The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Read online

  in the beginning. Ah, but

  what self? The self develops a full-

  blown psychosis. Delusions set in,

  along with restlessness; a sensation of

  suffocation, withdrawal, excitation, satisfaction,

  that he has done the something

  idiosyncratic that people are expecting and

  that much more, too.

  It is more than he wants to pay, and, caught

  up by a daring all or nothing plan,

  he wants to tell, he does tell the driver to

  take him to the high car, thinking

  of the open road, the dear love of

  comrades, Hart Crane. The long trip

  back. He is instantly surrounded.

  Someone points him in a direction

  and he begins walking with students

  trailing him as though he is uncomfortable,

  even desperate: he is

  sure he has not written any poetry that

  would turn him around.

  It begins to snow. Traffic

  slows all around

  him for miles. Finally a lucky kind of

  exhilaration has come over him

  and he sings with

  white breath to the passing hours, followed by

  complete recovery the next day.

  He pulls out the packet of schedules:

  something is wrong. He has forgotten

  that his after-words are being received almost

  as things, and toward the end he comes to

  think that the things have the quality of a

  college, but cannot reach him. He hails a

  cab and asks the fare to the town he is going

  to with a certain condescending benevolence,

  and begins.

  It is over. He relaxes with the

  faculty party and goes to bed.

  He dreams he is a scarecrow in a field

  and writes poems

  in his head all night. Some few

  believe he is where he is: some place in

  Wisconsin, where he has given a

  poetry reading at a small college; he

  has never been lionized by anyone,

  not even his immediate family; but

  these small repeated tastes of local

  mints continue; he bellows louder and

  louder and the flinching

  audience is with him to the end of a couple

  of things modelled on Walter Benton’s

  “This is my Beloved.”

  If they were good, and he read them well,

  he could collect his money at

  each stop with a clear

  conscience. An hour goes by. He considers various

  alternatives, but they are all

  as absurd as the wish to grow

  wings. Besides, another hammering is going on.

  When an especially loud cheer comes in from

  outside he looks up, thinking, “What is wrong

  with such and such a concept?” Students

  gather round him afterwards, pressing

  their manuscripts into his hands,

  telling him that the college he is to read in that

  night is denominational. He goes up to the

  priest, who has been in fact pointing to the right

  direction all along. Remember now? He is now standing

  alone in the snow, in a strange state, hitch-hiking.

  He is 45 years old. For better or for

  worse he has been moving and speaking among his kind.

  But it is he who is not satisfied with this.

  Remember the fragrance of Grandma’s kitchen? It is not

  only poetry that is

  involved, it is the poet as well. Vastly he resolves

  to see if he can work something out

  about this later, on the bus, at a reasonable hour.

  He rides calmly back to a city within a

  city, with a certain flair now, since he has forgotten

  to telegraph his arrival. No one meets him at the

  airport, he phones a friend in the city for a day

  and a night before flying home. He sees the

  people who sponsored as much liquor as he is

  accustomed to at a party after the reading,

  waves his arms wildly about and says, “Anything

  amounts to something!” And, looking at his watch, he

  turns it one way and another so his thin hands can catch

  the keys. He has not played the

  guitar for years but feels immediately

  all out and looks around for whoever is

  supposed to help him. There is no one

  but a priest, and finally it happens.

  One of them, a girl, not the one he would

  have picked to pen such a thing, is already

  half an hour late. They all reach

  the college, then the building, a crowd-raising

  scheme by some clod or other.

  All through the reading all sorts of new and

  poetic things happen to him. Each time he carries

  it to another campus. At a turn he gets off

  his freeway; they are not so far from the

  college as they thought but he

  was not gracefully but disgracefully

  drunk, who is now halfway into a new frankness.

  “I couldn’t believe in you, either,” says the

  priest with candor. Riveting him with

  astonishment, directly in front of the

  building, a lanky student comes out of the

  building and talks to him an hour or two before

  dinner. He lies down on a bed, then gets up,

  is finished. He finds his poems,

  usually rather loose in rhythm, taking

  on a thumping thunderment and

  incoherent babbling. These symptoms lasted

  several decades. Actually they have been

  responded to to a degree he has come to

  consider excessive and even manic, but he

  suspects that attendance at college seems to

  be all but inaccessible. There are no

  buses or trains until after time confers her

  particular favors on a stranger she

  will never see again, one who last night

  grew more emotional, more harried, more

  impulsive. Yet he knows that these qualities

  will die out, take a wrong turn somewhere.

  On a highway complex as big as this one

  it is hard to get tween his touring self and

  his usual self. He has definitely been

  another person.

  Many Happy Returns

  TO ANNE KEPLER & FRANK O’HARA

  Words for Love

  FOR SANDY

  Winter crisp and the brittleness of snow

  as like make me tired as not. I go my

  myriad ways blundering, bombastic, dragged

  by a self that can never be still, pushed

  by my surging blood, my reasoning mind.

  I am in love with poetry. Every way I turn

  this, my weakness, smites me. A glass

  of chocolate milk, head of lettuce, darkness

  of clouds at one o’clock obsess me.

  I weep for all of these or laugh.

  By day I sleep, an obscurantist, lost

  in dreams of lists, compiled by my self

  for reassurance. Jackson Pollock René

  Rilke Benedict Arnold I watch

  my psyche, smile, dream wet dreams, and sigh.

  At night, awake, high on poems, or pills

  or simple awe that loveliness exists, my lists

  flow differently. Of words bright red

  and black, and blue. Bosky. Oubliette. Dissevered.

  And O, alas

  Time disturbs me. Always minute detail

  fills me up. It is 12:10 in New York
. In Houston

  it is 2 p.m. It is time to steal books. It’s

  time to go mad. It is the day of the apocalypse

  the year of parrot fever! What am I saying?

  Only this. My poems do contain

  wilde beestes. I write for my Lady

  of the Lake. My god is immense, and lonely

  but uncowed. I trust my sanity, and I am proud. If

  I sometimes grow weary, and seem still, nevertheless

  my heart still loves, will break.

  Personal Poem #2

  I wake up 11:30 back aching from soft bed Pat

  gone to work Ron to class (I never heard a sound)

  it’s my birthday. 27. I put on birthday

  pants birthday shirt go to ADAM’s buy a Pepsi for

  breakfast come home drink it take a pill

  I’m high!

  I do three Greek lessons to make

  up for cutting class. I read birthday book

  (from Joe) on Juan Gris real name: José

  Vittoriano Gonzalez stop in the middle read

  all my poems gloat a little over new ballad

  quickly skip old sonnets imitations of Shakespeare.

  Back to books. I read poems by Auden Spenser Stevens

  Pound and Frank O’Hara. I hate books.

  I wonder

  if Jan or Helen or Babe ever think about me. I

  wonder if David Bearden still dislikes me. I wonder

  if people talk about me secretly. I wonder if

  I’m too old. I wonder if I’m fooling myself

  about pills. I wonder what’s in the icebox.

  I wonder if Ron or Pat bought any toilet paper

  this morning

  Personal Poem #7

  FOR JOHN STANTON

  It is 7:53 Friday morning in the Universe

  New York City to be somewhat exact

  I’m in my room wife gone working Gallup

  fucking in the room below

  had 17½ milligrams desoxyn

  last night 1 Miltown, read Paterson, parts

  1 & 2, poems by Wallace Stevens & How Much Longer

  Shall I Be Able To Inhabit The Divine Sepulchre

  (John Ashbery). Made lists of lines to

  steal, words to look up (didn’t). Had steak & eggs

  with Dick while Sandy sweetly slept.

  At 6:30 woke Sandy

  fucked til 7 now she’s late to work & I’m still

  high. Guess I’ll write to Bernie today

  and Tom. And call Tony. And go out at 9 (with Dick)

  to steal books to sell, so we can go

  to see A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

  Personal Poem

  It’s 5:03 a.m. on the 11th of July this morning

  and the day is bright gray turning green I can’t stop

  loving you says Ray Charles and I know exactly

  what he means because the Swedish policeman in the

  next room is beating on my door demanding sleep

  and not Ray Charles and bluegrass does he know

  that in three hours I go to court to see if the world

  will let me have a wife he doesn’t of course it wouldn’t

  occur to him nor would it occur to him to write

  “scotch-tape body” in a notebook but it did occur to

  John Stanton alias The Knife Fighter age 18 so why

  are my hands shaking I should know better

  Personal Poem #9

  It’s 8:54 a.m. in Brooklyn it’s the 26th of July

  and it’s probably 8:54 in Manhattan but I’m

  in Brooklyn I’m eating English muffins and drinking

  Pepsi and I’m thinking of how Brooklyn is New

  York City too how odd I usually think of it

  as something all its own like Bellows Falls like

  Little Chute like Uijongbu

  I never thought

  on the Williamsburg Bridge I’d come so much to Brooklyn

  just to see lawyers and cops who don’t even carry guns

  taking my wife away and bringing her back

  No

  and I never thought Dick would be back at Gude’s

  beard shaved off long hair cut and Carol reading

  his books when we were playing cribbage and watching

  the sun come up over the Navy Yard across

  the river

  I think I was thinking

  when I was ahead I’d be somewhere like Perry street

  erudite dazzling slim and badly-loved

  contemplating my new book of poetry

  to be printed in simple type on old brown paper

  feminine marvelous and tough

  For You

  FOR JAMES SCHUYLER

  New York’s lovely weather hurts my forehead

  here where clean snow is sitting, wetly

  round my ears, as hand-in-glove and

  head-to-head with Joe, I go reeling

  up First Avenue to Klein’s. Christmas

  is sexy there. We feel soft sweaters

  and plump rumpled skirts we’d like to try.

  It was gloomy being broke today, and baffled

  in love: Love, why do you always take my heart away?

  But then the soft snow came sweetly falling down

  and head in the clouds, feet soaked in mush

  I rushed hatless into the white and shining air,

  glad to find release in heaven’s care.

  A Personal Memoir of Tulsa, Oklahoma / 1955–60

  There we were, on fire with being there, then

  And so we put our pants on

  And began to get undressed. You were there, then

  And there where you were, we were. And I

  Was there, too! We had no pants on.

  And I saw your penis there. It was right there, where

  We were, and it was with us. We looked at it, there

  And you said, “Why hello there, Oliver!” to me, there

  Beside you, without any pants on, there where I

  Could hear you saying, “Why hello there!”

  Then Frank came in, and George, and Bill, and Cannonball, and Frank;

  And Simon, Jonas, Jennie-Lou, and Bob; and gentle Millie-Jean;

  And Hannibal the Alp; and they took off their hats and coats

  And all began to puke. They puked on Cal, and on Billy, and

  On Benjamin, Lucifer, Jezebel, Asthmador and Frank. Then they left.

  Frank was much younger then, there, and he had hair

  On his belly; he looked like a model-aeroplane; a dark, gloomy

  Navel in its tail; and you were there, there

  In his tail: you were there and

  Hair was there, and air was there, there, up in the air, among

  The hair. And you were saying, “Why, hello there!”

  And your pants, when you finally put them on there

  Had a hole in them, there, where your penis was, before it flew

  Away from there to find itself. And the hole there was wide

  And it was deep. It was dark there; and

  Supersonic Aeroplanes were there. And they were whirring.

  “Whirrr-whirrr-whirrr,” went the throbbing aeroplanes, as

  They zoomed out at us from in there; for we were there, where

  Your pants met the sea, and we were glad! I was there, and Jock

  And Zack, and Brett; and we met your penis passing by. It said,

  “Goodbye mild starlight of The Sign of Fawn,” as it rode

  into the galaxy named ‘Fangs.’

  TAMBOURINE LIFE

  FOR ANNE KEPLER

  1

  FUCK COMMUNISM

  it’s red white and blue

  in the bathroom

  (Tuli’s)

  One dollar, you Mother!

  Make all your friends

  STOP!

  (now there’s an idea)

  ARTFORUM

  723½ North Cienega Blvd

&
nbsp; Los Angeles, California

  Back to the wall

  (it’s all in California)

  Thanks to Jack

  I mean it’s all right here

  it’s morning

  and I’m looking over the wall

  at Mr. Pierre Loti and his nameless dog

  they work well together

  on paper i.e. this here

  chasing a tiger across white expansiveness

  that is not lacking in significance

  (what is?)

  THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

  circa 1967

  2

  The apples are red again in Chandler’s valley

  redder for what happened there

  never did know what it was

  never did care

  The End

  on a pillow

  naturally

  a doormat lust steam a hiss Guilty!

  I see some handwriting on the wall

  of the Williamsburg Bridge

  intersection

  New York Post ten cents

  tip the newsboy

  over

  a million

  laughs

  that’s the party line

  yes

  he’s working on the paper:

  Mr. Horatio Alger

  (he has a lovely talent)

  thank you

  here’s your change

  3

  I’m touched

  here, take this penny

  there is no need for the past

  the sun is out

  it’s night

  I mean

  it is night

  and I love you better

  since

  this seizure / of my eyeballs

  •

  Take off those Fug panties!

  Go ahead

  it’s a big world

  The big guys do it

  TO ANNIE

  (between Oologah & Pawnee)

  Guillaume Apollinaire

  4

  The bodies of my days

  open up

  in the garden

  of

  my memory,

  America

  •

  I have had the courage to look backward

  it was like polio

  I shot my mouth off

  •

  I NEED MONEY

  that money

  that at least

  at last

  means less

  than a Band-aid

  or a toadstool

  •

  OUCH!

  that Band-aid has an OUCH! in it

  Who notices a toadstool in the street?

  Everyone

  who has on

  a Band-aid

  That toadstool has a Band-aid on it

  5

  (to Brett deBary)