The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Read online

  Skinny!

  Takes pills too

  much!!

  Talks to himself!

  Solipsist!

  Wants to have all the

  fun!

  Doesn’t like kids!!

  Mean to his Mother!

  Mean to his lovers!

  Cynical!!

  Stutters!!

  Never comes to visit!!

  Doesn’t like us

  anymore.

  An opportunist!!

  Should get married!

  Should do big oil paintings!!

  Get Serious!!

  Talk more!! Talk less!!

  Tell the truth!!

  Know the truth!!

  Be perfect!!

  God damn it!!

  & the Train continues in the night. . . .

  black outside

  high inside.

  What energy!

  What a dumb book.

  Glad I’ll never have to read

  it.

  Hope it gets a rise out of

  SOMEBODY!

  Train blows whistle

  when approaching

  Station.

  Didn’t get to Fuck

  on it.

  Did eat a terrible

  hamburger:

  $1.75

  & drink

  a pepsi: .35

  _____

  Total $2.20

  Plus tip: .50

  $4.00 is about to get off

  of a Train,

  into a cab.

  Taxi Fare will be:

  $3.50 & tip: .50

  But I have hidden resources:

  95 cents

  __________

  You are my hidden resources!

  You live in my world

  at the other end of the train.

  You give me brain-spasms,

  & heart-bursts.

  Writing to read &

  Pictures to see

  You give me love,

  & I feel proud

  that you really do

  like me & respect me

  despite everything

  Because You are one of my big

  heroes. . . . Smarter

  than me, (tho really no

  “better”, if you

  know what I mean)

  I love you a whole lot.

  I’m glad we were together

  on this train.

  I had a really nice time

  at your place today.

  I felt really alive, &

  warmed

  walking toward the

  train

  That I just got up

  in,

  &

  walked thru

  &

  now am off of,

  at

  the end of this book,

  TRAIN RIDE

  (Feb 18th, 1971)

  For Joe

  Memorial Day

  BY TED BERRIGAN AND ANNE WALDMAN

  Today:

  Open Opening Opened:

  The angels that surround me

  die

  they kiss death

  & they die

  they always die.

  they speak to us

  with sealed lips

  information operating

  at the speed of light

  speak to us

  O speak to us

  in our tiny head

  deep calling out to deep

  we speak all the time

  in the present tense at the speed of Life

  dead heads operating

  At the speed of light

  Today:

  & it’s morning

  Take my time this morning

  & learn to kill

  to take the will

  from unknown places,

  kill this stasis

  let it down

  let it down on me

  I was asleep

  in Ann Arbor

  dreaming

  in Southampton

  beneath the summer sun of a green backyard

  & up from a blue director’s chair

  I heard a dead brother say

  into the air

  “Girl for someone else in white walk by”

  I was asleep in New York

  dreaming in Southampton

  & beneath the sun of the no sun sun up from my morning bed

  I heard the dead, the city dead

  The devils that surround us

  never die

  the New York City devil inside me

  alive all the time

  he say

  “Tomorrow you die”

  I woke up

  as he typed that down:

  “Girl for someone else in white walk by”

  & then,

  so did I.

  So my thanks to you

  the dead.

  The people in the sky.

  A minute of silent pool

  for the dead.

  & now I can hear my dead father saying,

  “I stand corrected.”

  Dolphins, (as we speak)

  are carrying on 2

  conversations simultaneously

  & within the clicks of one

  lie the squeaks of the other

  they are alive in their little wandering pool

  “I wonder what the dead people are doing today?”

  (taking a walk, 2nd St. to GEM SPA)

  (or loping down Wall St.

  Southampton)

  ghost the little children

  ghost radio ghost toast

  ghost stars

  ghost airport

  the ghost of Hamlet’s father

  ghost typewriter

  ghost lover

  ghost story

  ghost snow roasted ghost

  ghost in the mirror ghost

  happy ghost most ghost

  I dreamt that Bette Davis was a nun, we

  Were in a classroom, after school, collating

  The World. Jr. High. A knocking at the door, I

  Went to answer (as Bette disappeared), & found my mother

  Standing in the hallway.

  “Teddy,” she said, “here

  Is my real mother, who brought me up, I’ve always wanted

  for you to meet her.” Beside my mother stood

  a tall, elegant lady, wearing black, an austere, stylish

  Victorian lady whose eyes were clear & black; grand as

  Stella Adler, but as regal & tough as Bette Davis.

  Later that evening she sent me out for kippers for her bedtime

  snack, giving me a shilling to spend. I went for them

  to Venice, to a Coffee-House, which had a canal running right

  through it,

  & there I ran into Ron, sitting with a beautiful boyish adolescent

  blonde. “She’s a wonderful lady,” Ron said, & I was pleased.

  Ron left shortly with the blonde nymphet, & I wondered a minute

  about Pat (Ron’s wife); but decided that Ron must know what he’s

  doing. The girl, I thought, must be The Muse.

  She is a muse

  gone but not forgotten

  50 STATES

  state of grace

  the milk state

  Oregon

  stateroom

  state of anxiety

  hazy state

  estate

  statement

  Rugby Kissick state

  Florida

  the empire state

  disaster state

  the lightbulb state

  soup state

  Statue of Liberty

  state of no return

  the White Bear state

  doped state

  recoil state

  Please state your name, address, occupation

  the German shepherd state

  bent on destruction

  state

  the farmer state

  state of no more parades

  the to
bacco state

  statesman

  stately

  state prison

  stasis

  status

  static

  station wagon

  State Flower

  state of innocence

  ambition state

  North Carolina

  Jasper’s state

  the united state

  big state

  state your cause

  income state

  jump the gun state

  Roman nose state

  manic depression state

  hospital state

  speed state

  calculated state

  gone forever state

  the body state

  the death body state

  In New York State

  in ‘Winter in The Country’

  at night you write

  while someone

  (Alice) sometimes sleeps & dreams;

  awake she writes

  22.

  I dreamed you brought home a baby

  Solid girl, could already walk

  In blue corduroy overalls

  Nice & strange, baby to keep close

  I hadn’t thought of it before

  She & I waited for you out by the door

  Of building, went in

  Got you from painting

  Blue & white watercolor swatches

  We got on a bus, city bus

  One row of seats lining it & poles

  It went through the California desert

  Blue bright desert day

  In the country of old men I said

  pretty good

  & tho I live there

  no more

  “you can say that again.”

  Pretty good.

  It takes your best shot,

  to knock off whatever,

  so, we take our best shots,

  it gives us a boot or two

  we just do it

  we wouldn’t know what to tell you

  if our lives depended upon it!

  Anne?

  but Anne’s already talking

  across from me across my life

  across the mailman’s

  locked box,

  over the mailman

  I mean

  where a woman is alive

  a mailman her friend

  as you all know

  having met the man at the Met

  introduced by Vincent,

  & loved by Joe:

  Joe’s introductions go on,

  the tongue, the ears burn on Memorial Day

  at Anne’s turn:

  Dear Mr. Postman:

  Please take this from me

  to me.

  I’m delivered without a hitch

  to myself

  I’m a woman in the Prime of Strife

  I speak for all you crazy ladies

  past & present

  & I say,

  NO MESSAGES

  Nothing can be helped. Nothing gets lost.

  Blink

  the eye is closed

  & I am asleep

  blink

  the eye is open

  & I am awake

  in the real wide-eye world nothing gets lost

  Today was a day to remember death:

  I remember the death

  of Hitler

  & now I think of The Song of Roland

  Roland’s death

  & now I think to see

  if there were similarities

  & now I see there were . . .

  & now I wonder what Tom Clark thinks

  Edwin, Alex, Dick . . .

  Mike?

  A lung aching in the room

  inside Mike

  disease bringing you a little closer

  Forget it!

  Piss on it!

  Kiss my ass!

  he say

  in his absolute way

  Everybody obey

  But

  we are all victims

  (me too)

  & we all love life

  (too bad)

  I told Ron Padgett that I’d like to have

  NICE TO SEE YOU

  engraved on my tombstone.

  Ron said he thought he’d like to have

  OUT TO LUNCH

  on his.

  Dear Lewis:

  I’ve been down but I’m surfacing

  I’ve been lost but now I’m found

  “One will leaf one’s life all over again”

  you say

  & you are right

  around & around & around go the swirling leaves

  Death is not is not so horrible today

  The poison in the needle

  floods my body

  it hurts my head

  it hurts my head

  Poison from the needle

  floods my bloodstream

  it detonates my head

  it detonates my head

  I should put that needle down

  but tomorrow I’ll be dead.

  I recognized myself in a dream too, (Ted)

  we met & parted

  Hello & Goodbye

  simple as that

  my life recognized my death

  Waiting on you

  The heart stops briefly when someone dies, one

  massive slow stroke as someone passes

  from your outside life to your inside,

  & then

  everything continues

  sanely

  & I believe in you.

  News of my cat

  poor cat

  descendant of Frank O’Hara’s cat

  he’s dead

  I grieve

  let it down

  let it down on me

  X died, & Joe knew, but didn’t want to have to tell anyone; but Carol knew, & so,

  at Ken’s 12th Night party she told me. After a few minutes, I took Martha home,

  & then I walked home myself, across town, through Tompkins Square Park, to

  Avenue D & 2nd Street. I went to bed, & then I started to cry; & I stayed in bed

  for three days, & cried, & slept. And now I’m crying a little again. But then I got

  up, I said “well, that’s enough, fuck it!”, & I got dressed, & went over to visit

  Anne & Lewis as before.

  Bernadette had to arrange her mother’s funeral age 15

  & we’re in Rattner’s 3 AM

  & she’s telling me how her father died before that

  & all the death around her

  surrounding her

  so many relatives

  & how she just thought

  that’s what people do

  “They die”

  & she was so good & obedient until her uncle died

  & then

  something just snapped

  Then she sent me this 2 days later:

  Deaths, causes: tuberculosis, syphilis, dysentery, scarlet fever and streptococcal sore throat, diptheria, whooping cough, meningococcal infections, acute poliomyelitis, measles, malignant neoplasms, leukemia and aleukemia, benign neoplasms, asthma, diabetes, anemias, meningitis, cardiovascular-tenal diseases, narcolepsy, influenza and pneumonia, bronchitis, other broncho-pulmonix diseases, ulcer of stomach and duodenum, appendicitis, hernia and intestinal obstruction, gastritis, duodenitis, enteritis, and colitis, cirrhosis of liver, acute nephritis, infections of kidney, hyperplasis of prostrate, deliveries and complications of pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium, abortion, congenital malformations, birth injuries, postnatal asphyxia, infections of newborn, symptoms, senility, and ill-defined conditions, motor vehicle accidents, falls, burns, drowning, railroad accidents, firearms accidents, poison gases, other poisons, suicide, homicide.

  I asked Joe Brainard

  if he had anything to say about death:

  & he said,

  “Well,

  you always get

  lots of flowers

  when you die.”

/>   Which is so true,

  especially for men. That is,

  it’s only when you die that you get

  flowers,

  if you are a male

  I don’t think

  I’ve ever been sent flowers

  Not even on Memorial Day.

  I know I’ve never sent Joe any flowers.

  Once I took a flower

  from a nearby grave where there were

  lots of them

  it was in a little sharp-

  pointed glass tube

  & stuck the pointed end into the earth,

  in front of Frank O’Hara’s grave

  so that the small-pink-flower

  stood up.

  On the gravestone it said:

  GRACE TO BE BORN AND LIVE AS VARIOUSLY AS POSSIBLE

  OK. I’ll buy that.

  & once I picked a different pink flower

  from the earth

  in front

  of Guillaume Apollinaire’s grave.

  On his gravestone in French there was a poem in the shape of

  a heart.

  I had to go to the bathroom

  so I left then

  & went to a cafe

  across from Père Lachaise

  They had a bathroom there I had une pernod there

  & then another

  the shape of the American I am not

  Still Life

  the Chinese see nothing tragic in death

  but for me the clue is you

  the whistle of a bird or two

  you are now dead

  & I’m struck by how young

  we are

  (were)

  & how useless to speak

  Let it down

  Let it down on me

  • • •

  please

  I love you

  I’m sorry

  • • •

  The evolution of man & society

  is not to be taken lightly I advance

  upon the men their quiet

  I’m certain is fooling me . . .

  I sat up late in a room in Manhattan

  & read about the death

  of Guillaume Apollinaire

  dead in his bed

  of pneumonia

  after surviving shrapnel

  in his head

  in The World War

  a young girl (Sandy) peacefully

  sleeping in my bed

  It is night. You are asleep. & beautiful tears

  have blossomed in my eyes. Guillaume Apollinaire is dead.