The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Page 22

  My mother leaves for work. I’m still here.

  Put out the cat

  Take in the clothes

  off of the line

  Take a walk,

  buy cigarettes

  two teen-agers whistle

  as I walk up

  They say: “Only your hairdresser

  knows for sure!”

  Then they say,

  “ulp!”

  because I am closer to them.

  They see I am not hippie kid, frail like Mick Jagger,

  but some horrible 35 year old big guy!

  The neighborhood I live in is mine!

  “How’d you like a broken head, kid?”

  I say fiercely.

  (but I am laughing & they are not one bit scared.)

  So, I go home.

  Alice Clifford waits me. Soon she’ll die

  at the Greenwood Nursing Home; my mother’s

  mother, 79 years & 7 months old.

  But first, a nap, til my mother comes home

  from work, with the car.

  The heart stops briefly when someone dies,

  a quick pain as you hear the news, & someone passes

  from your outside life to inside. Slowly the heart adjusts

  to its new weight, & slowly everything continues, sanely.

  Living’s a pleasure:

  I’d like to take the whole trip

  despite the possible indignities of growing old,

  moving, to die in poverty, among strangers:

  that can’t be helped.

  So, everything, now

  is just all right. I’m with you.

  No more last night.

  Friday’s great

  10 o’clock morning sun is shining!

  I can hear today’s key sounds fading softly

  & almost see opening sleep’s epic novels.

  Frank O’Hara

  Winter in the country, Southampton, pale horse

  as the soot rises, then settles, over the pictures

  The birds that were singing this morning have shut up

  I thought I saw a couple, kissing, but Larry said no

  It’s a strange bird. He should know. & I think now

  “Grandmother divided by monkey equals outer space.” Ron

  put me in that picture. In another picture, a good-

  looking poet is thinking it over; nevertheless, he will

  never speak of that it. But, his face is open, his eyes

  are clear, and, leaning lightly on an elbow, fist below

  his ear, he will never be less than perfectly frank,

  listening, completely interested in whatever there may

  be to hear. Attentive to me alone here. Between friends,

  nothing would seem stranger to me than true intimacy.

  What seems genuine, truly real, is thinking of you, how

  that makes me feel. You are dead. And you’ll never

  write again about the country, that’s true.

  But the people in the sky really love

  to have dinner & to take a walk with you.

  Crystal

  Be awake mornings. See light spread across the lawn

  (snow) as the sky refuses to be any color, today

  I like this boat-ride I’m being taken for, although

  It never leaves the shore, this boat. Its fires burn

  Like a pair of lovely legs. It’s a garage that grew up

  Sometimes I can’t talk, my mouth too full of words, but

  I have hands & other parts, to talk lots! Light the fire

  Babble for you. I dream a green undersea man

  Has been assigned to me, to keep me company, to smirk

  At me when I am being foolish. A not unpleasant dream.

  My secret doors open as the mail arrives. Fresh air

  Pours in, around, before they close again. The winds are rushing

  Up off of the ocean, up Little Plains Road. Catch the Wind

  In my head, a quiet song. And, “Everything belongs to me

  Because I am poor.” Waiting in sexy silence, someone

  Turns over in bed, & waiting is just a way of being with

  Now a tiny fire flares out front the fireplace. Chesterfield

  King lights up! Wood is crackling inside

  Elephants’ rush & roar. Refrigerator’s gentle drone

  Imagined footsteps moving towards my door. Sounds in dreams

  In bed. You are all there is inside my head.

  Clown

  There’s a strange lady in my front yard

  A girl naked in the shower, saying

  “I’m keeping my boxes dry!” A naked artist

  Smoking. Bad teeth. Wooden planks: furniture. Sky

  One minute ago I stopped thought: 12 years of cops

  In my life. & Alice is putting her panties on

  Takes off a flowery dress for London’s purple one

  Out of the blue, a host of words, floating

  March: awaiting rescue: smoke, or don’t

  Strapped: deprived. Shoot yourself: stay alive.

  & you can’t handle yourself, love, feeling

  No inclination toward that solitude.

  Take it easy, & as it comes. Coffee

  Suss. Feel. Whine. Shut up. Exercise.

  Turn. Turn around. Turn. Kill dog.

  Today woke up bright & early, no mail, life

  Is horrible, & I am stupid, & I think . . . Nothing.

  “Have faith, old brother. You are a myth in my heart.

  We are both alive. Today we may go to India.”

  Chinese Nightingale

  We are involved in a transpersonified state

  Revolution, which is turning yourself around

  I am asleep next to “The Hulk.” “The Hulk” often sleeps

  While I am awake & vice versa. Life is less than ideal

  For a monkey in love with a nymphomaniac! God is fired!

  Do I need the moon to remain free? To explode softly

  In a halo of moon rays? Do I need to be

  On my human feet, straight, talking, free

  Will sleep cure the deaf-mute’s heartbreak? Am I

  In my own way, America? Rolling downhill, & away?

  The door to the river is closed, my heart is breaking

  Loose from sheer inertia. All I do is bumble. No

  Matter. We live together in the jungle.

  Wrong Train

  Here comes the man! He’s talking a lot

  I’m sitting, by myself. I’ve got

  A ticket to ride. Outside is, “Out to Lunch.”

  It’s no great pleasure, being on the make.

  Well, who is? Or, well everyone is, tho.

  “I’m laying there, & some guy comes up

  & hits me with a billyclub!” A fat guy

  Says. Shut up. & like that we cross a river

  Into the Afterlife. Everything goes on as before

  But never does any single experience make total use

  Of you. You are always slightly ahead,

  Slightly behind. It merely baffles, it doesn’t hurt.

  It’s total pain & it breaks your heart

  In a less than interesting way. Every day

  Is payday. Never enough pay. A déjà-vu

  That lasts. It’s no big thing, anyway.

  A lukewarm greasy hamburger, ice-cold pepsi

  that hurts your teeth.

  Buddha on the Bounty

  “A little loving can solve a lot of things”

  She locates two spatial equivalents in

  The same time continuum. “You are lovely. I

  am lame.” “Now it’s me.” “If a man is in

  Solitude, the world is translated, my world

  & wings sprout from the shoulders of ‘The Slave’”

  Yeah. I like the fiery butterfly puzzles

  Of this pilgrimage toward clarities

  Of great mud intelligence & feeling.

  “The Ele
phant is the wisest of all animals

  The only one who remembers his former lives

  & he remains motionless for long periods of time

  Meditating thereon.” I’m not here, now,

  & it is good, absence.

  Scorpio

  If I don’t love you I

  Won’t let it show. But I’ll

  Make it clear, by

  Never letting you know.

  & if I love you, I will

  Love you true: insofar

  As Love, itself,

  Will do.

  & while I live, I’ll be

  Whatever I am, whose

  Constant, impure, fire

  Is outwardly only a man.

  I Used to Be but Now I Am

  I used to be inexorable,

  But now I am elusive.

  I used to be the future of America,

  But now I am America.

  I used to be part of the problem,

  But now I am the problem.

  I used to be part of the solution, if not all of it,

  But now I am not that person.

  I used to be intense, & useful,

  But now I am heavy, & boring.

  I used to be sentimental about myself, & therefore ruthless,

  But now I am, I think, a sympathetic person, although

  easily amused.

  I used to be a believer,

  But now, alas, I believe.

  The Complete Prelude

  FOR CLARK COOLIDGE & FOR MY MOTHER

  1.

  Upon the river, point me out my course

  That blows from the green fields and from the clouds

  And from the sky: be nothing better

  Than a wandering cloud

  Come fast upon me

  Such as were not made for me.

  I cannot miss my way. I breathe again

  That burthen of my own natural self

  The heavy weight of many a weary day;

  Coming from a house

  Shall be my harbour; promises of human life

  Are mine in prospect;

  Now I am free, enfranchis’d and at large.

  The earth is all before me, with a heart

  2.

  And the result was elevating thoughts

  Among new objects simplified, arranged

  And out of what had been, what was, the place

  “O’er the blue firmament a radiant white,”

  Was thronged with impregnations, like those wilds

  That into music touch the passing wind;

  Had been inspired, and walk’d about in dreams,

  And, in Eclipse, my meditations turn’d

  And unencroached upon, now, seemed brighter far,

  Though fallen from bliss, a solitary, full of caverns, rocks

  And audible seclusions: here also found an element

  that pleased her

  Tried her strength; made it live. Here

  Neither guilt, nor vice, nor misery forced upon my sight

  Could overthrow my trust in Courage, Tenderness, & Grace.

  In the tender scenes I most did take my delight.

  3.

  Thus strangely did I war against myself

  What then remained in such Eclipse? What night?

  The wizard instantaneously dissolves

  Through all the habitations of past years

  And those to come, and hence an emptiness;

  & shall continue evermore to make

  & shall perform to exalt and to refine

  Inspired, celestial presence ever pure

  From all the sources of her former strength.

  Then I said: “and these were mine,

  Not a deaf echo, merely, of thought,

  But living sounds. Yea, even the visible universe was scann’d

  And as by the simple waving of a wand

  With something of a kindred spirit, fell

  Beneath the domination of a taste, its animation & its deeper sway.”

  Easter Monday

  FOR EDWARD DORN

  Chicago Morning

  TO PHILIP GUSTON

  Under a red face, black velvet shyness

  Milking an emaciated gaffer. God lies down

  Here. Rattling of a shot, heard

  From the first row. The president of the United States

  And the Director of the FBI stand over

  a dead mule. “Yes, it is nice to hear the fountain

  With the green trees around it, as well as

  People who need me.” Quote Lovers of speech unquote. It’s

  a nice thought

  & typical of a rat. And, it is far more elaborate

  Than expected. And the thing is, we don’t need

  that much money.

  Sunday morning; blues, blacks, red & yellow wander

  In the soup. Gray in the windows’ frames. The angular

  Explosion in the hips. A huge camel rests

  in a massive hand

  Casts clouds a smoggish white out & up over the Loop, while

  Two factories (bricks) & a fortress of an oven (kiln)

  Rise, barely visible inside a grey metallic gust.

  “The Fop’s Tunic.”

  She gets down, off of the table, breaking a few more plates.

  Natives paint their insides crystal white here (rooms)

  Outside is more bricks, off-white. Europe at Night.

  The End

  Despair farms a curse, slackness

  In the sleep of animals, with mangled limbs

  Dogs, frogs, game elephants, while

  There’s your new life, blasted with milk.

  It’s the last day of summer, it’s the first

  Day of fall: soot sits on Chicago like

  A fat head’s hat. The quick abounds. Turn

  To the left; turn to the right. On Bear’s Head

  Two Malted Milk balls. “Through not taking himself

  Quietly enough he strained his insides.” He

  Encourages criticism, but he never forgives it.

  You who are the class in the sky, receive him

  Into where you dwell. May he rest long and well.

  God help him, he invented us, that is, a future

  Open living beneath his spell. One goes not where

  One came from. One sitting says, “I stand corrected.”

  Newtown

  Sunday morning: here we live jostling & tricky

  blues, blacks, reds & yellows all are gray

  in each window: the urbanites have muscles

  in their butts & backs; shy, rough, compassionate

  & good natured, “they have sex in their pockets”

  To women in love with my flesh I speak.

  All the Irish major statements & half the best

  Low-slung stone. Upstairs is sleep. Downstairs

  is heat. She seems exceedingly thin and transparent

  Two suspicious characters in my head. They park & then

  Start, the same way you get out of bed. The pansy is

  Grouchy. The Ideal Family awaits distribution on

  The Planet. Another sensation tugged at his heart

  Which he could not yet identify,

  half Rumanian deathbed diamond

  Wildly singing in the mountains with cancer of the spine.

  Method Action

  FOR HANK KANABUS

  Frog sees dog. log?

  See the lamp?

  It is out.

  “Do you think I became

  a dance-hall girl

  because

  I was bad?”

  It ain’t gonna work.

  Because by morning

  it’ll be gone.

  The medicine I took

  to change

  the way I was.

  And I’m the man who killed him.

  Swinburne & Watts-Dunton

  Beer in bed, &

  An unused point

  Beside me

  On the bench.<
br />
  Goodbye To All That.

  No first lines in London. . . .

  Tuborg lager,

  Putney High Street,

  S. W. 15

  “A pure case of unmitigated flatulence.”

  Yes, but, “He is exulted.

  The ice

  Meant something else

  To him.”

  White South.

  Soviet Souvenir

  What strikes the eye hurts, what one hears is a lie.

  The river is flowing again between its banks.

  Grant one more summer, O you Gods! that once I did not ask

  The windows through which the bells toll are like doors

  Because she is direct in her actions and in her feelings

  Under the puns of the troop, there are frescoes

  On the rudder, which you set against a bracelet’s fire, and

  Which goes toward you with each beat.

  I find myself there; am I finally ill at ease with my own

  Principle? Fortune be praised! Immense density, not divinely,

  bathes us

  I hear walking in my legs

  The savage eyes into wood look for the head they can live in

  It’s my window, even now, around me, full of darkness, dumb,

  so great!

  My heart willingly again beginning crying out; and at the same time

  anxious, love, to contain.

  Old-fashioned Air

  FOR LEE CRABTREE

  I’m living in Battersea, July,

  1973, not sleeping, reading

  Jet noise throbs building fading

  Into baby talking, no, “speechifying”

  “Ah wob chuk sh ’guh!” Glee.

  There’s a famous Power Station I can’t see

  Up the street. Across there is

  Battersea Park

  I walked across this morning toward

  A truly gorgeous radiant flush;

  Sun; fumes of the Battersea

  Power Station; London air;

  I walked down long avenues of trees

  That leant not gracefully

  Over the concrete walk. Wet green lawn

  Opened spaciously

  Out on either side of me. I saw

  A great flock of geese taking their morning walk