The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (48 page)

And I’m the man who killed him.

Beer in bed, &

An unused point

Beside me

On the bench.

Goodbye To All That
.

No first lines in London. . . .

Tuborg lager,

Putney High Street,

S. W. 15

“A pure case of unmitigated flatulence.”

Yes, but, “He is exulted.

The ice

Meant something else

To him.”

White South
.

What strikes the eye hurts, what one hears is a lie.

The river is flowing again between its banks.

Grant one more summer, O you Gods! that once I did not ask

The windows through which the bells toll are like doors

Because she is direct in her actions and in her feelings

Under the puns of the troop, there are frescoes

On the rudder, which you set against a bracelet’s fire, and

Which goes toward you with each beat.

I find myself there; am I finally ill at ease with my own

Principle? Fortune be praised! Immense density, not divinely,

bathes us

I hear walking in my legs

The savage eyes into wood look for the head they can live in

It’s my window, even now, around me, full of darkness, dumb,

so great!

My heart willingly again beginning crying out; and at the same time

anxious, love, to contain.

FOR LEE CRABTREE

I’m living in Battersea, July,

1973, not sleeping, reading

Jet noise throbs building fading

Into baby talking, no, “speechifying”

“Ah wob chuk sh ’guh!” Glee.

There’s a famous Power Station I can’t see

Up the street. Across there is

Battersea Park

I walked across this morning toward

A truly gorgeous radiant flush;

Sun; fumes of the Battersea

Power Station; London air;

I walked down long avenues of trees

That leant not gracefully

Over the concrete walk. Wet green lawn

Opened spaciously

Out on either side of me. I saw

A great flock of geese taking their morning walk

Unhurriedly.

I didn’t hurry either, Lee.

I stopped & watched them walk back up toward

& down into their lake,

Smoked a Senior Service on a bench

As they swam past me in a long dumb graceful cluttered line,

Then, taking my time, I found my way

Out of that park;

A Gate that was locked. I jumped the fence.

From there I picked up the
London Times
, came home,

Anselm awake in his bed, Alice

Sleeping in mine: I changed

A diaper, read a small poem I’d had

In mind, then thought to write this line:

“Now is Monday morning so, that’s a garbage truck I hear,

not bells”

And we are back where we started from, Lee, you

& me, alive & well!

A master square weaver, one’s favoured medium,

That is what is behind the boom.

Brusquely hugely schemefully ignored

Free in the language of wooing, but not included

The close elaborate current square panorama

quiver                             now one quivers

The aerial view of vineyards spreading out, encircling

the house

Backlit, color coming from within, light & dark

closely akin to skin

This slow constant weave seems badly adapted

To the grave overpowering expression of

a decorative opulent emotion.

Oh, does it? Behind this boom one can see one is getting

After the false starts & necessary resistance,

one’s bones’ worth.

On display they in the center become alive. They

are handsome in themselves.

The possible in mural scale model in Marriage

is formalized.

What said your light

you know, an answer refusing

I go to my store I maintain

animal inextricably between

illuminated, on the line

something lords in chair

all fixtured silvered

heart, your curtain, air

breathy air stirs white

knowing refusing running

Waitomo Cave, New Zealand

couldn’t catch the day, its curve, its more

Committed robbery with the Smothers Brothers

cops pursue us infinitely

“The pressure’s on, old son.”

“We’re going to salvage just about all you have left.”

“Right. And I’m going with you.”

“I’m also staying right here with you.”

“It’s the way you’ve been going about it that worries us.”

“All this remote control business.”

“I’m the principal stockholder and I’m moving my equities out.”

“He believes if he’s hard enough on a body they’ll give way.”

“It’s funny to have lived all this time in the midlands

And not seen all these lovely things about.”

“Where’s the Doctor?” “I
am
the Doctor.”

“Is everything ready for surgery?”

“Yes, & you don’t need a sauna to get steamed up, here.”

“You’ll find the patient’s files in these cabinets here.”

Queen Victoria dove headfirst into the swimming pool, which was filled

with blue milk.

I used to be baboons, but now I am person.

I used to be secretary to an eminent brain surgeon, but now I am quite

ordinary. Oops! I’ve spilled the beans!

I wish mountains could be more appealing to the eye.

I wash sometimes. Meanwhile

Two-ton Tony Galento began to rub beef gravy over his entire body.

I wish you were more here.

I used to be Millicent, but now I am Franny.

I used to be a bowl of black China tea, but now I am walking back

to the green fields of the People’s Republic.

Herman Melville is elbowing his way through the stringbeans toward us.

Oscar Levant handed the blue pill to Oscar Wilde during the fish course.

Then he slapped him.

I used to be blue, but now I am pretty. I wish broken bad person.

I wish not to see you tonight.

I wish to exchange this chemistry set for a goldfish please.

I used to be a little fairy, but now I am President of The United States.

These are the very rich garments of the poor

Tousling gradations of rainbow, song & soothing tricks

With a crooked margin there & there is here: we

Are the waiting fragments of his sky, bouncing

a red rubber ball in the veins.

Do you have a will? And one existing so forgets all

Desuetude desultory having to move again, take power from snow,

Evening out not more mild than beastly kind, into a symbol.

I hate that. I think the couple to be smiles over glasses, and

Questions not to find you, the which they have. O Marriage

Talking as you is like talking for a computer, needing to be

Abacus, adding machine, me. Up from the cave’s belly, down

from the airy populace

That lace my soul, a few tears from the last the sole surviving

Texas Ranger,

Freed, freely merge with your air, dance. Blue are its snowflakes

Besprinkled blue lights on his eyes, & flakes. For her

I’d gladly let the snake wait under my back, and think, to walk,

And pass our long love’s day. Landscape rushing away.

That they are starving.

That their blood has turned to water.

That they give off a bad smell.

Being poor.

That they are in hell.

That they are the tools of another power.

That they have stolen something.

That they have committed an unpardonable sin.

Being unfit to live.

That evil chemicals have entered the air.

Being ill with a mysterious disease.

That they will not recover.

That their children are burning.

He never listened while friends talked

Less original than penetrating, very often

Illuminating         He worked steadily to the even

Current of sound         sunlit oblongs         bramble        transfer

White South
       nothing is gained by assurance as

To what is insecure       beer in bed, & an unused point

Beside me on the bench        time of, major energy product

Over Bellevue Road that silence said

To mean an angel is passing overhead        my baby

Throws my shoes out the door        & one cannot go back

Except in time         “Yes, but he is exultant; the ice

Meant something else to him”           highly reduced

For the sake of maintaining scale        
Goodbye To All That

“I have only one work, & I hardly know what it is.”

It was silence that stopped him working, silence in which

he might look up

& see terror waiting in their eyes for his attention.

“Ladies & Gentlemen, you will depart the aircraft

At the Terminal Area to your Right. Thank you for flying United.”

She alters all our lives for the better, merely

By her presence in it. She is a star. She is

Radiant, & She is vibrant (integrity). She animates

And gathers this community. Half the world’s population

Is under 25. She permits everybody to be themselves more often

than not.

She is elegant. I love her.

She writes poetry of an easy & graceful

Intimacy. She is brave. She is always slightly breathless, or

Almost always slightly. She is witty. She owns a proud & lovely

Dignity, & She is always willing to see it through.

She is an open circle, Her many selves at or near the center, &

She is here right now. Technically, She is impeccable, &

If She is clumsy in places, those are clumsy places. She knows

Exactly what she is doing & not before She is doing it. What

She discovers She discovered before She discovers it, and so

The fresh discovery of each new day. Her songs are joyous songs,

& they are prayers, never failing to catch the rush of hope

(anticipation)

Despair, insanity & desperation pouring in any given moment. She

Knows more than She will ever say. She will always say

More than she knows. She is a pain. She is much less than

Too good to be true. She is plain. She is ordinary. She

is a miracle.

TO GORDON BROTHERSTON

Where do the words come from? (come in?)

Where did that silt?        How much lives?

A rock is next to the bee.

The window is never totally thought through.

So

“Silver” is used to stand for something nothing

really ever quite is. Let it stand against.

Or in other words what next?

 There’s time enough

A lot of unalloyed nouns.              for a list to occur

 between the lines.

Weather, as all strata in a possible day.

Sleet against window glass. A cigarette starts sounding.

You can see how “a depth” makes “west” and “south” agree.

A philosophy: “I guess yes.”

milks & honeys, stuns, salutes, flashes . . .

now & again, “a glimpse”

Sash the faces of lust

Beast. And get your salutation

An Electric Train wreck in the eye

Everything good is from the Indian. A curtain.

The word reminds me of Abydos and spinach.

I am not a pygmy soothed

By light that breathes like a hand

Sober dog, O expert caresses

In the twisted chamber, for you the silent men, &

Flowers, so as to weave the inhabitants

This small immobile yellow coat persona:

And you must receive songs in its name, O

Library of rapid boons

Irrespective of merit. & now I do not know his name.

Sash the faces of lush

Beast. & Get Your Salutation.

I belong for what it is worth

To the family of the Phoenix; also

Dragon blood flows in my veins;

And when the time came to assign “us” berths,

Instead of “Proletarian,” it was under “Criminal”

I found my name, albeit without

Difficulty, although it took some time. Neither

Among the last nor, happily, the first. It was Alphabetical

& “By the Numbers” in those days. Plus, I got

“Innocence,” with a funny dash of “Butch.”