The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (36 page)

we speak all the time

in the present tense at the speed of Life

dead heads operating

At the speed of light

Today:

& it’s morning

Take my time this morning

& learn to kill

to take the will

from unknown places,

kill this stasis

let it down

let it down on me

I was asleep

in Ann Arbor

dreaming

in Southampton

beneath the summer sun of a green backyard

& up from a blue director’s chair

I heard a dead brother say

into the air

“Girl for someone else in white walk by”

I was asleep in New York

dreaming in Southampton

& beneath the sun of the no sun sun up from my morning bed

I heard the dead, the city dead

The devils that surround us

never die

the New York City devil inside me

alive all the time

he say

“Tomorrow you die”

I woke up

as he typed that down:

“Girl for someone else in white walk by”

& then,

so did I.

So my thanks to you

the dead.

The people in the sky.

A minute of silent pool

for the dead.

& now I can hear my dead father saying,

“I stand corrected.”

Dolphins, (as we speak)

are carrying on 2

conversations simultaneously

& within the clicks of one

lie the squeaks of the other

they are alive in their little wandering pool

“I wonder what the dead people are doing today?”

(taking a walk, 2nd St. to
GEM SPA
)

(or loping down Wall St.

Southampton)

ghost the little children

ghost radio                      ghost toast

ghost stars

ghost airport

the ghost of Hamlet’s father

ghost typewriter

ghost lover

ghost story

ghost snow                                  roasted ghost

ghost in the mirror ghost

happy ghost                         most ghost

I dreamt that Bette Davis was a nun, we

Were in a classroom, after school, collating

The World. Jr. High. A knocking at the door, I

Went to answer (as Bette disappeared), & found my mother

Standing in the hallway.

“Teddy,” she said, “here

Is my real
mother
, who brought me up, I’ve always wanted

for you to meet her.” Beside my mother stood

a tall, elegant lady, wearing black, an austere, stylish

Victorian lady whose eyes were clear & black; grand as

Stella Adler, but as regal & tough as Bette Davis.

Later that evening she sent me out for kippers for her bedtime

snack, giving me a shilling to spend. I went for them

to Venice, to a Coffee-House, which had a canal running right

through it,

& there I ran into Ron, sitting with a beautiful boyish adolescent

blonde. “She’s a
wonderful
lady,” Ron said, & I was pleased.

Ron left shortly with the blonde nymphet, & I wondered a minute

about Pat (Ron’s wife); but decided that Ron must know what he’s

doing. The girl, I thought, must be The Muse.