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.

John Ashbery

  The New Spirit (excerpt) I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave a...