The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (20 page)

I’m fucked

he’s fucked

Cold rosy dawn in New York City

not for me

in Ron’s furlined Jim Bridger

(coat)

that I borrowed two years ago

had cleaned

but never returned, Thank god!

On 6th Street

Lunch poems burn

a hole is in my pocket

two donuts one paper bag

in hand

hair is in my face and in my head is

“cold rosy dawn in New York City”

I woke up this morning

it was night

you were on my mind

on the radio

And also there was a letter

and it’s to you

if “you” is Ron Padgett,

American express

shivering now in Paris

Oklahoma

two years before

buying a new coat for the long trip

back to New York City

that I’m wearing now

It is cold in here

for two

looking for the boll weevil

(looking for a home), one with pimples

one blonde, from Berkeley

who says, “Help!” and

“Hey, does Bobby Dylan come around here?”

“No, man,” I say,

“Too cold!”

& they walk off, trembling,

(as I do in L.A.)

so many tough guys, faggots, & dope addicts!

though I assure them

“Nothing like that in New York City!”

It’s all in California!

(the state state)

that shouldn’t be confused with

The balloon state

that I’m in now

hovering over the radio

following the breakfast of champions

& picking my curious way

from left to right

across my own white

expansiveness

MANHATTAN
!

listen

The mist of May

is on the gloaming

& all the clouds

are halted, still

fleecey

& filled

with holes.

They are alight with borrowed warmth,

just like me.

FOR DONNA DENNIS

Can’t cut it (night)

in New York City

it’s alive

inside my tooth

on St. Mark’s Place

where exposed nerve

jangles

•

that light

isn’t on

for me

that’s it

though you are

right here.

•

It’s
RED RIVER

time

on tv

and

Andy’s
BRILLO BOX
is on

the icebox is on                                         High

too                                   over St. Nazaire, the

Commando is poised

that means tonight’s raid

is “on”

The Monkey

at the typewriter

is turned on

(but the tooth hurts)

You’d Better Move On. . . 
.

You’d Better Move On

It’s ritzy    Thrift,

Horn & Hardart’s is

too, one

cup of coffee, black

away from it

& Generosity

though commingling with incontrovertible hard- (art)

headedness

does warm

& it keeps it up

e. g.

“Art is art & life is

Life.” Fairfield Porter said

that:

& That means

Coffee

Black as on

57th Street

The Hotel Buckingham (facade) is

looming over lunch         poems          & I

looming over coffeecup         white          two eyes

looming over Joe’s black & yellow polka-dots

(a tie)

that once belonged to Montgomery Clift:

It’s all mine now, is saved, knowing

That, & that happily being that

“the living is easy”

Tho the art is hard,

sometimes, to see

through so much looming:

More coffee may save me that.

Apollinaire Oeuvres Poetiques

Swami Sivananda, Waves of Bliss

James Joyce, Ulysses

Gerard Malanga & Andy Warhol, Screen Test/A Diary

The Collected Earlier Poems of William Carlos Williams

Helen Hathaway, What Your Voice Reveals

Jean Jacques Mayoux, Melville

Kay Ambrose, Ballet-Lovers Pocketbook

Roger Shattuck, Apollinaire

William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

Charlin’s Anglo-French Course 3rd Part

The Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms

Locus Solus No. 2

Compositions Property of Ted Berrigan

Jack Kerouac, Mexico City Blues

Ron Loewinsohn, L’Autre

Ted Berrigan, Clear the Range

Philip Whalen, Selfportrait from Another Direction

Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems

The Complete Sonnets Songs and Poems of William Shakespeare

Boswell’s Life of Johnson

The Collected Later Poems of William Carlos Williams

The Oxford Book of English Verse

Williams & Macy, Do You Know English Literature

Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America

Jim Carroll, Organic Trains

Stokely Carmichael, Toward Black Liberation

Ted Berrigan, The Sonnets

Ted Berrigan & Ron Padgett, Bean Spasms

Dick Gallup, The Lungs of Sophocles

Eduardo Paolozzi, Kex

Lawrence Campbell, Sills

Diter Rot, Buch

Ted Berrigan, Art Notes

Velversheen by Eagle-A

Ron Padgett, Tone Arm

Poetry Magazine May 1960

University Note Book

Jim Brodey, Clothesline

The Cantos of Ezra Pound CX–CXVI

Frank O’Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

David Henderson, Felix of the Silent Forest

Poets of the English Language Vol. III Milton to Goldsmith

Poets of the English Language Vol. I Langland to Spenser

Poets of the English Language Vol. V Tennyson to Yeats

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts Vol. 6, No. 5

The World No. 7

William Burroughs, Time

Folder No. 2

Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show

“C” Comics

The Collected Earlier Poems by William Carlos Williams

Selected Writings Charles Olson

Chicago Review One Dollar

Alkahest

New American Writing No. 1

THE RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The Pocket Aristotle

After Dinner We Take a Drive into the Night by Tony Towle

Love Poems (Tentative Title) by Frank O’Hara

The Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land by Ralph Connors

Cosmic Consciousness by Dr. Richard Bucke

Meditations on the Signs of the Zodiac by John Jocelyn

In Public In Private by Edwin Denby

The World Number 1      Cover by Dan Clark

The World Number 2      Cover by Robert McMillan

The World Number 3      Cover by George Schneeman

The World Number 4      Cover by Donna Dennis

The World Number 5      Cover by Jack Boyce

The World Number 6      Cover by Fielding Dawson

The World Number 7      Cover by Bill Beckman

The World Number 8      Cover by George Schneeman

The World Number 9      Cover by Joe Brainard

The World Number 10    Cover by Larry Fagin

The World Number 11    Cover by Tom Clark

The World Number 12    Cover by George Schneeman

The World Number 13    Cover by Donna Dennis

The World Number 14    Cover by Joe Brainard

We ate lunch, remember? and I paid the check

Under trees in rain of false emotion and big bull

With folks going in and out putting words in our mouths that are

shouting, “Hurrah for Bristol Cream!” We threw a leave-sandwich

Into the sunlight—it greedily gobbled it up, and growing brighter

Emanating from their glasses came the little drinkies

Reflections of the magazine Grandma edits

On whose pages a bouquet is blossoming sort of. You bounced a check

Into years of lives down under the weather vane, barf!

The influence of alcohol rebounded 500 miles into Africa.

But a little drinkie never hurt nobody, except an African.

The Earth sops up liquids, I mean drinks,

And is tipsy as pinballs on the ocean

Wobbling on its axis. We turn a paleface shade of white

In the rain that pelts the doo-doo

That flies from the eyes’ blinds. It doesn’t matter though

on the sweet side

Of the moon. Don’t be a horrible sourpuss

Moon! Have a drink

Have an entire issue! Waves goodbye & reels, into sun

Of light dark light roll over Beethoven

Our shelter-half misses your shelter-half. There’s nothing left

of love

But we have checkerberry leaves

Mint, Juniper, tree-light

Elder-flowers, sweet goldenrod, bugspray & Juice.

And you are a pretty girl-boy

And I am a pretty man-woman

and we are here-there

In England and the food is absolutely cold-hot.

In the aromatic sundown, according to the magazine version

Or automatic sundown               English words are a gas

Slurring the Earth’s one heaving angel turns in unison

& paddles your rear gently as befits one in love

with you & I

No change                       My face is all right

For us. We are bored through & we are through with you

With our professionalism (you have to become useless to drink).

All we ever wanted to do in the rosy sunlight was

In the first place was . . . was . . . was . . . uh

Run our fingers through your curly hair

Ooops! No, not that. I mean all

We really wanted to do was jazz yr mother

Fight off insects & sing a sad solitary tune

On the excellencies of Bristol Cream

Six dollars a bottle Praise The Lord

TED BERRIGAN & RON PADGETT

The fucking enemy shows up

interstices

bent

Rain

Coming down

Outside her

Windows

I can be seen inside

the drops

of rain

falling

limping

This girl in mind.

Walk right in

sit right down

baby, let your hair hang down

It’s on my face that hair

& I’m amazed to be here

the sky outside is green the blue

shows thru the trees

I’m on my knees

unlace Li’l Abner

shoes

place them under the bed

light cigarette

study out the dusty bookshelves,

sweat

Now I’m going to do it

SELF RELIANCE

THE ARMED CRITIC

MOBY DICK

THE WORLD OF SEX

THE PLANET OF THE APES

Now I’m going to do it

deliberately

take off clothes

shirt goes on the chair

pants go on the shirt

socks next to shoes next to bed

the chair goes next to the bed

get into the bed

be alone

suffocate

don’t die

& it’s that easy.

The Great Genius is

A man who can do the

Ordinary thing

When everybody

Else is going crazy.

(About Emily Dickinson)

What about Emily Dickinson?

DEAD FINGERS TALK

I’ve got a lot of things to do today.

For example write this poem.

She’s Terrific
.

Now, this poem is to say that

period?

  
  
                                   colon?