Heights of the Marvelous: A New York Anthology
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Heights of the Marvelous - Macmillan Publishers
ANSELM BERRIGAN
A short history of autumn
New York City fails to be spectacular from my teacher’s car.
And the van that booted me into Brooklyn last night, it has
my sympathy. My sympathy was parked in a strange place last
night. It hasn’t come back. Did I think of my sympathy as a dog?
A dog licking my neck all night?
Sympathy licking my neck all night kept me up all night &
the anti-depressant medication I swallowed before bed tho’
it wasn’t prescribed to me & I wasn’t depressed kept me up
all night. I thought of a man who couldn’t cry for years &
years. He couldn’t fly, so he died.
After he died he rose to a two egg breakfast that tasted
terrible. Work was terrible too, later. Before the movie—
Vertigo. San Francisco looking not too much different this summer
than it did forty years ago, in Vertigo. After the movie I
felt tired & creepy. I went to the office where I used to live.
I used to live there with a bad inflection. Every other word
out of my mouth was off. I’m off to off work off,
etc. Life
was profoundly stupid then. I guess that wasn’t an inflection.
I visit the office sometimes late at night, to think about
what life was like then, & usually I can’t remember.
And as I don’t have much of an imagination, to go along with
a bad memory (Rrrrriiiinnnngggg!) It’s Jena. "What happened
to your rationality?
It jumped out the window.
Then
let’s go to Paris!
Sure." (hangs up phone) Where was I?
I was getting a ride from my teacher after class one night.
we were talking about how to read your head and heart at the
same time & how hard that can be. She dropped me off at the
World Trade Center. From there I walked to Union Square. On the
way I began to freak out. Everything around me looked great.
I hadn’t been that cold in three years.
I want to hear people read poems. I went to have a drink somewhere
else. I went to the office where I used to live. All in all
it wasn’t enough. Where was the life I later led? Shall my tongue
settle in its little tomb? Is this at all an improvement?
Someone is at the door. Shall I ask them in?
Mercy flight
Some people should take a break. Have you ever
met so many finished works? Doesn’t it just kill you?
Yes! & it is terrific to say yes as Lisa says & says yes.
& so I say to the different variations of taking off
one’s pants, don’t put any on. Teachers & their pants
theories & their pants, the suburban moon. The D-train
over the Manhattan bridge when I should be at my job
has pretty legs. The pretty graffiti on the girders, pink
legs with black outlines like those of the bleached blonde
boy pouring a sack of cedar mulch next to the slant
of wood he’s come to call garage
. & it’s a pleasure
to see him seeing his future & to plant myself squarely
there through no action in particular. Black & yellow
pansies admire themselves endlessly on his lawn
where I sit admiring him. We are fabulous examples
of ourselves—strange birds invited to veer off course
so naturally we go. To call this nature would be completely
misleading, unless, of course, you think there is a course.
Bloodletting
Fifty American cheerleaders booking uphill on Rue LePic
& what I understand, I’ve been given a list of things
very valuable to me: a choo-choo train wearing a bluegrass
t-shirt, my Pollyanna ring, a lovely crater. Where do pigeons go
at night? The belltower is invisible, my brain is on the floor
I name it Flat Bear the Stuffed Animal & remember:
I don’t like delirium/I do like a melange of tom-toms
& Canadian spies parading down Lorimer St. Oh joy
why have you shut your glass doors to so many of my friends
& their neuroses that are very serious, like a tucked-in shirt
and the end-all be-all meatball parmesan? Peggy knows
the meaning of life, I have to get her my fax number at work
to be enlightened. I know it’s not philanthropy, where my fork
always seems to be on the wrong side of the plate. Maybe
a beggar’s hiss on a 105-degree July evening in Williamsburg:
Mick, Mick, is the Renaissance worthy of our attention?
Will you still love me if I don’t want to sleep with you & eat yoghurt
my whole life? Have a seat sweety. Lay your sweat on my shoulder.
Advice to a young philosopher
It should be in your nature to instantly trivialize anything
you read in italics. Everyone thinks they deserve a reward
for not dying, but there will always be someone available
to hate you. Your reward can wait, can wallow in mud;
I love mud. That it’s not quite the water & not quite the