The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (47 page)

Winter in the country, Southampton, pale horse

as the soot rises, then settles, over the pictures

The birds that were singing this morning have shut up

I thought I saw a couple, kissing, but Larry said no

It’s a strange bird. He should know. & I think now

“Grandmother divided by monkey equals outer space.” Ron

put me in that picture. In another picture, a good-

looking poet is thinking it over; nevertheless, he will

never speak of that it. But, his face is open, his eyes

are clear, and, leaning lightly on an elbow, fist below

his ear, he will never be less than perfectly frank,

listening, completely interested in whatever there may

be to hear. Attentive to me alone here. Between friends,

nothing would seem stranger to me than true intimacy.

What seems genuine, truly real, is thinking of you, how

that makes me feel. You are dead. And you’ll never

write again about the country, that’s true.

But the people in the sky really love

to have dinner & to take a walk with you.

Be awake mornings. See light spread across the lawn

(snow) as the sky refuses to be any color, today

I like this boat-ride I’m being taken for, although

It never leaves the shore, this boat. Its fires burn

Like a pair of lovely legs. It’s a garage that grew up

Sometimes I can’t talk, my mouth too full of words, but

I have hands & other parts, to talk lots! Light the fire

Babble for you. I dream a green undersea man

Has been assigned to me, to keep me company, to smirk

At me when I am being foolish. A not unpleasant dream.

My secret doors open as the mail arrives. Fresh air

Pours in, around, before they close again. The winds are rushing

Up off of the ocean, up Little Plains Road. Catch the Wind

In my head, a quiet song. And, “Everything belongs to me

Because I am poor.” Waiting in sexy silence, someone

Turns over in bed, & waiting is just a way of being with

Now a tiny fire flares out front the fireplace. Chesterfield

King lights up! Wood is crackling inside

Elephants’ rush & roar. Refrigerator’s gentle drone

Imagined footsteps moving towards my door. Sounds in dreams

In bed. You are all there is inside my head.

There’s a strange lady in my front yard

A girl naked in the shower, saying

“I’m keeping my boxes dry!” A naked artist

Smoking. Bad teeth. Wooden planks: furniture. Sky

One minute ago I stopped thought: 12 years of cops

In my life. & Alice is putting her panties on

Takes off a flowery dress for London’s purple one

Out of the blue, a host of words, floating

March: awaiting rescue: smoke, or don’t

Strapped: deprived. Shoot yourself: stay alive.

& you can’t handle yourself, love, feeling

No inclination toward that solitude.

Take it easy, & as it comes. Coffee

Suss. Feel. Whine.
Shut up
. Exercise.

Turn. Turn around. Turn.
Kill dog
.

Today woke up bright & early, no mail, life

Is horrible, & I am stupid, & I think . . . Nothing.

“Have faith, old brother. You are a myth in my heart.

We are both alive. Today we may go to India.”

We are involved in a transpersonified state

Revolution, which is turning yourself around

I am asleep next to “The Hulk.” “The Hulk” often sleeps

While I am awake & vice versa. Life is less than ideal

For a monkey in love with a nymphomaniac! God is fired!

Do I need the moon to remain free? To explode softly

In a halo of moon rays? Do I need to be

On my human feet, straight, talking, free

Will sleep cure the deaf-mute’s heartbreak? Am I

In my own way, America? Rolling downhill, & away?

The door to the river is closed, my heart is breaking

Loose from sheer inertia. All I do is bumble. No

Matter. We live together in the jungle.

Here comes the man! He’s talking a lot

I’m sitting, by myself. I’ve got

A ticket to ride. Outside is, “Out to Lunch.”

It’s no great pleasure, being on the make.

Well, who is? Or, well everyone is, tho.

“I’m laying there, & some guy comes up

& hits me with a billyclub!” A fat guy

Says. Shut up. & like that we cross a river

Into the Afterlife. Everything goes on as before

But never does any single experience make total use

Of you. You are always slightly ahead,

Slightly behind. It merely baffles, it doesn’t hurt.

It’s total pain & it breaks your heart

In a less than interesting way. Every day

Is payday. Never enough pay. A déjà-vu

That lasts. It’s no big thing, anyway.

A lukewarm greasy hamburger, ice-cold pepsi

that hurts your teeth.

“A little loving can solve a lot of things”

She locates two spatial equivalents in

The same time continuum. “You are lovely. I

am lame.” “Now it’s me.” “If a man is in

Solitude, the world is translated, my world

& wings sprout from the shoulders of ‘The Slave’”

Yeah. I like the fiery butterfly puzzles

Of this pilgrimage toward clarities

Of great mud intelligence & feeling.

“The Elephant is the wisest of all animals

The only one who remembers his former lives

& he remains motionless for long periods of time

Meditating thereon.” I’m not here, now,

& it is good, absence.

If I don’t love you I

Won’t let it show. But I’ll

Make it clear, by

Never letting you know.

& if I love you, I will

Love you true: insofar

As Love, itself,

Will do.

& while I live, I’ll be

Whatever I am, whose

Constant, impure, fire

Is outwardly only a man.

I used to be inexorable,

But now I am elusive.

I used to be the future of America,

But now I am America.

I used to be part of the problem,

But now I am the problem.

I used to be part of the solution, if not all of it,

But now I am not that person.

I used to be intense, & useful,

But now I am heavy, & boring.

I used to be sentimental about myself, & therefore ruthless,

But now I am, I think, a sympathetic person, although

easily amused.

I used to be a believer,

But now, alas, I believe.

FOR CLARK COOLIDGE & FOR MY MOTHER

1.

Upon the river, point me out my course

That blows from the green fields and from the clouds

And from the sky: be nothing better

Than a wandering cloud

Come fast upon me

Such as were not made for me.

I cannot miss my way. I breathe again

That burthen of my own natural self

The heavy weight of many a weary day;

Coming from a house

Shall be my harbour; promises of human life

Are mine in prospect;

Now I am free, enfranchis’d and at large.

The earth is all before me, with a heart

2.

And the result was elevating thoughts

Among new objects simplified, arranged

And out of what had been, what was, the place

“O’er the blue firmament a radiant white,”

Was thronged with impregnations, like those wilds

That into music touch the passing wind;

Had been inspired, and walk’d about in dreams,

And, in Eclipse, my meditations turn’d

And unencroached upon, now, seemed brighter far,

Though fallen from bliss, a solitary, full of caverns, rocks

And audible seclusions: here also found an element

that pleased her

Tried her strength; made it live. Here

Neither guilt, nor vice, nor misery forced upon my sight

Could overthrow my trust in Courage, Tenderness, & Grace.

In the tender scenes I most did take my delight.

3.

Thus strangely did I war against myself

What then remained in such Eclipse? What night?

The wizard instantaneously dissolves

Through all the habitations of past years

And those to come, and hence an emptiness;

& shall continue evermore to make

& shall perform to exalt and to refine

Inspired, celestial presence ever pure

From all the sources of her former strength.

Then I said: “and these were mine,

Not a deaf echo, merely, of thought,

But living sounds. Yea, even the visible universe was scann’d

And as by the simple waving of a wand

With something of a kindred spirit, fell

Beneath the domination of a taste, its animation & its deeper sway.”

FOR EDWARD DORN

TO PHILIP GUSTON

Under a red face, black velvet shyness

Milking an emaciated gaffer. God lies down

Here. Rattling of a shot, heard

From the first row. The president of the United States

And the Director of the FBI stand over

a dead mule. “Yes, it is nice to hear the fountain

With the green trees around it, as well as

People who need me.” Quote Lovers of speech unquote. It’s

a nice thought

& typical of a rat. And, it is far more elaborate

Than expected. And the thing is, we don’t
need

that
much money.

Sunday morning; blues, blacks, red & yellow wander

In the soup. Gray in the windows’ frames. The angular

Explosion in the hips. A huge camel rests

in a massive hand

Casts clouds a smoggish white out & up over the Loop, while

Two factories (bricks) & a fortress of an oven (kiln)

Rise, barely visible inside a grey metallic gust.

“The Fop’s Tunic.”

She gets down, off of the table, breaking a few more plates.

Natives paint their insides crystal white here (rooms)

Outside is more bricks, off-white. Europe at Night.

Despair farms a curse, slackness

In the sleep of animals, with mangled limbs

Dogs, frogs, game elephants, while

There’s your new life, blasted with milk.

It’s the last day of summer, it’s the first

Day of fall: soot sits on Chicago like

A fat head’s hat. The quick abounds. Turn

To the left; turn to the right. On Bear’s Head

Two Malted Milk balls. “Through not taking himself

Quietly enough he strained his insides.” He

Encourages criticism, but he never forgives it.

You who are the class in the sky, receive him

Into where you dwell. May he rest long and well.

God help him, he invented us, that is, a future

Open living beneath his spell. One goes not where

One came from. One sitting says, “I stand corrected.”

Sunday morning: here we live jostling & tricky

blues, blacks, reds & yellows all are gray

in each window: the urbanites have muscles

in their butts & backs; shy, rough, compassionate

& good natured, “they have sex in their pockets”

To women in love with my flesh I speak.

All the Irish major statements & half the best

Low-slung stone. Upstairs is sleep. Downstairs

is heat. She seems exceedingly thin and transparent

Two suspicious characters in my head. They park & then

Start, the same way you get out of bed. The pansy is

Grouchy. The Ideal Family awaits distribution on

The Planet. Another sensation tugged at his heart

Which he could not yet identify,

half     Rumanian    deathbed    diamond

Wildly singing in the mountains with cancer of the spine.

FOR HANK KANABUS

Frog sees dog.                     log?

See the lamp?

It is out.

“Do you think I became

a dance-hall girl

because

I was
bad
?”

It ain’t gonna work.

Because by morning

it’ll be gone.

The medicine I took

to change

the way I was.