SOTÈRE TORREGIAN: On the Birthday of Ted Berrigan, (1965)

           “Sooner or later we'll all get to speak like Ted Berrigan”

A donkey might consider itself a white stallion

and the ear-phones oft the desert

                                                    tune into us

A hair-breaking pallor

    Nothing to be afraid of

How long has the checker-board been “on the scene”?

                                           It's the miracle she-wolf.

I know I am “too serious”

For “The Daughters of Nothing already for Nothing”

Who will erase my ulcer

See its dry its dry it's got a combination

My friends.

What's left over?

Pagliacci. In the guise of Enrico Caruso bangs his drum with hysteric eyes

His girl-friend's inside he's beating the heart of his bass drum

O that crazy clown Pagliacci!

It seems we stood and talked like this before

Don't Grab from me Baby

I keep my face and open spigot a cry of the winds

Fall all your fresh newspapers

Inquisitors

Happiness

It is the divine stone the white stone with the name

                                                      which no one knows

                                                               New York City

                                                   On Ted's 31st Birthday

Sotere Torregian, "On the Birthday of Ted Berrigan, (1965)" from “I Must Go” (She Said) “Because My Pizza’s Cold”. Copyright © 2002 by Sotere Torregian.  Reprinted by permission of Skanky Possum.

Source: “I Must Go” (She Said) “Because My Pizza’s Cold”. (Skanky Possum, 2002)