The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Page 24
‘the picturesque
common lot’ the unwarranted light
the fever & obscurity of your organisms . . .
on what grounds shall we criticize the City Manager?
So Going Around Cities
TO DOUG & JAN OLIVER
“I order you to operate. I was not made to suffer.”
Probing for old wills, and friendships, for to free
to New York City, to be in History, New York City being
History at that time. “And I traded my nights
for Intensity; & I barter my right to Gold; & I’d traded
my eyes much earlier, when I was circa say seven years old
for ears to hear Who was speaking, & just exactly who
was being told . . . .” & I’m glad
I hear your words so clearly
& I would not have done it
differently
& I’m amused at such simplicity, even so,
inside each & every door. And now I’m with you, instantly,
& I’ll see you tomorrow night, and I see you constantly, hopefully
though one or the other of us is often, to the body-mind’s own self
more or less out of sight! Taking walks down any street, High
Street, Main Street, walk past my doors! Newtown; Nymph Rd
(on the Mesa); Waveland
Meeting House Lane, in old Southampton; or BelleVue Road
in England, etcetera
Other roads; Manhattan; see them there where open or shut up behind
“I’ve traded sweet times for answers . . .”
“They don’t serve me anymore.” They still serve me on the floor.
Or,
as now, as floor. Now we look out the windows, go in &
out the doors. The Door.
(That front door which was but & then at that time My door).
I closed it
On the wooing of Helen. “And so we left schools for her.” For
She is not one bit fiction; & she is easy to see;
& she leaves me small room
For contradiction. And she is not alone; & she is not one bit
lonely in the large high room, &
invention is just vanity, which is plain. She
is the heart’s own body, the body’s own mind in itself
self-contained.
& she talks like you; & she has created truly not single-handedly
Our tragic thing, America. And though I would be I am not afraid
of her, & you also not. You, yourself, I,
Me, myself, me. And no, we certainly have not pulled down
our vanity: but
We wear it lightly here,
here where I traded evenly,
& even gladly
health, for sanity; here
where we live day-by-day
on the same spot.
My English friends, whom I love & miss, we talk to ourselves here,
& we two
rarely fail to remember, although we write seldom, & so must seem
gone forever.
In the stained sky over this morning the clouds seem about to burst.
What is being remembering
Is how we are, together. Like you we are always bothered, except
by the worse; & we are living
as with you we also were
fired, only, mostly, by changes in the weather. For Oh dear hearts,
When precious baby blows her fuse / it’s just our way
of keeping amused.
That we offer of & as excuse. Here’s to you. All the very best.
What’s your pleasure? Cheers.
Quarter to Three
“who is not here
causes us to drift”
wake up, throat dry,
that way, perpetually,
“and why deprived unless
you feel that you ought to be?” and
“Clarity is immobile.” And, “We are hungry
for devices to keep the baby happy . . .”
She writes, “My hunger creates a food
that everybody needs.”
“I can’t live without you no
matter who you are.” “I think.”
I write this in cold blood,
enjoy.
A Little American Feedback
Yes, it’s true, strategy is fascinating
& watching its workings out of, its
successes & failures, participating even,
can be amusing at times, but
Lords & Ladies do express
the courtly elegance, the
rude vulgarity, only truly
in the self’s own body-mind’s
living daily day-to-day the living
Self-contained containing
self-abandonment as self is
eyes as they caress or
blaze with particular hate, say, at
living being thought while a particularly
self-engrossing mind-game going on is
still, & only, one pronoun temporarily
haranguing the others while
the rest of One’s self waits, truly
impatiently, for blessed natural savagery to arrive,
and finally save the party, by ordering
the musicians to resume their play
& the dancing picks up once again.
Boulder
Up a hill, short
of breath, then
breathing
Up stairs, & down, & up, & down again
to
NOISE
Your warm powerful Helloes
friends
still slightly breathless
in
a three-way street
hug
Outside
& we can move
& we move
Inside
to Starbursts of noise!
The human voice is how.
Lewis’s, boyish, & clear; & Allen’s, which persists,
& His, & Hers, & all of them Thems,
& then
Anne’s, once again, (and as I am) “Ted!”
Then
O, Lady!, O, See, among all things which exist
O this!, this breathing, we.
Picnic
The dancer grins at the ground.
The mildest of alchemists will save him.
(Note random hill of chairs). & he will prove
useful to her
in time. The ground to be their floor.
like pennies to a three year old,
like a novel, the right novel, to a 12 year old,
like a 39 Ford to a Highschool kid
like a woman to a man, a girl
who is a woman
is her self ’s own soul
and her man is himself
his own
& whole.
Addenda
& I can’t buy
with submission
& tho I feel often
& why not
battered
I can’t be beaten.
But I have been eaten, 7 times
by myself
& I go my way, by myself, I being
by myself only when useful, as for example,
you are to me now,
to you.
Narragansett Park
Inhabiting a night with shaky normal taboo hatred and fear
and a steep diagonal body
Peculiar and beautiful language correspond to my ordinary
tension
The major planets are shifting (shivering?) but out of my
natural habit,
Self-kindness,
I play them
something Nashville something quality
and there is the too easy knell of the games chapel
The tempting scornful opposite
Cathedral virus and goof immunization:
The curves of the Spirit are not very interested in
the conq
uest of matter.
Color is the idiot’s delight. I’m the curves, what’s
the matter? or
I’m the matter, the curves nag:
Call it Amber, it doesn’t ride nor take to rider
Amber it doesn’t make me want to pray, it makes me see color
as we fail to break through our clasped hands.
Carrying a Torch
What thoughts I have of where I’ll be, & when, & doing what
Belong to a ghost world, by no means my first,
And may or may not be entertaining; for example
living in a state of innocence in Kansas.
They hardly compare to when, passing through the air,
it thinks about the air.
Just as, now, you are standing here
Expecting me to remember something
When years of trying the opposite of something
Leave that vision unfulfilled.
Mostly I have to go on checking the windows will but don’t break
while you get on with taking your own sweet time.
It’s like coming awake thirsty & hungry, mid-way in dreams
you have to have;
It stops or changes if you don’t get up
& it changes, by stopping, if you do.
You do. Because you’re carrying a torch. A sudden circular bath
of symbols
Assails the structure. Better turn on the overhead light.
A Note from Yang-Kuan
You stay in the Mental Institute of your life.
God sees dog—in the mirror. In this city
Below the river, my private life is of no interest,
Though allowed. For example, it would be nicer to kiss
than to shoot up.
Visual indifference is a growth. Used. Was used. Useful.
A new way of appreciating has arrived?
Should be a ride at Disneyland. People
Have basically split. And the heart flutters.
Stunned, the metrics & melody of
The multiplication tables, I am a father, watching,
Tho poor, her broad thoughts, this local lifetime.
Here I shall be with it but never of it.
Being nothing in front of no-one again.
Work Postures
The rain comes and falls.
A host of assorted artillery come up out of the lake.
The man who knows everything is a fool.
In front of him is his head. Behind him, men.
Few listeners get close. And
“Love must turn to power or it die.”
This is a terrible present.
“Is this any way to run a Railroad?”
Flashing back 7 years I hear, “you will never go
any place for the second time again.”
It’s hard to fight, when your body is not with you.
& it’s equally hard not to.
There is the dread that mind & body are One.
The cruelty of fear & misery works here.
Excursion & Visitation
The rains come & Fall.
Good grief, it’s Le Jongleur de Dieu!
A gun wheels out of an overcoat.
It’s I will fight. But I won’t rule.
So, pay, and leave. So, when the light turned green,
She went. “I’ve gone
to get everything.” A Voice—
“to reappear in careers?” Un-uh.
These are the days of naming things?
Watch my feet, not my answers.
Oh, good grief, it’s Le Jongleur de Dieu!
He’s the godson of the ghost-dancers!
On Earth we call The Sea of Tranquility “The North Atlantic.”
And a voice once locked in the ground now speaks in me.
Everybody Seemed So Laid Back in the Park
Marie in her pin-striped suit singing
“Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” in German
Not alfalfa covers the ground of Lilac Park.
“C’mere for a second!” shouts the invisible
Old lady. She crosses the park in a hat of nylon.
Marie falls down, still singing.
I see a woman with a baby running.
Two Africans in turbans wiggle their hips.
Marie cries & yawns for her audience.
Marie lights an envelope with matches.
Frisbees fly in the hot sun.
“Try it again.”
A very pale orange is sitting under the baby birds.
The community lightens, five o’clock, lifting my heart
to a place.
A Meeting at the Bridge
He was one of the last of the Western Bandits.
“A fellow like you gets into scrapes.
“Gets life. Spends most of it in jail.
“You gotta make a stand somewhere.”
I guess. “You smell of disinfectant.”
I guess. “Your kind
Drift from nowhere to nowhere, until
They get close. No telling
What they do then.” Yeah, I guess that’s just about right.
“Do you fish?” No, I just go down and look at the water.
“Pretty, ain’t it?” Is it? No, it ain’t.
It ain’t pretty. It’s
A carnival. A pig-sty. A regular
Loop-de-loop . . . (spits) I need some shoes.
“I Remember”
I remember painting “I HATE TED BERRIGAN” in big black letters
all over my white wall.
I remember bright orange light coming into rooms in the late
afternoon. Horizontally.
I remember when I lived in Boston reading all of Dostoyevsky’s
novels one right after the other.
I remember the way a baby’s hand has of folding itself around
your finger, as tho forever.
I remember a giant gold man, taller than most buildings, at
“The Tulsa Oil Show.”
I remember in Boston a portrait of Isabella Gardner by Whistler.
I remember wood carvings of funny doctors.
I remember opening jars that nobody else could open.
I remember wondering why anyone would want to be a doctor. And
I still do.
I remember Christmas card wastebaskets.
I remember not understanding why Cinderella didn’t just pack up and leave,
if things were all that bad. I remember “Korea.”
I remember one brick wall and three white walls.
I remember one very hot summer day I put ice cubes in my aquarium
and all the fish died.
I remember how heavy the cornbread was. And it still is.
To Himself
Now you can rest forever
Tired heart. The final deceit is gone,
Even though I thought it eternal. It’s gone.
I know all about the sweet deception,
But not only the hope, even the desire is gone.
Be still forever. You’ve done enough
Beating. Your movements are really
Worth nothing nor is the world
Worth a sigh. Life is bitterness
And boredom; and that’s all. The world’s a mudhole.
It’s about time you shut up. Give it all up
For the last time. To our kind fate gives
Only that we die. It’s time you showed your contempt for
Nature and that cruel force which from hiding
Dictates our universal hurt
In the ceaseless vanity of every act.
—LEOPARDI
(TRANS. BY TED BERRIGAN, GORDON
BROTHERSTON, & GEORGE SCHNEEMAN)
Whitman in Black
For my sins I live in the city of New York
Whitman’s city lived in in Melville’s senses, urban inferno
Where love can stay for only a minute
Then has t
o go, to get some work done
Here the detective and the small-time criminal are one
& tho the cases get solved the machine continues to run
Big Town will wear you down
But it’s only here you can turn around 360 degrees
And everything is clear from here at the center
To every point along the circle of horizon
Here you can see for miles & miles & miles
Be born again daily, die nightly for a change of style
Hear clearly here; see with affection; bleakly cultivate compassion
Whitman’s walk unchanged after its fashion
Heloise
When I search the past for you
Without knowing why
You are the waiting fragments of this sky
Which encases me, and
What about the light that comes in then?
And the heavy spins and the neon buzzing of night-time?
I go on loving you like water, but,
Bouncing a red rubber ball in the veins
In wind without flesh, without bone, and inside
The drowsy melody of languish, silence:
And inside the silence, one ordained to praise
In ordinary places. And inside my head, my brain.
You have made the world so it shall grow, so,
The revolutions not done, I’ve tucked the earth
between my legs, to sing.
Southwest
We think by feeling and so we ride together
The child who has fallen in love with maps & charts,
The last, the sole surviving Texas Ranger, cajoling
Scheming, scolding, the cleverest of them all. What is there to know?
Questions. The very rich garments of the poor.
The very rack & crucifix of weather, winter’s wild silence
In red weather. A too resilient mind. The snake
Waiting under each back. Not to forget to mention the chief thing:
Underneath a new old sign, a far too resilient mind;
And the heavy not which you were bringing back alone,
Cycling across an Africa of green & white, but to be a part
Of the treetops & the blueness, with a bark that will not bite.
The fields breathe sweet, as one of you sleeps while the other is fuming
with rage.
Is he too ill for pills? Am I gonna ride that little black train