The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Read online

  or

  Write a 453 page unintelligible book

  5.

  Dismantle 12 radios

  string beads interminably

  empty your purse

  sit curled in a chair

  & draw intricate designs

  in the corner of an envelope

  6.

  “I felt it rush almost instantly into

  my head like a short circuit. My body

  began to pulsate, & grew tiny antennae

  all quivering in anticipation. I began

  to receive telepathic communication from

  the people around me. I felt elated.”

  7.

  get pissed off.

  Feel your tongue begin to shred,

  lips to crack, the inside of the mouth

  become eaten out. Itch all over. See

  your fingernails flake off, hair & teeth

  fall out.

  Buy a Rolls-Royce

  Become chief of the Mafia

  Consider anti-matter.

  8.

  Notice that tiny bugs are crawling over your whole body

  around, between and over your many new pimples.

  Cut away pieces of bad flesh.

  Discuss mother’s promiscuity

  Sense the presence of danger at the movies

  Reveal

  get tough

  turn queer

  9.

  In the Winter, switch to heroin, so you won’t catch pneumonia.

  In the Spring, go back to speed.

  Television

  San Gabriel

  Placer, Nevada. New York:

  Buffalo. 24 Huntington, just off of Main.

  $12.95 takes you

  where you want to go

  quick; & quickly do you go.

  $.30 will bring you back

  sweating, worn out. Twice

  as fast (as when you went) is

  slow.

  Farewell Address

  TO RICHARD TAYLOR

  Goodbye House, 24 Huntington, one block past Hertel on the downtown side of Main, second house on the left. Your good spirit kept me cool this summer, your ample space.

  Goodbye house.

  Goodbye our room, on the third floor. Your beds were much appreciated; We used them gratefully & well, me & Alice. & Alice’s yellow blanket spread across to the yellow slanted ceiling to make a lovely light, Buffalo mornings. There we talked, O did we ever! Goodbye, our

  Third floor room.

  & Goodbye other room across the hall. Typewriter music filled my heart. Buffalo nights as I read on my bed while Alice wrote unseen. Her Buffalo poems were terrific, & they were even about me! Some had you in them, too! So,

  Goodbye room.

  Goodbye second floor. Your bathroom’s character one could grow to understand. I liked the sexy closed door of Chris’s room, & light showing under the master’s door at night; a good omen to me, always! Even your unused office offered us its ironing board, by moonlight.

  You were friendly. Goodbye second floor of Richard’s house.

  Goodbye stairs. Alice knew you well.

  & Goodbye first floor. Goodbye kitchen, you were a delight; you fed us morning, noon & night; I liked your weird yellow light, & your wall clock was out of sight! Meals we shared with Richard were gentle & polite; we liked them; we liked those times a lot.

  Goodbye kitchen, you’ll not be forgot.

  & Goodbye Arboretum. (I mean TV room) Mornings, alone, I loved to sit in you, to read the news from the world of sports, as light poured into & through the house. Mornings were quiet pepsis. Nights I’d talk with Richard over beers. Good manners had some meaning here; I learned better ones with great delight. Goodbye

  TV room. Thanks for your mornings and nights.

  Goodbye vast dining hall, where we three & three dogs often ate of beef & drank red wine. Your table was long, & your chandelier a sight. Richard ate quickly, as did Alice, while I took my time, talking beneath your light. May we dine thusly many a night, days

  To come. Goodbye dining room, & dogs who ate our bones with delight.

  Goodbye Thelonius. Only Allen Ginsberg, for beauty, matches you. & Goodbye Ishmael. I liked your ghastly rough-house ways. You were the love/hate delight of Alice’s days & nights. Many a fond lick you lolled her way, each of her trips. Goodbye Ishmael. Goodbye Oliver. You didn’t say much, but you were always there, calling “Hey, wait for me!” like in those movies I used to like the best. When you three ate Bobby Dylan’s SELF PORTRAIT, it put our friendship to the test. But it survived. & so,

  Goodbye Ishmael, Thelonius, Oliver; friends, my brothers, dogs.

  & Richard, goodbye, too, to you. You were the best of all our Buffalo life. Sharing with you made it be a life. We were at home in your house, because it’s yours. It was a great pleasure, to come & go through your doors. Nothing gets lost, in anyone’s life; I’m glad of that. We three had our summer, which will last. Poems last (like this one has); and so do memories. They last in poems, & in the people in them (who are us). So, although this morning under the sky, we go, Alice & I, you’ll be flying with us as we fly. You come to visit, where we go, & we’ll sometimes visit you in

  Buffalo. Bring the dogs, too. & until then, our love to you, Richard.

  Goodbye.

  Three Sonnets and a Coda for Tom Clark

  1.

  In The Early Morning Rain

  To my family & friends “Hello”

  And money. With something inside us we float up

  On this electric chair each breath nearer the last

  Now is spinning

  Seven thousand feet over / The American Midwest

  Gus walked up under the arc light as far as the first person

  the part that goes over the fence last

  And down into a green forest ravine near to “her”

  Winds in the stratosphere

  Apologise to the malcontents

  Downstairs. The black bag & the wise man may be found

  in the brain-room.

  what sky out there Take it away

  & it’s off

  one foot

  is expressing itself as continuum

  the other, sock

  2.

  Tomorrow. I need to kill

  Blank mind part Confusions of the cloth

  White snow whirls everywhere. Across the fields

  in the sky the

  Soft, loose

  stars swarm. Nature makes my teeth “to hurt”

  shivering now on 32nd Street in my face & in my head

  does Bobby Dylan ever come around here? listen

  it’s alive where exposed nerve jangles

  & I looming over Jap’s American flag

  In Public, In Private The Sky Pilot In No Man’s Land

  The World Number 14 is tipsy as pinballs on the ocean

  We are bored through . . . through . . . with our professionalism

  Outside her

  Windows

  3.

  I’m amazed to be here

  A man who can do the average thing

  when everybody else is

  going crazy Lord I wonder just exactly what can happen

  my heart is filled (filling) with light

  & there’s a breeze & I’m going

  way over

  the white skyline do what I want to

  Fuck it.

  Tied up wit

  Tie with red roses The war of the Roses, &

  War is shit. White man, tomorrow you die!

  Tomorrow means now. “You kidding me?” now.

  Light up you will be great

  It’s a complication. Thanksgiving, 1970, Fall.

  CODA:

  Being a new day my heart

  is confirmed in its pure Buddhahood

  activity under the clear blue sky

  The front is hiding the rear (not)

  which means we have (not) “protected ourselves”

  by forgetting all we
were dealt

  I love all the nuts I’ve been in bed (with)

  hope to go everywhere in good time

  like, Africa: it would be tremendous (or not)

  to drink up rivers. Be seeing you

  to ride the river (with) heads riding gently

  its personal place feet doing their stuff up in the air

  Where someone (J.) dies, so that we can be rude to friends

  While you find me right here coming through again.

  Landscape with Figures (Southampton)

  There’s a strange lady in my front yard

  She’s wearing blue slacks & a white car-coat

  & “C’mon!” she’s snarling at a little boy

  He isn’t old enough to snarl, so he’s whining

  On the string as first she & then he disappear

  Into (or is it behind) the Rivers’ garage.

  That’s 11 a.m.

  In the country. “Everything is really golden,”

  Alice, in bed, says. I look, & out the window, see

  Three shades of green; & the sky, not so high,

  So blue & white. “You’re right, it really is!”

  What I’d Like for Christmas, 1970

  Black brothers to get happy

  The Puerto Ricans to say hello

  The old folks to take it easy &

  as it comes

  The United States to get straight

  Power to butt out

  Money to fuck off

  Business with honor

  Religion

  &

  Art

  Love

  A home

  A typewriter

  A GUN.

  Lady

  Nancy, Jimmy, Larry, Frank, & Berdie

  George & Bill

  Dagwood Bumstead

  Donna, Joe, & Phil

  Making shapes this place

  so rightly ours

  to fill

  as we wish,

  & Andy’s flowers too, do.

  I’ve been sitting, looking

  thinking sounds of pictures

  names

  of you

  of how I smile now

  &

  Let It Be.

  & now I think to add

  “steel teeth”

  “sucking cigarette”

  “A photograph of Bad.”

  Everything you are gone slightly mad.

  America.

  36th Birthday Afternoon

  Green TIDE; behind, pink against blue

  Blue CHEER; an expectorant, Moving On

  Gun in hand, shooting down

  Anyone who comes to mind

  IN OLD SOUTHAMPTON, blue, shooting up

  THE SCRIPTURE OF THE GOLDEN ETERNITY

  A new sharpness, peel apart to open, bloody water

  & Alice is putting her panties on, taking off

  A flowery dress for London’s purple one

  It seems to be getting longer, the robot

  Keeps punching, opening up

  A bit at a time. Up above

  Spread atop the bed a red head sees

  Two hands, one writing, one holding on.

  Today’s News

  My body heavy with poverty (starch)

  It uses up my sexual energy

  constantly, &

  I feel constantly crowded

  On the other hand, One

  Day In The Afternoon of

  The World

  Pervaded my life with a

  heavy grace

  today

  I’ll never smile again

  Bad Teeth

  But

  I’m dancing with tears in my eyes

  (I can’t help myself!) Tom

  writes he loves Alice’s sonnets,

  takes four, I’d love

  to be more attentive to her, more

  here.

  The situation having become intolerable

  the only alternatives are:

  Murder & Suicide.

  They are too dumb! So, one

  becomes a goof. Raindrops

  start falling on my roof. I say

  Hooray! Then I say, I’m going out

  At the drugstore I say, Gimme some pills!

  Charge ’em! They say

  Sure. I say See you later.

  Read the paper. Talk to Alice.

  She laughs to hear

  Hokusai had 947 changes of address

  In his life. Ha-ha. Plus everything

  else in the world

  going on here.

  Wishes

  Now I wish I were asleep, to see my dreams taking place

  I wish I were more awake

  I wish a sweet rush of tears to my eyes

  Wish a nose like an eagle

  I wish blue sky in the afternoon

  Bigger windows, & a panorama—light, buildings & people in street air

  Wish my teeth were white and sparkled

  Wish my legs were not where they are—where they are

  I wish the days warmly cool & clothes I like to be inside of

  Wish I were walking around in Chelsea (NY) & it was 5:15 a.m., the

  sun coming up, alone, you asleep at home

  I wish red rage came easier

  I wish death, but not just now

  I wish I were driving alone across America in a gold Cadillac

  toward California, & my best friend

  I wish I were in love, & you here

  Ophelia

  ripped

  out of her mind

  a marvelous construction

  thinking

  no place; & you

  not once properly handled

  Ophelia

  &

  you can’t handle yourself

  feeling

  no inclination

  toward that

  solitude,

  love

  by yourself

  Ophelia

  & feeling free you drift

  far more beautifully

  than we

  As one now understands

  He never did see you

  you moving so while talking flashed

  & failed

  to let you go

  Ophelia

  Scorpion, Eagle & Dove (A Love Poem)

  FOR PAT

  November, dancing, or

  Going to the store in the country,

  Where green changes itself into LIFE,

  MOVING ON, Jockey Shorts, Katzenmiaou

  A Chesterfield King & the blue book

  IN OLD SOUTHAMPTON,

  you make my days special

  You do Jimmy’s, & Alice’s,

  Phoebe’s, Linda’s,

  Lewis’ & Joanne’s, too. . .

  & Kathy’s (a friend who is new). . .

  & Gram’s . . .

  who loved you,

  like I do

  once . . .

  & who surely does so since

  that 4th of July last,

  a Saturday,

  a day that left her free

  to be with & love you

  (& me)

  (all of us)

  just purely;

  clean;

  & selflessly;

  no thoughts

  Just, It’s true. As I would be

  & as I am, to you

  this

  November.

  Things to Do in Providence

  Crash

  Take Valium Sleep

  Dream &,

  forget it.

  Wake up now & strange

  displaced

  at home.

  Read The Providence Evening Bulletin

  No one you knew

  got married

  had children

  got divorced

  died

  got born

  tho many familiar names flicker &

  disappear.

  Sit

  watch TV

  draw blanks

  swallow<
br />
  pepsi

  meatballs

  . . .

  give yourself the needle:

  “Shit! There’s gotta be something

  to do

  here!”

  JOURNEY to Seven young men on horses, leaving Texas.

  SHILOH: They’ve got to do what’s right! So, after

  a long trip, they’ll fight for the South in the War.

  No war in Texas, but they’ve heard about it, & they want

  to fight for their country. Have some adventures & make

  their folks proud! Two hours later all are dead;

  one by one they died, stupidly, & they never did find out

  why! There were no niggers in South Texas! Only

  the leader,

  with one arm shot off, survives to head back for Texas:

  all his friends behind him, dead. What will happen?

  Watching him, I cry big tears. His friends

  were beautiful, with boyish American good manners,

  cowboys!

  Telephone New York: “hello!”

  “Hello! I’m drunk! &

  I have no clothes on!”

  “My goodness,” I say.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Wide awake all night reading: The Life of Turner

  (“He first saw the light in Maiden Lane”)

  A. C. Becker: Wholesale Jewels

  Catalogue 1912

  The Book of Marvels, 1934:

  The year I was born.

  No mention of my birth in here. Hmmm.

  Saturday The Rabbi Stayed Home

  (that way he got to solve the murder)

  LIFE on the Moon by LIFE Magazine.

  My mother wakes up, 4 a.m.: Someone to talk with!

  Over coffee we chat, two grownups

  I have two children, I’m an adult now, too.

  Now we are two people talking who have known each other

  a long time,

  Like Edwin & Rudy. Our talk is a great pleasure: my mother

  a spunky woman. Her name was Peggy Dugan when she was young.

  Now, 61 years old, she blushes to tell me I was conceived

  before the wedding! “I’ve always been embarrassed about telling you

  til now,” she says. “I didn’t know what you might think!”

  “I think it’s really sweet,” I say. “It means I’m really

  a love child.” She too was conceived before her mother’s wedding,

  I know. We talk, daylight comes, & the Providence Morning Journal.