The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (86 page)

For Rosina

For You

Found Picasso

Four Gates to the City

Fragment

Frances

Francis à Bientôt

Francis Marion nudges himself gently into the big blue sky

Frank O’Hara

Frank O’Hara’s Question from “Writers and Issues” by John Ashbery (An Autobiography in 5 Parts)

Frank O’Hara’s Question from “Writers and Issues” by John Ashbery (Many Happy Returns)

Frog sees dog. log?

From “Anti-Memoirs”

From A List of the Delusions of the Insane, What They Are Afraid Of

From a Secret Journal

from Memoirs

From Sketches of Amsterdam

From The Art of the Sonnet

From the Execution Position

From the House Journal

Fuck Communism

Further Definitions (Waft)

Futile rhapsodies resound from hotly

Gainsborough

Galaxies

Games

Gay doormen face a severe shortage of cocaine

George’s Coronation Address

Geranium’s

get, in the complexity of our present

“Get a job at the railroad”

Get Away from Me You Little Fool

Get your ass in gear

Giants in the sky; roses in streams that castle rocks

Give Them Back, Who Never Were

Go

Go in Manhattan

Go fly a kite he writes

God: perhaps, “The being worshipped. To

Going to Chicago

Going up, slowly, I, slowly

Good Evening, ladies, and all you hungry children

Goodbye House, 24 Huntington, one block past Hertel

Grace After a Meal

Grace to be born and live as variously as possible

Great Stories of the Chair

gray his head goes his feet green

Green (grass)

Green Tide; behind, pink against blue

Grey Morning

Guevara had noticed me smoking, and remarked that of course I would

Gus

Hall of Mirrors

Harum-scarum haze on the Pollock streets
(Sonnet XIX)

Harum-scarum haze on the Pollock streets
(Sonnet XLVI)

He

He

He called his Mama

He eats of the fruits of the great Speckle

He eats toenails

He is guardian to the small kitten

He made coffee

He never listened while friends talked

He never listened while friends talked. He worked

He wandered and kept on wandering. Bar-Mitzvah

He was one of the last of the Western Bandits

He was ugly

He was wounded & so

Head Lice

Head of lettuce, glass of chocolate milk

Heart of my heart

Hearts

“Hello”

Hello

Hello, Sunshine

Heloise

Here

Here comes the Man

Here comes the man! He’s talking a lot

Here I am again

Here I am at 8:08 p.m. indefinable ample rhythmic frame

Here I Live

Heroin

He’s literally a shambles as a person

High School windows are always broken

His piercing pince-nez. Some dim frieze (5 New Sonnets: A Poem)

His piercing pince-nez. Some dim frieze
(Sonnet I)

Hitch on here

Hollywood

Homage to Beaumont Bruestle

Homage to Mayakofsky

Homecoming

Honey

How strange to be gone in a minute

How strange to be gone in a minute! A man

How sweet the downward sweep of your prickly thighs

How terrible a life is

How to Get to Canada.
See
Three Poems: Going to Canada

How We Live in the Jungle

Huge collapsed Mountain Enters from Stage Right

I am ambiguity

I am asleep

I am closing my window. Tears silence the wind

I am in bed

I am kinks

I am lonesome after mine own kind—the

I am the man yr father & Mum was

I am thinking of my old houses

I am trying very hard to be Here

I appear in the kitchen

I belong for what it is worth

I belong here, I was born

I cannot reach it

I can’t sleep walking through walls

I Dreamt I See Three Ladies in a Tree

“I gather up my tics & tilts, my stutters & imaginaries

I go in &

I go on loving you

I had a really sad childhood, lived mostly alone

I had angst

I had this dream

“I have always been emotional beyond belief, so

I have been here too many times before

I have no brain

I have these great dreams, like

I hear walking in my legs

I Heard Brew Moore Say, One Day

I hope to go

“I know what evening means, and doves, and I have seen

“I know where I’m going

I like First Avenue

I like to beat people up

I love all the girls

I love you much

I met her in The Stone Age

I never said I was right, or wrong

“I order you to operate. I was not made to suffer”

“I Remember”

I remember painting “I Hate Ted Berrigan” in big black letters

I saw you first in half-darkness

I sit on fat

I stand at the dock in judgement

I stand by the window

I take him

I tried to put the coffee back together

I Used to Be but Now I Am

I used to be inexorable

I wake up back aching from soft bed Pat

I wake up 11:30 back aching from soft bed Pat

I was looking at the words he

I watch the road: I am a line-

I won’t be at this boring poetry reading

“I wrote these songs when

I’d been

I’d like to show you something. Please look at it

If by my hasty words I gave offence

If he bites you he’s friendly

If I didn’t feel so

If I don’t love you I

If someone doesn’t help me soon I

Ikonostasis

I’ll yell at these men who pass

I’m a hero form of an eyelid act like you hate it

I’m a piece of local architecture

I’m gonna embarrass

I’m living in Battersea, July

I’m lying in bed

I’m No Prick

I’m not difficult but there are just certain things

I’m not saying

I’m sorry for your trouble

“I’m standing toe-to-toe with you, see, looking you right in the eye

Impasses come, dear beasts

In 4 Parts

In Africa the wine is cheap, and it is

In Anne’s Place

In Anselm Hollo’s Poems

In Bed

In Bed with Joan & Alex

In Blood

In front of him was

In Hyde Park Gate 14 white budgie scratchings mean

In Joe Brainard’s collage its white arrow
(Sonnet XV)

In Joe Brainard’s collage its white arrow
(Sonnet LIX)

In Morton’s Grille

In Morton’s Grille I

“In My Green Age”

in my paintings for they are present

In My Room

In Place of Sunday Mass

In order to make friends with the natives

In the 51st State

In the Deer Park

In the ear, winds dance

In The Early Morning Rain

In the first stage of the revolution

In the House

In the Land of Pygmies & Giants

In the morning

In the Summer between 5th & 6th grade

In the Wheel

In the year 1327, at the opening of the first hour

In Three Parts

“In Three Parts”

In Your Fucking Utopias

Incomplete Sonnet #254

Inflation

Inhabiting a night with shaky normal taboo hatred and fear

Innocents Abroad

Inside

insouciant

insouciant

interrupts yr privacy

interstices

interstices

Interstices

Into the closed air of the slow
(Sonnet XVI)

Into the closed air of the slow (Sonnet XXX)

Iris

Is there room in the room that you room in?

is when you walk around a corner

ISOLATE

It is 7:53 Friday morning in the Universe

It is 1934. Edmund

It Is a Big Red House

It is a human universe: & I

It is a very great thing

it is a well-lit afternoon

It is after 7 in the evening and raining cold in bed. Next day

It is important to keep old hat

It is night. You are asleep. And beautiful tears

“it” means “this”

it was summer. We were there. And There Was No

Itinerary.
See
Three Poems: Going to Canada

It’s 2 a.m. at Anne & Lewis’s which is where it’s at

It’s 5:03 a.m. on the 11th of July this morning

It’s 8:54 a.m. in Brooklyn it’s the 26th of July

It’s 8:54 a.m. in Brooklyn it’s the 28th of July and

It’s a cute tune possibly by Camus

It’s A Fact

It’s a great pleasure to

It’s a previous carnation, where?

It’s difficult

It’s Important

It’s important not

It’s impossible to look at it

It’s impossible to take a bath in this house

It’s just another April almost morning, St. Mark’s Place

It’s made of everything, slow

It’s Morning

It’s morning

It’s New Year’s Eve, of 1968, & a time

It’s not exciting to have a bar of soap

It’s ritzy Thrift

It’s very interesting
(Air Conditioning)

It’s very interesting
(Down on Me)

Jim Dine’s toothbrush eases two pills

Joan

Jo-Mama

Joy of Shipwrecks (Life of a Man)

Joy of Shipwrecks (A Certain Slant of Sunlight)

Joy! you come winging in a hot wind on the breath

Joyful ants nest on the roof of my tree

Jubilee

July

July 11, 1982

Just Friends

Keep my

Kerouac (continued)

Kings . . . panties

Kinks

Kirsten

Kissed Maggie soundly; and the Doctor

L.G.T.T.H.

La Bohème

Ladies & Gentlemen

Lady

Lady, she has been my friend for some years sketches, I haven’t explained

Lady, why will you insist on

Lady Takes a Holiday

Laments

Landscape with Figures (Southampton)

Larceny

Last night

Last night’s congenial velvet sky

Last Poem

Last Poem (for Tom Pickard)

Late November

Leaving first

Left behind in New York City, & oof

Lefty Cahir, loan me your football shoes again

Less original than

Lester Young! why are you playing that clarinet

Let No Willful Fate Misunderstand

Let the heart of the young

Life Among the Woods

Life in the Future

Life of a Man

Light

Light takes the bat, &

Light up

Light, informal, & human

like carrying a gun

Like Poem

Like the philosopher Thales

Lines from Across the Room

Liquor troops in deshabille from blondes a lonely song

Listen, Old Friend

“Listen, you cheap little liar . . . ”

Little American Poetry Festival

Little Travelogue

Livid sweet undies drawl

Living with Chris

L’oeil

London

London Air

Look Fred, You’re a Doctor, My Problem Is Something like This

Lord, it is time. Summer was very great
(Autumn’s Day)

Lord, it is time. Summer was very great
(Sonnet IV)

Love.
See
Three Poems: Going to Canada

Man Alone

Many Happy Returns

March 17th, 1970

Marie in her pin-striped suit singing

Matinee

“Members of the brain, welcome to New York City

Memorial Day

Memories Are Made of This

Mess Occupations

Messy red heart

Method Action

Mi Casa, Su Casa

Mid-Friday morn, 10 o’clock, I go to India

mind clicks into gear

Minnesota

Minuet

Missing you

Mistress isn’t used much in poetry these days

Moat Trouble

Monolith

Montezuma’s Revenge

Moondog

Morning

Morning flushes its gray light across where I collect a face, rimmed