The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (50 page)

the conquest of matter.

Color is the idiot’s delight. I’m the curves, what’s

the matter? or

I’m the matter, the curves nag:

Call it Amber, it doesn’t ride nor take to rider

Amber it doesn’t make me want to pray, it makes me see color

as we fail to break through our clasped hands.

What thoughts I have of where I’ll be, & when, & doing what

Belong to a ghost world, by no means my first,

And may or may not be entertaining; for example

living in a state of innocence in Kansas.

They hardly compare to when, passing through the air,

it thinks about the air.

Just as, now, you are standing here

Expecting me to remember something

When years of trying the opposite of something

Leave that vision unfulfilled.

Mostly I have to go on checking the windows will but don’t break

while you get on with taking your own sweet time.

It’s like coming awake thirsty & hungry, mid-way in dreams

you have to have;

It stops or changes if you don’t get up

& it changes, by stopping, if you do.

You do. Because you’re carrying a torch. A sudden circular bath

of symbols

Assails the structure. Better turn on the overhead light.

You stay in the Mental Institute of your life.

God sees dog—in the mirror. In this city

Below the river, my private life is of no interest,

Though allowed. For example, it would be nicer to kiss

than to shoot up.

Visual indifference is a growth. Used. Was used. Useful.

A new way of appreciating has arrived?

Should be a ride at Disneyland. People

Have basically split. And the heart flutters.

Stunned, the metrics & melody of

The multiplication tables, I am a father, watching,

Tho poor, her broad thoughts, this local lifetime.

Here I shall be with it but never of it.

Being nothing in front of no-one again.

The rain comes and falls.

A host of assorted artillery come up out of the lake.

The man who knows everything is a fool.

In front of him is his head. Behind him, men.

Few listeners get close. And

“Love must turn to power or it die.”

This is a terrible present.

“Is this any way to run a Railroad?”

Flashing back 7 years I hear, “you will never go

any place for the second time again.”

It’s hard to fight, when your body is not with you.

& it’s equally hard not to.

There is the dread that mind & body are One.

The cruelty of fear & misery works here.

The rains come & Fall.

Good grief, it’s Le Jongleur de Dieu!

A gun wheels out of an overcoat.

It’s I will fight. But I won’t rule.

So, pay, and leave. So, when the light turned green,

She went. “I’ve gone

to get everything.”                          A Voice—

“to reappear in careers?”                                      Un-uh.

These are the days of naming things?

Watch my feet, not my answers.

Oh, good grief, it’s Le Jongleur de Dieu!

He’s the godson of the ghost-dancers!

On Earth we call The Sea of Tranquility “The North Atlantic.”

And a voice once locked in the ground now speaks in me.

Marie in her pin-striped suit singing

“Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” in German

Not alfalfa covers the ground of Lilac Park.

“C’mere for a second!” shouts the invisible

Old lady. She crosses the park in a hat of nylon.

Marie falls down, still singing.

I see a woman with a baby running.

Two Africans in turbans wiggle their hips.

Marie cries & yawns for her audience.

Marie lights an envelope with matches.

Frisbees fly in the hot sun.

“Try it again.”

A very pale orange is sitting under the baby birds.

The community lightens, five o’clock, lifting my heart

to a place.

He was one of the last of the Western Bandits.

“A fellow like you gets into scrapes.

“Gets life. Spends most of it in jail.

“You gotta make a stand somewhere.”

I guess. “You smell of disinfectant.”

I guess. “Your kind

Drift from nowhere to nowhere, until

They get close. No telling

What they do then.” Yeah, I guess that’s just about right.

“Do you fish?” No, I just go down and look at the water.

“Pretty, ain’t it?” Is it? No, it ain’t.

It ain’t pretty. It’s

A carnival. A pig-sty. A regular

Loop-de-loop . . . (spits)
I need some shoes
.

I remember painting “
I HATE TED BERRIGAN
” in big black letters

all over my white wall.

I remember bright orange light coming into rooms in the late

afternoon. Horizontally.

I remember when I lived in Boston reading all of Dostoyevsky’s

novels one right after the other.

I remember the way a baby’s hand has of folding itself around

your finger, as tho forever.

I remember a giant gold man, taller than most buildings, at

“The Tulsa Oil Show.”

I remember in Boston a portrait of Isabella Gardner by Whistler.

I remember wood carvings of funny doctors.

I remember opening jars that nobody else could open.

I remember wondering why anyone would want to be a doctor. And

I still do.

I remember Christmas card wastebaskets.

I remember not understanding why Cinderella didn’t just pack up and leave,

if things were all
that
bad. I remember “Korea.”

I remember one brick wall and three white walls.

I remember one very hot summer day I put ice cubes in my aquarium

and all the fish died.

I remember how heavy the cornbread was. And it still is.

Now you can rest forever

Tired heart. The final deceit is gone,

Even though I thought it eternal. It’s gone.

I know all about the sweet deception,

But not only the hope, even the desire is gone.

Be still forever. You’ve done enough

Beating. Your movements are really

Worth nothing nor is the world

Worth a sigh. Life is bitterness

And boredom; and that’s all. The world’s a mudhole.

It’s about time you shut up. Give it all up

For the last time. To our kind fate gives

Only that we die. It’s time you showed your contempt for

Nature and that cruel force which from hiding

Dictates our universal hurt

In the ceaseless vanity of every act.

—
LEOPARDI

(
TRANS. BY TED BERRIGAN, GORDON

BROTHERSTON
, &
GEORGE SCHNEEMAN
)

For my sins I live in the city of New York

Whitman’s city lived in in Melville’s senses, urban inferno

Where love can stay for only a minute

Then has to go, to get some work done

Here the detective and the small-time criminal are one

& tho the cases get solved the machine continues to run

Big Town will wear you down

But it’s only here you can turn around 360 degrees

And everything is clear from here at the center

To every point along the circle of horizon

Here you can see for miles & miles & miles

Be born again daily, die nightly for a change of style

Hear clearly here; see with affection; bleakly cultivate compassion

Whitman’s walk unchanged after its fashion

When I search the past for you

Without knowing why

You are the waiting fragments of this sky

Which encases me, and

What about the light that comes in then?

And the heavy spins and the neon buzzing of night-time?

I go on loving you like water, but,

Bouncing a red rubber ball in the veins

In wind without flesh, without bone, and inside

The drowsy melody of languish, silence:

And inside the silence, one ordained to praise

In ordinary places. And inside my head, my brain.

You have made the world so it shall grow, so,

The revolutions not done, I’ve tucked the earth

between my legs, to sing.

We think by feeling and so we ride together

The child who has fallen in love with maps & charts,

The last, the sole surviving Texas Ranger, cajoling

Scheming, scolding, the cleverest of them all. What is there to know?

Questions. The very rich garments of the poor.

The very rack & crucifix of weather, winter’s wild silence

In red weather. A too resilient mind. The snake

Waiting under each back. Not to forget to mention the chief thing:

Underneath a new old sign, a far too resilient mind;

And the heavy not which you were bringing back alone,

Cycling across an Africa of green & white, but to be a part

Of the treetops & the blueness, with a bark that will not bite.

The fields breathe sweet, as one of you sleeps while the other is fuming

with rage.

Is he too ill for pills? Am I gonna ride that little black train

one year from tonight?

1.

I belong here, I was born

To breathe in dust

I came to you

I cannot remember anything of then

up there among the lettuce plots

I cough a lot, so I stay awake

I cannot possibly think of you

I get a cinder in my eye because

I hate the revolutionary vision of

“I have a terrible age,” & I part

I have no kindness left

I do have the lame dog with me & the cloud

I kiss your cup, but I know so much.

I must have leisure for leisure bears

I to you and you to me the endless oceans of

2.

Now it next to my flesh, & I don’t mean dust

I am sober and industrious

I see you standing in clear light

I see a life of civil happiness

I see now tigers by the sea,

the withering weathers of

I stagger out of bed

I stumble over furniture I fall into a gloomy hammock

I’m having a real day of it

I’m not sure there’s a cure

You are so serious, as if you are someone

Yet a tragic instance may be immanent

Yes it’s sickening that yes it’s true, and

Yes it’s disgusting that yes if it’s necessary, I’ll do it.

The bunnies plug-in & elaborate

Spongy thought-streams some days

Attempting in innocence to cash in on

Fire feedback on the flaming bridge

The trailing scads of diaphanous ribbons

Whatever & all like that. Their missiles crack

Of their own sound at the Barrier Gate, as

Punk-log fog shreds the aether, and mountains

Of any consequence simply sit, comic & invisible,

On their faces. Then, golden discs sweep up

Appearing to be signals, signalling

A possible common version of whiteness; sweep up

Out of an iodine-colored Chinese Puzzle box.

White-gold light. Slightly kinky sweepings.

Up inside the walls of air listen

A sound of footsteps in the spaces out there

In the frightening purple weather

And hazy lights whose color night decomposes.

Late at night, rise up carcass and walk;

Head hanging, let somebody tell the story.

Maybe the machine under the palms will start up

For one who waits

Under the arch of clouds, with familiar face,

Heart beating all out of proportion,

Eyes barely open, ears long since awake to what’s coming:

It is very possibly Autumn, returning,

Leaving no footprints, leaving danger behind.

The head being out of line has fallen. I still want

everything that’s mine.

A new old song continues. He worked into the plane

A slight instability, to lessen his chances

Of succumbing to drowsiness, over the green sea.

Above his head clanged. And there were no dreams in this

lack of sleep.

Your lover will be guilty of murder & you will turn her in.

Sometimes I’d like to take off these oak leaves and feel

like an ordinary man.

You get older the more you remember. And one lives, alone,

for pure courtship, as

To move is to love, & the scrutiny of things is merely syllogistic.

Postmortems on old corpses are no fun.

I have so much to do I’m going to bed.

I’ll live on the side of a mountain, at 14,000 feet,

In a tough black yak-hide tent, turn blue, force down

Hot arak & yak butter, & wait for this coma to subside.

Come along with me, my Tibetan Rose!