The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (18 page)

The black bag and the wise man may be found in the brain room.

They eat in the stable, where there is a grand table and some chaise lounges.

Mrs. Woods’ rat poison is kept in the stable, in a great bottle.

In her office she keeps plenty of other things. She keeps bread, berries, beer, lace, celery, buttons, plums, and a comforter.

FOR JOHN GIORNO

According

to

the

basic

law

of

visual

perception

any

stimulus

pattern

tends

to

be

seen

in

such

a

way

that

the

resulting

pattern

is

as

simple

as

the

given

conditions

permit.

Before

the

orgasmic

platform

in

the

outer

third

of

the

vagina

develops

sufficiently

to

provide

increased

exteroceptive

and

proprioceptive

stimulation

for

both

sexes,

the

over-

distended

excitement-

phase

vagina

gives

many

women

the

sensation

that

the

fully

erect

penis

is

“lost

in

the

vagina.”

With

daring

and

strength

men

like

Pollock,

deKooning

Tobey,

Rothko,

Smith

and

Kline

filled

their

work

with

the

drama,

anger,

pain,

and

confusion

of

contemporary

life.

A person can lie around on an uncrowded beach

And when too much peace and quiet gets on his

nerves, he can always get dressed and tour Israel.

Mayor

Frank

X.

Graves

today

ordered

the

arrest

of

Allen

Ginsberg

if

the

police

could

prove

that

the

poet

smoked

marijuana

while

looking

at

the

Passaic

Falls

yesterday.

The

Jewish

Memorial

Hospital’s

Junior

League

will

give

its

second

annual

discotheque

benefit

Sunday

at

the

Round

Table.

William

Carlos

Williams

the

Paterson

N. J.

physician

was

a

strong

and

vigorous

poet

who

spoke

in

the

American

idiom.

FOR PIERRE REITER

Once there was a rich man named craze man Wiliiker. This man was always very nice he would give alot of money to poor people, but he said to himselve “I had better save some of my money for myselve.” So the next day he went to the bank with a gun (just in case they would not give him his money) he said “give me my money because I have to buy presents for all my relatives.”

The next day he went to the Monkey Wards department store he bought a 24 foot yate, a motercycle, a small car, a byicycle, and meny more expencive gifts. Then he went to the store and bought a big airplane for himself then he loaded up his airplane and flew through the city tos money all over.

The next day he had a pipeline put on the hot plains so people in distress could get water all through that area. He also built little shops into skyscrapers for the LandLord. He built hospitals all over the earth.

One day while flying around in his airplane he ran accross two men trying to sell old pots, but they were not having any bissness. He landed and he asked them “Hows bissness?” The men replied “We’ve been here more than 40 days and haven’t sold a pot.” Wiliikers sayed “I’ll buy your whole stock and as meny more pots as you can get.” The man gave him his bill and supplyed him with his pots.

Two days later he took his wife out to dinner and tiped the waiter a hundred dollarbill. He invited all the hobbos he knew to dinner and he even told the manager that he was going to give the biggest party the world has ever known and that it would be held on December 25. He sayed it would be adverticed all over the earth. When December 25 came all the men asked him why he was so nice to everybody he said “It’s because it’s Christmas day.
Merry Christmas!

Never will I forget that trip. The dead were so thick in spots we tumbled over them. There must have been at least 2000 of those sprawled bodies. I identified the insignia of six German divisions, some of their best. The stench was carnal to the point of suffocation. The sounds and cries of wounded men sounded everywhere. I could but think how wrong I’d been one bright day at Texas Military Academy when I had so glibly criticized Dante’s description of hell as too extreme.

A flare suddenly lit up the scene for a fraction of a minute and we hit the dirt hard. There just ahead of us stood three Germans—a lieutenant pointing with outstretched arm, a sergeant crouched over a machine gun, a corporal feeding a bandolier of cartridges to the weapon. I held my breath waiting for the burst. But there was nothing. My guide shifted his poised grenade to the other hand and reached for his flashlight.

The Germans had not moved. They were never to move. They were dead, all dead—the lieutenant with shrapnel through his heart, the sergeant with his belly blown into his back, the corporal with his spine where his head should have been. We left them there, gallant men dead in the service of their country.

I completed my reconnaissance and reached our flank regiment just before dawn. There I found its distinguished colonel, Frank McCoy, and its gallant chaplain, Father Duffy, just returned from burying the poet Sergeant Joyce Kilmer beside the stump of one of those trees he had immortalized.

TO JOHN GIORNO

When Wyn & Sally and the twins went to Minnesota to visit Wyn’s father last August, Wyn discovered marijuana growing wild all over the Minnesota countryside. He brought back a suitcase full and said to me, “How would you like to go out and harvest some?” So in the middle of September, when the moon was right just before the first frost, we flew out to Minneapolis at 10:30 in the morning with five large suitcases and a trunk. I was dressed in an old Brooks Brothers suit and a vest.
We arrived in Minneapolis at 2, were met by a white Hertz rent-a-car and drove 2 hours to Red Wing. All along the side of the road and in front of every farmhouse were these 12 foot high clusters. Wyn said they’re so dumb out there they think that marijuana comes from Mexico. We cased this sand pit and it looked OK. Then we emptied the 5 suitcases and the trunk which were filled with the costumes from “Conquest of the Universe” into a garbage dump and drove to Frontenac where Mark Twain spent his summers. We bought 2 bathing suits and went for a swim in the Mississippi. It was terrific. Then we drove to Lake City which is this 1930’s Bonnie & Clyde town and we sat in this 1930’s soda-fountain cafe waiting for it to get dark. We telephoned Sally and told her everything was going great. Then we drove back to the sand pit and parked the car behind a falling down shed of an abandoned turkey farm and sat watching how many cars passed on the road. When it got dark, we changed into dungarees and went to work. I cut the plants and Wyn cut them into small pieces and stuffed them into plastic bags. There was this jungle of pot plants that looked like giant Christmas Trees and moonlight and dew, and the dew and resin got all over my skin and I was stoned. About 3
A.M
. we changed back into the straight clothes and drove to Minneapolis. We didn’t take any amphetamine because I thought we’d look suspicious if we looked like speed freaks at 6 in the morning. I was so tired I just went up to the ticket counter and said to the guy, “Here!” We flew back to NY with 70 pounds of wet grass. It dried down to 24 pounds.

Guevara had noticed me smoking, and had remarked that of course I would never dare smoke Cuban cigars. I told him that I would love to smoke Cuban cigars but that Americans couldn’t get them. The next day, a large polished-mahogany box hand-inlaid with the Cuban seal and amid swirling patterns in the national colors, flying a tiny Cuban flag from a brass key, and crammed with the finest Havanas arrived at my room. With it was a typewritten note from Guevara, reading in Spanish, “Since I have no greeting card, I have to write. Since to write to an enemy is difficult, I limit myself to extending my hand.” (I took the box, the
cigars untouched, back to Washington and showed it to President Kennedy. He opened it and asked, “Are they good?” “They’re the best,” I said, whereupon he took one out of the box, lit it, and took a few puffs. Then he looked up at me suddenly and said, “You should have smoked the first one.”)