The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (67 page)

For I knew I would not be able to raise the fine

Lady who sits wrapped in her amber shawl

Mrs. of everything that’s mine right now, an interior

Noon smokes in its streets, as useless as

Mein host’s London Fog, and black umbrella, & these pills

Is it Easter? Did we go? All around the purple heather?

Go fly! my dears. Go fly! I’m in the weather.

There is no windshield.

FOR DICK JEROME

How terrible a life is

And you’re crazy all the time

Because the words don’t fit

The heart isn’t breakable

And it has a lot of dirt on it

The white stuff doesn’t clean it & it can’t

be written on

Black doesn’t go anywhere

Except away & there isn’t any

Just a body very wet & chemistry

which can explode like salt & snow

& does so, often.

If I didn’t feel so

bad, I’d feel so good!

FOR ALLEN GINSBERG

Go in Manhattan,

Suffer Death’s dream Armies in battle!

Wake me up naked:

Solomon’s Temple The Pyramids & Sphinx sent me here!

The tent flapped happily spacious & didn’t fall down—

Mts. rising over the white lake 6 a.m.—mist drifting

between water & sky—

Middle-aged & huge of frame, Martian, dim, nevertheless I

flew from bunk

into shoe of brown & sock of blue, up into shining morning

light, by suns,

landed, & walked outside me, & the bomb’d dropped

all over the Lower East Side! What new element

Now borne in Nature?, I cried. If I had heart attack now

Am I ready to face my mother? What do? Whither go?

How choose now?, I cried. And, Go in Manhattan, Brew Moore

replied.

THE SENDER OF THIS

POSTCARD IS SECRETLY

(STILL) UNSURE OF YOUR WORTH

AS (EITHER) A FRIEND OR A

HUMAN BEING. YOU COCKSUCKER
.

FOR GEORGE SCHNEEMAN

Oh, George—that

utter arrogance! So

that people can’t tell that

you’re any good—

“chases dirt”, for Chrissakes!!

“Truth is that which,

Being so, does do its

work.”

(I said That.)

July 11, 1982

Dear Alice,

The reason I love

you so much is because

you’re very

beautiful & kind. I

also appreciate your

intelligence, though what

“intelligence” is I’m not

sure, & your wit, which

resembles nothing I’ve

ever thought about.

Your loving husband,

Ted Berrigan

(AFTER FREDDY FENDER)

I met her in The Stone Age,

riding shotgun—I can

Still recall that neon sign she

wore—She was

Cramlin’ through the prairie near

the off-ramp, & I

Knew that she was rotten to the core.

I screamed, in pain, I’d live off her

forever—She

Sd to me, she’d have a ham-on-

rye—but who’d have

Thought she’d yodel, while in labor?

I never had a chance

To say Good-bye!

For love of Megan I danced all night,

fell down, and broke my leg in two places.

I didn’t want to go to the doctor.

Felt like a goddam fool, that’s why.

But Megan got on the phone, called

my mother. Told her, Dick’s broken

his leg, & he won’t go to the doctor!

Put him on the phone, said my mother.

Dickie, she said, you get yourself

up to the doctor right this minute!

Awwww, Ma, I said. All right, Ma.

Now I’ve got a cast on my leg from

hip to toe, and I lie in bed all day

and think. God, how I love that girl!

There is a shoulder in New York City

Lined, perfectly relaxed, quoted really, quite high

Only in the picture by virtue of getting in

to hear Allen Ginsberg read, 1961

And though the game is over it’s beginning lots of

years ago,

And all your Cities of Angels, & San Francisco’s are

going to have to fall, & burn again.

Let the heart of the young

exile the heart of the old: Let the heart of the old

Stand exiled from the heart of the young: Let

other people die: Let Death be inaugurated.

Let there be Plenty Money. & Let the

Darktown Strutters pay their way in

To The Gandy-Dancers Ball. But Woe unto you, O

Ye Lawyers, because I’ll be there, and

I’ll be there.

Nothing stands between us

except Flying Tigers

Future Funk

The Avenue B Break Boys

and

The Voidoids—

Sometimes,

Time gets in the way, &

sometimes, lots of sometimes,

We get in its way, so,

Love, love me, do.

FOR HARRIS SCHIFF

They killed all the whales

now they’re killing all the acorns

I’m almost the last Rhinoceros

I guess I’d better kill them.

You will dream about me

All the months of your life.

You won’t know whether

That means anything to me or not.

You will know that.

It’s about time

You know something.

FOR BERNADETTE MAYER

The wicked will tremble, the food will rejoice

When he & I grow young again

For an hour or two on

Second Avenue, at Tenth

About 35 days from now—

Although that will not get it;

And that will not be that.

With Faith we shall be able . . .

There will be peace on earth . . .

& Capricious day . . .

maybe we’ll be there, or true.

Speed the day then.

You took a wrong turn in

1938. Don’t worry about it.

The sun shines brightest when

the others are sleeping.

There is a Briss in your

immediate future.

Take heart. Shakespeare was

probably an asshole too.

Your life is rare and precious

& it has no mud. Stay with it.

You have strange friends, but

they are going to be strangers.

Everything is Maya, but

you will never know it.

Your gaiety is not cowardice,

but it may be hepatitis.

(
DICK JEROME
, 3/4 View)

ink on paper

God:
perhaps, ‘The being worshipped. To

whom sacrifice is offered.
Not
allied to

‘good’, (which is an adjective, not a

‘being.’
Godwit:
a bird, or, more recently,

a ‘twittering-machine’; (from the Anglo-Saxon,

God-wiht:
just possibly meaning, ‘worthy creature.’

Viz. Isle of Wight—Isle of Creatures. See, also,

Song, folk
; Childe Ballad # 478: “I’ve been

a creature for a thousand years.” . . . .)

(TO THE GODS)

He is guardian to the small kitten.

He looks so determined.

He has a graceful hunch.

Light swirls around his crown,

wispy, blondish, round.

Three shades of blue surround

him—denim,

Doorway, sky. His hands are up,

His eyes are in his head. He’s

my brother, Jack;

Kill him & I kill you.

FOR ROSINA KUHN

I stand by the window

In the top I bought to please you

As green rain falls across Chinatown

You are blissed out, wired, & taping,

15 blocks uptown

When I am alone in the wet & the wind

Flutes of rain hire me

Boogie-Men drop in to inspire me

FOR TOM CAREY

“I know where I’m going

“& I know where I came from

“& I know who I love

“but the Dear knows who I’ll marry . . . . ”

I bought that

striped polo shirt,

long-sleeves, for 75 cents,

& wore it every minute, that year

I got a sunburn

on my face & hands

I hadn’t noticed it.

But when someone pointed it out

I said it felt good.

I was over

a year in that

Park. Never did

feel in a hurry.

I was “in love.”

All my friends in the

park speak Latin: when

they see me coming, they

say, “Valium?”

FOR JEFF WRIGHT

I watch the road: I am a line-

man for the County. City streets

await me, under lustrous purple skies, purple

light,

each night. Manhattan is a needle

in the wall. While

it’s true, the personal, insistent, instant-

myth music cuts

a little close to the bone

& I have to get up early for work tomorrow, still

there’s

lots of quail in Verona, & I am

jubilant with horror

because I’m searching for pain underneath

another overload.

I hear you singing in the wires.

is when you walk around a corner

& I see you see me across Second Avenue

You’re dressed in identifiable white

over your jeans & I’m wearing Navy—

Jacob Riis is beams of sunlight as

I cross against the light & we intercept

at the Indian Candy Store. The

Family has gone off to Parkersburg, W. Virginia

The Chrysler Building is making the Empire State

stand tall, & friendly it leans your way

There’s appointments for everybody

They don’t have to be kept, either.

We are the dresses for Alice.

We go on, or off, for solace.

FOR MICHAEL BROWNSTEIN

Two cops cruise East 9th

between First and A. Talk

about schedules, they’re on

the Graveyard Shift: 11 to 7

in the morning. They are definitely

not boring. As they pass, I waver,

with my pepsis, two beers, & paper:

what am I doing here?

Shouldn’t I be home, or them?

But I guess I’m on this case, too . . . .

When I see Birches, I think

of my father, and I can see him.

He had a pair of black shoes & a pair of

brown shoes,

bought when he was young and prosperous.

“And he polished those shoes, too, Man!”

“Earth’s the right place for Love,”

he used to say. “It’s no help,

but it’s better than nothing.”

We are flesh of our flesh,

O, blood of my blood; and we,

We have a Night Tie all our own; & all

day & all night it is dreaming, unaware

that for all its blood, Time is the Sandpaper;

that The Rock can be broken; that

Distance is like Treason. Something

There is that doesn’t love a wall: I

am that Something.

FOR DICK GALLUP

like carrying a gun

like ringing a doorbell

like kidnapping Hitler

like just a little walk in the warm Italian sun . . . 

like, “a piece of cake.”

like a broken Magnavox

like the refrigerator on acid

like a rope bridge across the Amazon in the rain

like looking at her for a long few seconds

like going to the store for a newspaper

like a chair in a dingy waiting-room

like marriage

like bleak morning in a rented room in a pleasant, new city

like nothing else in the world now or ever

“This is the only language you understand, Ass-Face!”

the bear eats honey

between the harbored sighs

inside my heart

where you were

no longer exists

blank bitch

Strings like stories shine

And past the window flakes of paper

Testimony to live valentine

A gracious start then hand to the chest

in pain

And looking out that window.

What is it all about—this endless

Talking & walking a night away—

Smoking—then sleeping half the day?

Typing a résumé, you say, smilingly.

Who’s gonna kiss your pretty little

feet?

Who’s gonna hold your hand?

Who’s gonna kiss your red, ruby

lips?

Who’s gonna be your man, love,

Who’s gonna be yr

man? Why,

I am. Don’tcha know? Why, I am.

Christmas in July, or

Now in November in

Montreal

Where the schools are closed,

& the cinnamon girls

Sing in the sunshine

Just like Yellowman:

The soldiers shoot the old woman

down

They shoot the girl-child on

the ground: we

Steal & sell the M-16s, use

The money to buy the weed

The sky is blue & the Erie is

Clean;

Come to us with your M-16:

Soldier, sailor, Policeman, Chief,

Your day is here & you have come

to Grief.

Sing the songs, & smoke the weed;

The children play & the wind is green.