The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (57 page)

Here you can read

“We Arrived &

What We Did”

A girl’s poem

but not now.

Now it’s here.

It’s outside,

but you can’t see

anything.

Now it’s night here.

Take a walk

down an Elm Street

in the rain

Up

from the Train Station,

Turn, turn, turn again.

Now, you’re here.

Go inside

& open up

Viva!                          Fat City

& the long hours pass

like buzzes

gone

down a highway.

& nothing is really happening at all

It all happens so fast,

so,

STOP

Get back up & go.

That was life, sometimes you ran dry

Some mornings you’d wake up all wet. Today

For example, was a black day; business as usual,

However; i.e. everyone was getting the business

Our nation’s leaders stared blankly straight

At us with expressions of grave concern

the sun

Came up while the rain was coming down, like

Nobody’s business, so, nobody didn’t see you

In the altogether period me needling business

Myself, & then,

a burst of political jabber

before you

SLEEP

Talk like you don’t hear any more

not since the old days

Love Poetry

cigarette

Huey Long, get shot

& all the time

the girl in the Keane painting

awake

upstairs

sleeping

while the morning Times was saying

$75,000 was paid for a Roy Lichtenstein yesterday. A

James Rosenquist went for 26. Highest price ever for one

Of those. & a life-size kitchen stove complete with sagging

Pots & Pans, $46,000. The Germans took the prizes, the Americans

Got the business, the Times went on to note. By god,

That’s not how it was in the old days! Oh well, I think I’d

like to have a de Kooning, for nothing, myself. Or else, to be

Perfectly frank, just go on minding my own business.

Keeping it up                      going on

& on

& on & on . . .

No more Monkey-business