The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Read online

  one year from tonight?

  From the House Journal

  1.

  I belong here, I was born

  To breathe in dust

  I came to you

  I cannot remember anything of then

  up there among the lettuce plots

  I cough a lot, so I stay awake

  I cannot possibly think of you

  I get a cinder in my eye because

  I hate the revolutionary vision of

  “I have a terrible age,” & I part

  I have no kindness left

  I do have the lame dog with me & the cloud

  I kiss your cup, but I know so much.

  I must have leisure for leisure bears

  I to you and you to me the endless oceans of

  2.

  Now it next to my flesh, & I don’t mean dust

  I am sober and industrious

  I see you standing in clear light

  I see a life of civil happiness

  I see now tigers by the sea,

  the withering weathers of

  I stagger out of bed

  I stumble over furniture I fall into a gloomy hammock

  I’m having a real day of it

  I’m not sure there’s a cure

  You are so serious, as if you are someone

  Yet a tragic instance may be immanent

  Yes it’s sickening that yes it’s true, and

  Yes it’s disgusting that yes if it’s necessary, I’ll do it.

  Visits from a Small Enigma

  The bunnies plug-in & elaborate

  Spongy thought-streams some days

  Attempting in innocence to cash in on

  Fire feedback on the flaming bridge

  The trailing scads of diaphanous ribbons

  Whatever & all like that. Their missiles crack

  Of their own sound at the Barrier Gate, as

  Punk-log fog shreds the aether, and mountains

  Of any consequence simply sit, comic & invisible,

  On their faces. Then, golden discs sweep up

  Appearing to be signals, signalling

  A possible common version of whiteness; sweep up

  Out of an iodine-colored Chinese Puzzle box.

  White-gold light. Slightly kinky sweepings.

  Revery

  Up inside the walls of air listen

  A sound of footsteps in the spaces out there

  In the frightening purple weather

  And hazy lights whose color night decomposes.

  Late at night, rise up carcass and walk;

  Head hanging, let somebody tell the story.

  Maybe the machine under the palms will start up

  For one who waits

  Under the arch of clouds, with familiar face,

  Heart beating all out of proportion,

  Eyes barely open, ears long since awake to what’s coming:

  It is very possibly Autumn, returning,

  Leaving no footprints, leaving danger behind.

  The head being out of line has fallen. I still want

  everything that’s mine.

  My Tibetan Rose

  A new old song continues. He worked into the plane

  A slight instability, to lessen his chances

  Of succumbing to drowsiness, over the green sea.

  Above his head clanged. And there were no dreams in this

  lack of sleep.

  Your lover will be guilty of murder & you will turn her in.

  Sometimes I’d like to take off these oak leaves and feel

  like an ordinary man.

  You get older the more you remember. And one lives, alone,

  for pure courtship, as

  To move is to love, & the scrutiny of things is merely syllogistic.

  Postmortems on old corpses are no fun.

  I have so much to do I’m going to bed.

  I’ll live on the side of a mountain, at 14,000 feet,

  In a tough black yak-hide tent, turn blue, force down

  Hot arak & yak butter, & wait for this coma to subside.

  Come along with me, my Tibetan Rose!

  Nothing for You

  TO DICK GALLUP

  People of the Future

  People of the future

  while you are reading these poems, remember

  you didn’t write them,

  I did.

  Valentine

  I have been here too many times before

  you & now it’s time to go

  crazy again will that make you like me? I think so

  often about you & all those bon aperitifs we had

  wanted to have but didn’t in Paris where we

  never got to did we No we didn’t although now

  Here I am & everyone loves me so

  where are you? & why don’t they go

  away? I didn’t ask for this I asked for you

  love but you said No, you didn’t say

  May I? true & crazy here I am

  again unkempt in my passion at that May I?

  Doubts

  TO DAVID BEARDEN

  Don’t call me “Berrigan”

  Or “Edmund”

  If ever you touch me

  Rivers of annoyance undermine the arrangements

  If you would own me

  Spit

  The broken eggshell of morning

  A proper application

  Of stately rhythms

  Timing

  Accessible to adepts

  All

  May pierce this piercing wind

  Penetrate this light

  To hide my shadow

  But the recoil

  Not death but to mount the throne

  Mountains of twine and

  Entangling moments

  Which is why I send you my signal

  That is why I give you this six-gun and call you “Steve”

  Have you taken the measure of the wind?

  Can hands touch, and

  Must we dispose of “the others”?

  He

  He wandered and kept on wandering. Bar-Mitzvah

  and Confirmation availed themselves of his myriad

  aimless impulses. It was no use. Days were of

  cheeseburgers, shoe repair, and scary. In cities

  and through frenzy darkness was far away. Darkness,

  you are so dark, he thought. Where oh where is a

  telephone booth, and the friendliness of newsprint

  on Saturday afternoons at the Stadium? He wept. Steamy

  ferns made a dank obbligato to his dreams. It grew and grew.

  At last he was surrounded by gaily-colored birds,

  who sang to him in the key of G or E. It was

  then he smiled, for always, affirmation made him happy.

  Later he died of Hatred.

  For Annie Rooney

  My rooms were full of Ostrich feathers when

  I returned from Spring, and someone had stolen

  all the apricot brie! just as if they’d known

  I was in training! for shame! that anyone

  could be so cruel, and me with only 27 teeth!

  How fortunate they never found dear

  you. For surely then they would have planted

  crickets, to lick the cherry glue off of all

  my Princess Grace Special Delivery airmail stamps. The boors,

  they’d stop at nothing. But this time their

  saboteurs slipped up. I’ll never let them find you,

  no matter what they do, you, my secret weapon, who

  assures my victories! I’m so glad we were married

  in Hooversville, Ohio, in 1933!

  Saturday Afternoons on the Piazza

  Why have you billowed under my ancient piazza

  Father? “I swan, if you don’t beat everything

  Anybody ever heard tell of !” Refreshment time!

  Have a nonpareil? Thank you! Here we are again

  In t
he movies and I’m holding your thigh, Mmmmmmmmmm

  Feels like “a belly” to me. “Well, I declare, Feety-

  Belle, ain’t you ever gonna get y’rself a real . . . Shut your face

  Angerbelle, you ain’t doin’ s’hot y’rself y’know,

  my stars!” (At intermission I called her at the hotel

  And she made a big thing about somebody telling her

  “I’m Judy Garland’s daughter.”) When you’re 7 or 8 or 9

  You don’t really care who your momma and poppa are,

  Just so they really love you and have TV and all that.

  Up in the blue window a white woman is reeling out her laundry.

  Prayer

  Rilke,

  I strain to gather my absurdities

  Into a symbol. I falter. These

  Roisterers here assembled shatter my zest

  With festivity.

  Once again I turn to you, to your

  Buch das Bildung. Oh Tall Tree

  In the self

  Flower we three into one.

  May he who is you

  Become me.

  Hearts

  At last I’m a real poet I’ve written a

  ballade a sonnet a poem in spontaneous

  prose and even a personal poem I can use

  punctuation or not and it doesn’t

  matter I’m obscure when I feel like it

  especially in my dream poems which I never even

  call Dream Poem but from sheer cussedness title

  Match Game Etc. (for Dick Gallup) or something like that.

  For example, take this poem, I don’t know how

  to end it, It needs six lines to make it a sonnet, I

  could just forget it and play hearts with Joe and

  Pat and Dick, but lately I’m always lethargic,

  and I don’t even like hearts, or Pat, or Joe, or

  Dick or / and especially myself, & this is no help.

  Night Letter

  Dear Marge, hello. It is 5:15 a.m.

  Outside my room atonal sounds of rain

  Drum in the pre-dawn. In my skull my brain

  Aches in rhythm to that pounding morning rain.

  In your letter, many questions. I read

  Them over and over. And now I dread

  Answering. “Deteriorating,” you said.

  Not a question, really, but you did

  Say it. And made it hard to write. You know

  Margie, tonight, and every night, in any

  Season, cold images glitter brightly

  In my head. Dreams of Larry Walker

  In his marriage bed: of David Bearden

  Paranoid: and of Martin Cochran, dead.

  Jubilee

  In the ear, winds dance

  to drink in the house

  Summer came over here today

  Everyone overloads one song

  Is he the handsome stranger?

  I’m thinking of summoning people

  I need a hoodlum in white

  “kill him”

  This face against its own

  Endows

  giggling

  And forms a road upon a tract

  I got so tall up there

  He t-told me “you’re too fallow in your footsteps”

  Goodbye to burning

  Brain

  Heat

  These feet drifting on an unangry tide

  Please turn stark naked.

  Some Do Not

  You can make this swooped transition on your lips

  Go to the sea, the lake, the tree

  And the dog days come

  Your head spins when the old bull rushes

  Back in the aery daylight, he was not a midget

  He could feel the talk sidling up into his ears and burning

  His stand-in was named Herman, but came rarely

  Why do you begin to yawn so soon, who seemed

  So hard, feather-bitten . . . back in the aery daylight

  Put away your hair. The black heart beside the 15 pieces of glass

  Spins when the old bull rushes. The words say I LOVE YOU:

  Go to the sea, the lake, the tree,

  Glistering, bristling, cozzening whatever disguises

  On the Level Everyday

  I am trying very hard to be

  Here

  Where you are

  Enthusiasm greets poets

  Where this great vision of

  Blue-back Winged Space Rainbow GRAHR!

  Our carelessness

  (Hi Ma!) When the phone rings I

  Looks toward Namoncos

  (no one calls!) why is it my life

  Counts on love

  ? flames in the portable head

  When feeling

  Myself with pepsi pouring

  Out of depth and breadth and

  Back into your arms pill

  height

  end to

  end, a baked

  Being, & ideal grace

  You mean? Yes

  Quiet need

  Is it my turn already? Hi

  Sun & candle light.

  It’s 5:15 a.m.

  I check my engine test

  A closer walk with thee

  My saddle-strap

  It’s a little stiff.

  My Palomino!

  That’s the ticket! Tickets,

  A love I seemed to lose

  GRAHR! Who’s

  With my lost saints—

  ? forgot something there (mike)

  At every hand, my critic

  Unplugging the mike

  With carelessness I sign the

  Crank does that

  register

  Dwight?

  The last the sole surviving

  Enthusiasm greets Poets One

  Texas Ranger,

  There’s only one riot isn’t there?

  You

  Known as “Saddik” ?

  Better believe it.

  Autumn’s Day

  AFTER RILKE

  Lord, it is time. Summer was very great.

  Now cast your shadow upon sundials.

  Let winds remind meadows it is late.

  Mellow now the last fruits on the vine.

  Allow them only two more southern days.

  Hasten them to fulness, and press

  The last heavy sweetness through the wine.

  Who has no home can not build now.

  Who dwells alone must now remain alone;

  Will waken, read, write long letters, and

  Will wander restlessly when leaves are blowing.

  String of Pearls

  Lester Young! why are you playing that clarinet

  you know you are Horn in my head? the middle page is

  missing god damn it now how will I ever understand Nature

  And New Painting? doo doot doo Where is Dick Gallup

  his room is horrible it has books in it and paint peeling

  a 1934 icebox living on the fifth floor it’s

  ridiculous

  yes and it’s ridiculous to be sitting here

  in New York City 28 years old wife sleeping and

  Lester playing the wrong sound in 1936 in Kansas City (of

  all places) sounding like Benny Goodman (of all people) but

  a good sound, not a surprise, a voice, & where was Billie, he

  hadn’t met her yet, I guess Gallup wasn’t born yet neither was

  my wife Just me & that icebox I hadn’t read HORN by John

  Clellon Holmes yet, either

  What is rhythm I wonder? Which was George & which Ira

  Gershwin? Why

  don’t I do more? wanting only to be walking in the New

  York Autumn

  warm from coffee I still can feel gurgling under my ribs

  climbing the steps of the only major statement in New York City

  (Louis Sullivan) thinking the poem I am going to write seeing

  the
fountains come on wishing I were he

  Problems, Problems

  Joy! you come winging in a hot wind on the breath

  of happy sexy music, you are peeping

  into my redbloodedness, and I am writing silly lines

  like, “I was born, reared, and educated in Tulsa,

  Oklahoma,” only true of Ron Padgett and not Dan’l Boone or me

  Uh-huh a sip of gritty coffee, ripping me out of

  my mind, making me feel “funny” is carrying me uptown

  past interesting bodegas, the interesting

  bums eyeing me, my beard throws them off

  tho I’m yearning for a little romance

  Dontcha think it’s time? thanks & your name is

  walking right by my side it hurts me to see you talking

  to any other guy! where is Harry Fainlight, he’s on a trip

  Now that’s integrity! Where’s Andy Warhol? Far out, but Harry

  doesn’t think so he prefers Vaughan Traherne Wordsworth even

  Who can help but love him? it’s so American of him! Lines,

  you must be saying what I mean I hope I like you later. Our

  Love must be sweet destiny, no other love could thrill me so

  completely (unless it be going to the movies, and alone, crossing

  the Mississippi for the first time, so rare

  a feat for feet “born, reared and educated in Tulsa, Oklahoma”

  turned blue with cold and being careful not to touch one another.)

  Truth as History

  1.

  My rooms were full of awful features when

  I was burning, dear, and you were eating goblets

  of ruinous dinner! It didn’t matter, tho. The

  foolish wind kept blowing, and my bones were humming!

  That was when my eyes walked out

  on to bleak piers and shrieked for you! You were standing, often,

  stark-naked just as if you knew it wasn’t raining