Read The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Online
Authors: Alice Notley
FOR TOM CAREY
They have bent.
They cling.
They attack & capture.
It is a treat, a nightmare, a punch in the face.
He wanders by himself.
He lingers. He idles
In his little house.
He absorbs, and is absorbed.
He begins to bear down on what he sees:
Young faces, puzzling argot, meat, or “the postulant”:
You nod and scrunch up your face and chuckle.
Let me out of here you silently shriek.
“I’ve got to hang up now, a man is yelling at me.”
A pill always seems to be about something.
“Ah Fitz but we are profound
chaps—we word lads.”
“We ride in our round paper boats
From Ireland and Israel & Iceland without
coats. We feed our slaves
Locusts, our kids Moths & oats; and we starve
our cave-painters because they are sloths!” Love,
Mr. P. F. C. Hemingstein
You don’t have to be Marie Curie
or even Simone de Beauvoir already
to write your memoirs, you know? after
all, we
all
have a polymorphous perverse
first person singular, don’t we? . . . .
If you don’t want to see & hear, don’t feel
like it, say . . . maybe wd rather worry, or
sulk. . . . Still you do have to remember, there’s
no way to put blinders on one’s insides, you
know . . . or do you? Sure you can.
Every day back & forth
The exquisite daughter of the Sultan walked
At evening by the fountain,
Where the white water splashes.
Every day the young slave
Stood at evening by the fountain,
Where the white water splashes;
Every day he grew pale, and paler.
Then, one evening, the Princess, turning
Came up to him with these words:
Thy name will I know! thy
Country! thy Kin!
And the slave spoke: I am called
Mohamet. I am from Yemen.
And my people are the Asra
who die, when they love.
HEINRICH HEINE
(RANS. TED BERRIGAN & GORDON BROTHERSTON)
I had this dream
I was supposed
to get married
to a sensitive prince, &
together
we wd score for hash
from our maid-of-honor, Sancho Panza—
A choir of Windmills in their cassocks & surplices
were going to surround us in song for
the rest of our lives,
beautiful boy sopranos, singing with aching purity, the
only song they know:
THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY
.
my whole life? I hid myself beside a burning
bush,
My verdant response
to monogamy
in Spring. And
The sea was tumbling in harness
As I sailed out to die.
You took me
for everything
I have
I had it
Thanks
for that
You
Why don’t we
call up
David
Hockney &
ask him for
a thousand?
FOR ERJE AYDEN
I never said I was right, or wrong.
I said I was lucky. I waved a leg
in the air. First, I’m going to eat this,
Then I’m going to eat you! Just two
High livers, stretched-out on the Elephant grass,
mouths dripping with blood, & wheezing like fire-sirens,
We passed our long love’s morn:
So ends my song, like a pair of she-lions.
That’s all
one life needs—
Two serious ladies.
Talking
To Charlie on the stoop
Wearing asbestos suit
I see the really horrible fly
On top of the yellow rose—I
Can’t believe it, it’s so ugly
I just don’t have much conversation
to give, these days, now I’ve sung my ABC’s:
(next time won’t you sing with me?): She
sang beside herself, beyond
The genius of the Sea.
FOR BILL BERKSON
I stand at the dock in judgement
literally already condemned
but also am here to be informed,
as my illustrious colleagues Anselm Hollo,
Lorenzo Thomas, and Kathy Acker
have done before me.
I am pleased and flattered
to be joined in such Noble
Company, & only wish that I too might spark
giant & seething controversies & provoke angry
exchanges & bloody fistfights; but, like Anselm Hollo
I am merely a National Treasure, so, what I am
going to do is talk, which is what I do, plus read my poems.
Bill Berkson will take care of the rest, the doing what must
be done part.
So, let us begin. I’m about to do so, I will offer you this
one word of advice, in front.
Duck.
*
“(He had a way of wearing very casual clothes.)”
Like the philosopher Thales
who thought all things water
and fell into a well . . . trying to
find a car key . . . (“it can’t be here . . .”)
We rest from all discussion,
drinking, smoking, pills . . .
want nothing
but to be old, do nothing, type & think. . . .
But in new December’s air
I could not sleep, I could not write my name—
Luck, we’ve had it; our character’s gone public—
We could have done worse. I hope we did.
FOR BERNADETTE & LEWIS
Gay doormen face a severe shortage of cocaine
The White House announced today.
The crisis
Which could blow the lid off
Of Boys Town
is a result of Latest Great Depression
Brought on by
Savage game of “Go Fish”
In Congress
On the street where you live.
Citizens are being asked
To tie up their children
And to walk their clones
In groups of five
At 55 mph
Police said today.
2.
The President said
When Mars squares Saturn
With a trained squirrel
He will burn whale blubber
& is contemplating
The return of Billy,
Suicide,
3-Mile Island,
Unleashing “The Hammer”
Running naked
To breathe
Evacuate
Phone Grandma, if necessary
During “60 Minutes”
On television.
3.
At reduced temperatures
During months having an “R” in them
Wander lonely as a cloud
Crawl on all fours when it’s time.
4. (Coda)
Enraged Shepherd
Tears up his
EXXON
card
Admits he is a droid
Has his teeth bronzed
Redesigns his novel
Dies Early
Bye-bye.
FOR SUSAN CATALDO
“I never shut my mouth, in case
I have to yawn.”
Too Late
The boat has left.
ARGENTINA
Don’t cry, Argentina.
TED RON
BERRIGAN & PADGETT
“Flow gently, sweet Thames,
’til I end yr song.
fire-hydrant
censored
12TH NIGHT
“I will go.”
CITY MONEY
In God we trust because she got
something stuck in her throat
and bent their ears.
THE OLD ONE
is Ted Berrigan.
Caesar’s ghost must be above suspicion.
I’m sorry for your trouble
Jacques.
I’m very sorry
for your trouble.
Oh, Mrs. Gabriele Picabia-Buffet,
why did they want so badly to be
like us, those wonderful jack-offs of yesterday?
And where have they gone? Where are they now? those jack-offs
of yesterday?
FOR ANNE WALDMAN
Virtue, Honor, Beauty, Kind gestures
Sweet words have reached the high branches
wherein my heart is warmly entwined.
Then lead the person to the unmade bed.
1327, at daybreak,
on the 6th of April,
entered the labyrinth;
no exit have I found.
So, old friend, not dead, don’t lead me on.
“Only the guilty need money.”
I am ambiguity.
(FOR ED FOSTER)
FOR: BOB HOLMAN
OR ED FRIEDMAN
Good Evening, ladies, and all you hungry children in Asia,” A very funny thing happened to me on my way over here from a tough Italian Neighborhood, where I just bought this suit made out of recycled lint. Any other paisanos out there? (Gives them the finger). A bum came up and asked me to call him a Taxi, so I did my impression of Richard Nixon, which goes something like this: (Gives audience the finger). But seriously, my friends, I just arrived in your fine city after three wonderful weeks of playing Sammy Davis Senior. During that engagement I ran into an old high school classmate who set off an alarm clock so everybody can wake up and go home, so I bit him.