus, I got

  “Innocence,” with a funny dash of “Butch.”

  And there you have it:

  Not uncommonly provided just handles enough

  To open up, close down, repeat, evade, hit, slip, & turn on:

  With luck you could have it both ways & better with each change.

  “He wanted the quiet, the domestic & the personal . . .”

  “It’s really just the sense of around & around.”

  Easter Monday

  “Antlers have grown out the top of my shaggy head.”

  “And his conclusions to be unaccompanied by any opinions. . . .”

  “You can’t have two insides having an affair.”

  “Why not then spiritualize one’s midday food with a little liquor?”

  “The question seems prosecutorial.” “The house is lost

  In the room.” “Loyalty is hard to explain.”

  “Hard fight gets no reward.” “A woman has a spirit of her own.”

  “A man’s spirit is built upon experience & rage.”—Max Jacob.

  In the air, in the house, in the night, bear with me

  “I always chat to the golden partner.”

  “I’m working out the structures of men that don’t exist yet.”

  “A gladness as remote from ecstasy as it is from fear.”

  “To go on telling the story.”

  “Give not that which is holy to dog.”

  Four Gates to the City

  Everything good is from the Indian

  Sober dog, O expert caresses

  By light that breathes like a hand

  Small immobile yellow yo-yo plumage

  On the cold bomb-shelter. A cur

  Is a pre-sound without a rage

  Come with me the nurse ferocity

  Whose clouds are really toots from the nearby—it is

  A well-lit afternoon

  but the lights go on

  & you know I’m there.

  Back in those previous frames

  Is a walk through a town.

  It sobers you up

  To dance like that. Extraordinary to dance

  Like that. Ordinarily, can be seen, dancing

  In the streets. Ah, well, thanks for the shoes, god

  Like Goethe on his divan at Weimar, I’m wearing them

  on my right feet!

  In Blood

  “Old gods work”

  “I gather up my tics & tilts, my stutters & imaginaries

  into the “up” leg

  In this can-can . . .” “Are you my philosophy

  If I love you which I do . . . ?” “I want to know

  It sensationally like the truth;” “I see in waves

  Through you past me;” “But now I stop—” “I can love

  What’s for wear:” “But I dredge what I’ve bottomlessly canned

  When I can’t tell you . . .” “I love natural

  Coffee beautifully . . .” “I’m conjugally love

  Loose & tight in the same working” “I make myself

  Feature by feature” “The angel from which each thing is most itself,

  from each, each,”

  “I know there’s a faithful anonymous performance”

  “I wish never to abandon you” “I me room he” To

  “Burn! this is not negligible, being poetic, & not feeble.”

  The Joke & The Stars

  What we have here is Animal Magick: the fox

  is crossing the water: he is the forest from whence />
  he came, and toward which he swims: he is the hawk

  circling the waters in the sun; and he is also the foxfire

  on each bank in Summer wind. He is also the grandfather clock

  that stands in the corner of the bedroom, one eye open, both hands up.

  And though I am an Irishman in my American

  I have not found in me one single he or she

  who would sit on a midden and dream stars: for

  Although I hate it, I walk with the savage gods.

  “It’s because you are guilty about being another person,

  isn’t it?” But back at the organ

  The angel was able to play a great green tree

  for the opening of the new First National Bank.

  And New York City is the most beautiful city in the world

  And it is horrible in that sense of hell. But then

  So are you. And you, and you, and you, and you, and you.

  And no I don’t mean any of you: I just mean you.

  Incomplete Sonnet #254

  FOR DOUGLAS OLIVER

  the number two, &

  the number three, &

  they being the number one

  And as I have, almost

  unbelievably, passed the

  number four, I wonder

  Will I ever “reach”, or worse,

  Stop at the number Seven?

  For though one of me

  has a sentimental longing for number

  I never have believed in

  the Number, Heaven.

  But in numberless hells

  I never once stopped at eleven.

  Where the Ceiling Light Burns

  Since we had changed

  The smell of snow, stinging in nostrils as the wind lifts it from

  a beach

  Today a hockey player died in

  the green of days: the chimneys

  Morning again, nothing has to be done,

  maybe buy a piano or make fudge

  Totally abashed and smiling

  I walk in

  sit down and

  face the frigidaire

  You say that everything is very simple and interesting