The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan
Page 26
and no-one had stolen all the dazzling looks. But this
one time the saboteurs sneaked up! Hah! I didn’t
let them grind you, my little Coolie-Baby, who insures
my factory. No, and it’s not bad to lay buried, in Hooversville,
by wires, laid on us by gentlemen, & ladies flushed
with gin. Except at night, when you are lying in the wind.
2.
I beat on the fruits of the gushy showers
burning up ginger-ale, only a pantomime mother &
father, doting on feelable widows, as my rent & these
urgent denials in my plug-ugly vision hold out! I
would take some corn to Minton’s & throw it on Dizzy
Gillespie, & I mumble at babies on the bus, although
I too am reading the nickel journals, while my axles
are losing patience. Castles! my dearest, the whole town
is hiding out in six cheap hotels, sorrowful you gaping at me
as I continue to concoct ewe dreams! I would like very much
to be in your hair, in hottest blood, my Saxon Thing was nursed
on Western fiction with Doc Holliday my Christopher
Columbus to help me. But it’s no use, you love Oliver Hardy, he’s
the last of the old-time newsboys. I have a soggy bed.
Francis à Bientôt
The storms of Baudelaire fall on Judas’ head
He send out rays of light with that river
We saw it in his hair
No use to call me again it isn’t right
You string a sonnet around your fat gut
And falling on your knees you invent the shoe
For a horse Don’t cheat
The victory is not always to the sweet
That night arrives again in red
André Breton is a shit! (He sneezed on the rum
Turning it into a pun) One must live
Even in Colorado (Take that, you horse!)
Now we are all dead
Charles, Ju, you, & Harry James
There is no time(s) past (lost?) We
Are in The Twentieth Century (The Christian Era), and
The charms (bait) leave
Under the heels of Children.
This man was my friend.
The TV Story
1.
It is after 7 in the evening and raining cold in bed. Next day
12 noon Dick comes by we go to the Museum—with Sandy—
lovely on my naked back through the open window. She has
finished Nadja, make entry in my journal, work on my new
poem, go to baby-sitting. Carol came, looking for Dick—kicks
them out. Now I am—I carve a pumpkin. I read Nadja. 4 a.m.
—lying naked on the bed. We start talking about Marcel
Duchamp. All try to figure out how pay the rent . . . 12
o’clock . . . ourselves . . . we begin touching one another in
the dark, & she is reading Prolegomena to Greek Religion.
She says she is—she takes off my clothes & we laugh. Dick & I
discuss Wallace Fowlie, he gives me a copy of Nadja, not to
keep—she says if it’s ever over between us in your mind
please tell me. Talk about Dada, we do, drink whiskey. He
makes coffee. We let him in, he knocks again—at the door—
we show him a copy of Nadja—he dissipates—she interprets
it for him in some new way, I translate it for him, he is
sleeping, Dick comes over, we discuss Nadja extensively, next
day 12 noon we are all to go To the Museum. (TV Show).
2.
I was charging others to love me, instead
of doing so myself.
3.
The day I see my name in the papers, something
snaps, I’m finished; I sadly enjoy my fame, but
I stop writing.
4.
Now fifty years and nostalgic, I pushed open the door of a
cafe and asked for a small beer. At the next table some beautiful
young women were talking animatedly and my name is
mentioned. “Ah,” said one of them, “he may be old, he may
be homely, but what difference does that make? I’d give
thirty years of my life to become his wife.” I looked at her
with a proud, sad smile, she smiled back in surprise, I got
up, I disappeared.
El Greco
A drop of boo the wounded ham
might be
Saint Francis’s knee
in the sombrero of a tree.
Mouth deep
rope Owl hoot in spectral radiance
& fix skull
He prays.
his vision
broke his brain (lie a hen visage
a plant among browns and grays.
Crimson pot
pierces finger gasp
Drip fresh drips bright ow fring,
Fellow, fring
a miniscule wrist limp
on a hollow headless
bone
Cento: A Note on Philosophy
FOR PAT MITCHELL
When I search the past for you
We who are the waiting fragments of his sky
“I who am about to die”
Then was the drowsy melody of languish
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
A too resilient mind
Cajoling, scheming, scolding, the cleverest of them all
And so we ride together into the peach state!
(Remain secure from pain preserve thy hate thy heart)
Those are the very rich garments of the poor
The rack and the crucifix of winter, winter’s wild
Which encases me. What about the light that comes in then?
Silence; and in between these silences
The spins and the flowing of night-time.
Praising, that’s it! One ordained to praise
The wind without flesh, without bone
The morning-glory, climbing the morning long
In ordinary places.
Not to mention the chief thing
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
Bouncing a red rubber ball in the veins
Though my ship was on the way it got caught in some moorings
Melodic sighs of Arabic adventure
Darting into a tender fracas leeward and lee
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet
And you have made the world (and it shall grow)
The last the sole surviving Texas Ranger
The heavy not which you were bringing back alone
Abandoned, almost Dionysian
Why should I climb the look-out?
The child who has fallen in love with maps and charts
Drums in the pre-dawn. In my head my brain
But to be part of the treetops and the blueness, invisible
In red weather.
Questions, oh, I hope they do not find you
I go on loving you like water, but
I am in love with poetry. Every way I turn
I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields
Into a symbol. I hate that. I falter. These
Let the snake wait under
My back, for which act
I would not credit comment upon gracefully
How how the brig brig water the damasked roses
But helpless, as blue roses are helpless
The revolution is done. What has a bark, but cannot bite?
I’ve tucked the rushing earth under my legs
By those, to sing of cleanly wantonesse
To walk, and pass long love’s day.
“It is such a beautiful day I had to write you a letter
On along the street. Somewhere a trolley, taking leave
Ju
st to be leaving; hearts light as balloons
mirrored in little silver spoons.”
True voyagers alone are those who leave
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
They never shrink from their fatality
Upon those under lands, the vast
And, without knowing why, say, “Let’s get going! Goodbye.”
& so, sauntered out that door, which was closed.
New Junket
FOR HARRY FAINLIGHT
Everywhere we went we paid the price, endurement
Of indifference, signs of regeneration: in every
Victim awaits the guest of honor, hawk-like, with
Respect to the unlocking of the dream; this hot breath
That you perfectly feel lingering. It makes you think.
You think of a faience pot, a giant eucalyptus overhung
Against the balustrade, facing assurance in the wind.
You suspect we enjoy these poses. This biggest indifference.
You were succumbing to kisses (the real purpose
Another purpose of the trip) but the trip had been
Moved up. I cared. And so we left.
Wonder changes grooves to form a Winter
Rising with Winter roses near the house. The water
Following the signal, which is following me,
Is lifting me up on the on the wings of the great machine.
Dick Gallup (Birthday)
(FOR THE GALLUPS)
interrupts yr privacy
25 years later
you wait between the dodge and the bush
a basket
between you and your arm: under it
INSIGHT (Vol. 1, Nr. 3)
(the condemned man is shielding a
woman, about 25, five feet
eleven inches high, hair dark, curly,
dark eyes; and though not gallant, is pure . . .
the street disappearing
into bush level
two heads above the basket
(“seeking a personal
world, where one’s own
behavior has a code . . .
is no guarantee
of justice, folks.
SUNLIGHT IN
JUNGLE-LAND
• • •
that girl wreathed in blue
and that one, in yellow
corporeal
“her hair a wondrous gold”
MAIN-TRAVELED ROADS
(under the sheets)
the community
in their vicinity, is murder.
It keeps us awake.
FOLK LEGENDS do not await Verdicts.
We get on, with provisions.
It (The Dodge) continues.
Conceived in Hate
. . . Your America & mine
are lands to be discovered
and nothing
stirs us to discover
so much as the real
drama of today’s newsmaking people
Blonde on Blonde
It’s enough to make a girl
go out & buy a bottle
of peroxide; and many did.
But not her. She loved
Mencken, her pretty sister
whose shame & sin outshone
her dark, golden curls.
Flower Portrait
FOR SOTERE TORREGIAN & FAMILY
It’s morning
meaning
it
has arrived:
MERRY XMAS
the center of
my gray window facing life. That’s
a Christmas card, from John Perreault. That’s
Gary Snyder: A RANGE OF POEMS. That’s
THE GERMAN GENERAL STAFF & that is
MOTHER
6.
IT’S ALL IN THE STARS
(that’s a book)
CLEAR THE RANGE!
(That’s a book, by me.)
Nevertheless
she
is not here,
tho it’s all right here
and so are we.
Birds sing in this
my world, I love you
if “you” is bacon,
toast & two eggs, over
light: we’ll share a small coke & read a big boke
before we die.
What am I talking about? It
’s a new day! I’ve got
to run. Mi casa, su casa,
THE AGE OF GOLD is before me.
Selflessness
TO PETER SCHJELDAHL
This picture indicates development
You drink some coffee, you get some sleep
Everything is up in the air
especially us
who are me
Linda greets our force
forcefully
so much for that
(sing)
“I’m sittin’ here thinkin’
just how sharp I am. . . .”
I ask you, can these words have issued
from M’sieur M. “The Rock” Proust,
BPOE, RSVP, ICUP?
No.
You inhabit a baby, I mean
a table . . .
the logic of that
is lost
is mixed with public opinion
and
as we get closer & closer, to it
something snaps
Music gets into this picture
of
“A Life.”
& Now it’s rolling . . .
& Now we are one
& it’s bed-time
competitive spirits
dare we continue? we dare continue
seeking parties
full of places
we have not been at
nor ever will be at
without each other.
The Avant-Garde Literary Award
Someone something
HELP!
false start
“falling in love with religious experience”
Now you’re talking!
“giving tongue
to the public consciousness”
(that’s a thought)
A dope-fiend is sitting
on his dead ass,
surrounded by roaches.
“You have just won The Avant-Garde Literary Award.”
From The Art of the Sonnet
1.
It is a very great thing
To call across the room
To a girl,
“Hey, I love you.”
You shout very loudly.
A lot of weird freaky people
Look at you very strangely plus assorted boring square types—
The girl does not hear you.
She is puce, and yellow. You are completely ass
Because the girl you are yelling to is Whistler’s Mother.
PS: You are also somewhat color-blind.
Or could it be that you are The Joker, my plum-blossomed Visionary
Friend? Those tiny broken veins on the tip of your nose are
Tres interesting. They resemble the map of Crete.
2.
Some of Denis Roche’s books are missing here.
Let’s go out. We can go to the park.
Dead Fingers Talk. They say, “I got some books here
That we can steal things out of.
They’re all by good writers.” Silence.
Orange Juice. Five dog barks then another.
Then too many to count shut up you dumb mutt.
In Korea they give puppies to GI’s who fatten them up
Then they steal them back to make soup. Ack.
I think we oughtta write a great poem outta these books.
That dog is still barking. My stomach is growling: Ravi Shankar
I got all great books here to write poems from.
Maybe we could write a sonnet. Great burst of applause:
Ladies & Gentlemen, it’s all about to happen, & now it’
s done.
3.
I’ve been loving you a little too long.
I can’t stop now. Why should I stop now?
You don’t know, do you? I think it is very nice
Of you. Incidentally, I went to the fortune teller
She looked into the crystal ball. She saw
Two New York Yankees & they were very small.
I left there in a hurry. I needed one pall mall.
I got one from a midget. It was long as he was tall.
In case you haven’t figured it out, Lady of Mondrian, the lake
I made up most of the above. You see, I did it
Because I’m a nut. Yet, isn’t it all right to be sort of nutty, a flak
When you are in love? Why not
Call me up sometime?
212-677-7779.
Then I’d Cry
Now twist knife all strength owing O now twist knife
And he came down tubes chosen by the waiter
Black fright
Headed down from his homely Thuggee feelings
To the babbling waiter
Whose foreign compulsion wounded his taint
In the dawn of Thuggee feelings
Then
I tamed him
A prince sups on his head for thought
Dark grace savors him
Or tortures me
He said come forth old time wit and get me too
Air Conditioning
It’s very interesting
Weighing 500 lbs
You might even say, “It’s great!”
“Let’s drink to that!”
I did Dixie Cup Fanta Orange
IOWA BACK DEATH & now a humming
Opening it up inside
Making a fire-engine red
Desk chair bright green
A white night & amazing you!
You don’t believe it.
Monolith
The right wall is BRICKS.
The left wall is FAR OUT
The front wall is PICTURES.
I CAN’T SEE the back wall.
The CEILING is High.
The Floor is QUICK.
The AIR is THIN.
The LIGHT is BRIGHT WHITE.
The CURRENT is ELECTRIC.
The POWER is ON.
The Subject is BENT.
He is POISED.
He is Listening.
This is IT.
it is HERE.
He has been WATCHING.
He has Had To Think.
It is Done. It is
COMPETENT. It is NOT
SATISFACTORY, but