Ted Berrigan

 


From left to right: Dick Gallup, Joe Brainard, Ted Berrigan, Pat Padgett, Ron Padgett, c. 1963. Courtesy of the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University.

















SONNET 1

His piercing pince-nez. Some dim frieze
Hands point to a dim frieze, in the dark night.
In the book of his music the corners have straightened:
Which owe their presence to our sleeping hands.
The ox-blood from the hands which play
For fire for warmth for hands for growth
Is there room in the room that you room in?
Upon his structured tomb:
Still they mean something. For the dance
And the architecture.
Weave among incidents
May be portentous to him
We are the sleeping fragments of his sky,
Wind giving presence to fragments.

D. H. Lawrence

 from Pansies THE WHITE HORSE The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on and the horse looks at him in silence. They are s...