Read The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Online
Authors: Alice Notley
if you are a monkey
I am not a monkey
I do not have a monkey on my back
I am not a monkey’s uncle
turn page
19
Only a monkey would read this
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FLIES
over 250 flies
photographed
in living color
These 250 flies were tied “up”
executed
by hand
Not my hand
The Little Sisters
20
There are no flies on me, New York City
oh
21
There are, however,
two sorts of landscapes here
the interior
and
the exterior
as well as the other
which we will not go into here
22
One song I have always liked
is
“Hope you Happy Monkey”
that’s the truth
by Ruth Krauss
23
There you are
There I go
past The Majestic Men’s Clothes
slightly disheveled
is a nice phrase
it has impact
like the three pricks
Alice gave
Joe Gould
in 1933
MOTHER
that’s Alice’s idea of Wonderland
24
She happens to be a sex expert, among other things
if you are squeamish I’d better not tell you
WHAT
other things . . .
“How did Red China get the ‘O’ bomb?”
no one knows
No one will ever know
because no one
is a tautology
let’s have no truck
with tautologies
25
This poem
has no truck
although it does provide
a sort of Reader’s Digest
of Oriental sex practices
under the sheets
Who threw the panties into
Mother’s tea
is a good example of one
of the many unanswered questions
life provides
Where did the beautiful
British secret agent
lose his nightie
is another
it was not a majestic nightie
nor was it a man’s nightie
unless of course
the Beautiful British
secret agent
was a female impersonator
Perhaps that was his secret
There has always been a
quick turnover
among British secret agents
Look! there goes one now
26
I am here today a gentleman
with time on my hands
you are in my heart
during
The Four Seasons
which are
1. springtime
2. bedtime
and so on
27
There is a revolution going on in my skin
I have the gift of young skin
no pimples
which is why I am here today
I would like to introduce myself
However
it will be better
between us
if I don’t cheat
The victory is not always to the sweet
so keep on the ball, buddy, i.e.
I mean “the button”
28
COME ALIVE
Meet Me At The Smoke Ring
(Get Your Piles Out of Vietnam
Let’s Love One Another)
(Equality for Homosexuals)
YES
SUCK
Stand Up For Dikes
Commemorating The Visit
of Pope Paul X We Won’t Go
to NYC
1965 I’m for Legalized
Abortion
NO MAN IS GOOD THREE TIMES
29
Life certainly is marvelous
When you’re in love
isn’t it?
Consequently, it is important
to be in love
most all the time
but not all of the time
When you are in love
all of the time
you get bored because
life
when it’s always the same
is boring
isn’t it?
that’s a strange theory
30
it’s a theory of strange
I am in love
right now. I am in love with
(fill in name of person in room)
see me about this later, ( )
I am not in love with Mr. Walter Steck
He was or
was not
recently elected
to the assembly
Just for the record I found Mr. Walter Steck
recently
at five o’clock in the afternoon
on García Lorca’s birthday
lying in the gutter
on his button
shame
31
O ship of states
Sail on, O allegorical poem
32
Branching out
shooting all night
he grounded
himself
on the button
33
so here
you stand
hitting upon things
you hadn’t thought upon
when you get into the pictures
you wake up
inside an oval
portrait
I mean a woman
A beautiful reminder sitting on a line
It could be a steamship line or even a ferry line
34
Life is Never boring when you are Tarzan of the Apes
e.g. You step out from behind a bush
and you say
“Yes, I am M’sieur Tarzan”
35
Dick Gallup arrives at this point
and says
“Life is Boring”
36
Jacques-Louis David is crying in his crib
he is not bored
Jane has given him a banana
37
Dick reads those lines
they bore him
but I laugh plenty
38
David is sobbing bitterly
in the jungle
“Shut up
or I’ll kill you,” etc.
He doesn’t want to
39
He wants the white
tempera
paint
with which I am painting out the words
in this here comic book
“Tarzan of the Apes”
so that I can “fill in the words”
40
“The Words” is a good book
is is the autobiography of Mr. Jean-Paul Sartre
from age zero to ten
In it
he tells what a little shit he was.
“I’m going doo-doo” says Jacques-Louis David
we have words
and he falls into sleep
41
Life is long
it’s sure been a long Times
crossword puzzle
since I last
was here
That Spring of ’65
that was
That was my best year
that was also a good year for
Dancers
Buildings and
People in the Street
in the cell block
a boy
invented
the mahogany cage
before he rested
The climate became a song
Crowds disperse my
purpose
my great calm
Dim lights
turn me down
the radio parts
the curly hair
me on the floor
saying
42
“Go now
and get me a vast Band-aid”
43
I’m sitting here thinking that these words that I have been
borrowing from Mr. James “The Rock” Proust & son
should stretch to the end of at least one
period in my life.
They did.
44
“What I really like is new girls to fuck.”
that’s a good line
it was said by Dick Gallup
who let it drop there
that to be explained later
in the backroom
of The Peace Eye
that’s all I know
45
Cow a is not Cow b
Dick
Count Korzybski said that
that Polish cocksucker
is what a drunk called
HIM
He didn’t mean Korzybski
though
He’d never heard of Him
I don’t know what he meant
I was drunk
He was speaking Polish
He didn’t dig Counts
That’s a fact
46
According to
FACT
William Burroughs
studied under
that Polish cocksucker
in Chicago
I’ve always admired Count Korzybski
and, in fact, I’ve always admired William Burroughs
Hi Bill!
I do not, however, admire
FACT
Magazine
because it costs too much money
and probably for other reasons
too vague to be present
47
dot dot dot
48
Listen
Is there a
Pseudotsuga Menziesii
in your house?
if so, there is
nothing to worry about
it would be hard to find
a house
in America
where
Pseudotsuga Menziesii
isn’t
all over the goddam place
it has a lovely talent
49
cross something out here
50
Imagine yourself
driving on a super highway
with your friend
Mr. Bob Harris
besides being a genius
he is also a perennial
problem child
who mooches off his friends
sleeps with any available women
ignores his children
and smokes ceaselessly
like yourself
you may have to stop often
to relieve yourself
because your friend
suffers
from a terrible disease previously unmentioned
but not in this poem
nor by anyone whom you have ever known
in this vale of tears
51
back on the freeway the cars pass
over your eyes ears nose and throat and hairs
no interviews no photographs
no autographs
in this dream
which is so realistic
you can almost hear my voice
at your ear
which is on the level of your back,
dear
52
Fish and Cheep Pet Shoppe
The Pioneer
Block Drug Manhattan
Fox’s Corner
Martha’s
are all places I have never visited
though I keep meaning to
53
Italy is a boot in the atlas
The snowball centuries rolling
collect only the tiny footprints of
hens
the burning bush attracts
the hen
One comes to take one’s
place in the sun, only
to smother inside the
hide of a hen
54
COME IN
!
Hello Lee Mr. Lee Crabtree
of The Fugs
just came in
55
Rhetoric
is what we make
out of our quarrels
with others
out of
our quarrels with ourselves
we make poetry
Yes, that is true,
56
In my house, every cloud
has a silver lining
there is only one cloud in my house
Inside that cloud is a joke
it is not an inside joke
57
on every mirror
in my house
is a big kiss
placed there by Mr. Joe Brainard
•
it’s very exciting
not to be asleep now
•
58
If Joe Brainard were here now
he’d be excited
about giving me those kisses
that’s a lie
clickety-clack William Saroyan
59
What we do in life
in New York City
in 1965
we get the money
60
GET THE MONEY
!
that was Damon Runyon’s favorite expression
the heat is coming on
like gangbusters
(A. Partridge
History of American Climate)
I guess that means
it’s time to burst,
eh,
M’sieur Cloud?
61
Speaking of Picasso, he once sd
that for him
true friendship cannot exist
without the possibility of
sex
That is true
I have many men friends
I would like to fuck
However, I am unable to do so
because I am not a homosexual
fortunately
this makes my life complex
rather than simple
and vice versa
62
Dream on O impudent virgin
Guillaume Apollinaire
you too are aware of the duality of nature and of
the spirit
and you too prefer the visible
to the invisible
I salute You!
(Salutes)
63
the true Guillaume
is a great deal more interesting
than many of those people
whose misfortune it is
not to be so true
64
the logic of that is
lost
but may be recovered
in the theory of Mr. A. N. Whitehead to the effect
that a human being
may possess two kinds of perception / that
as it were
work from opposite ends.
(breathing)
65
So, in conclusion, may I say
that this is what life is like here
you drink some coffee, you get some sleep
everything is up in the air
especially us, who are me
66
Now
in the middle of this
someone I love is dead
and I don’t even know
“how”
I thought she belonged to me
How she filled my life when I felt empty!
How she fills me now!
67
games of cribbage
with Dick
filled this afternoon
do you
understand that?
68
What
excitement!
crossing Saint Mark’s Place
face cold in air
tonight
when
that girlish someone waving
from a bicycle