Anselm Berrigan
Can I Do an Angry Orchard?
A gentleman in robotics
asked me how I’d feel
if my poems killed people.
I said, well, if my poems
were on several thousand
pagers & everyone carrying
these pagers were reading
my poems, or one poem of mine
& someone pushed a button
& blew them all up I’d
be pretty fucking pissed.
But I don’t write prop-
aganda, as far as I know.
That said, if I heard
someone decided to kill
themselves after reading or
listening to one of my poems
that would just be pain
but I’d want to know
a little more about the
person & the situation
before figuring out if
it was really our fault
me and the poem.
Good answer, the gent
in robotics said. I want
to be using what I know
to help people who need
new body parts, but I
bent to tech & everything
I do goes into weapons.
This conversation occurred
somewhat early this morning.
It wasn’t at the Penny Farthing
which is too bad, because
while I felt sympathy for
this guy, & we went on
to have a fairly rational
conversation on global politics
& late-90s protests of the
World Economic Forum
the International Monetary
Fund & The World Bank—
the kind of conversation
you might imagine a 25-yr-
old robotocist & a 52-yr-
old poet could have, suddenly
& amiably sitting in an
establishment, & deciding not
to be strangers, the gent in
town from Jersey for a seminar
does have the ability
to make his own choices. But
if we had been at the Penny
Farthing, I could have intro-
duced him to Charlotte
having first said: Charlotte
wants to murder The Penny
Farthing Universe. Can you
help her? & if you can
help her, can you make
sure it all goes down
when I’m not around?
Poem Written the Day After Charlotte’s So-Called Birthday (10/19/24)
She’s not so lackadaisical
As to resort to poisoning
The entire Farthing at once.
She could rig the ceiling
To collapse, crushing all
Patrons, while a gumdrop falls
In her mouth, but I’m not
Certain a bartender’s salary
Pays for that manner of operation.
I personally am not interested
In depicting some Tarantino
Type fantasy of revenge by
Firearms—we need here to
Feel with a little more
Imagination than—that—
Charlotte, do you wish
Death upon your foes
At the bar, or dissolution?
You can slay these creatures
With your eyes, they disappear
You can summon the whole hoary
Host of giant owl/bat monsters
From Beastmaster to wrap their
Crazy wings around each human
And reduce them to goop & jewelry
But if this is to be a testament
To the deep meanness those fuckers
Inspire in your total being
I recommend blotting out the sun
And challenging each customer
To a drinking duel. You drink
Water, disguised as vodka
They drink Fernet, mixed with
Scotch —really shitty scotch, & orange
Juice. You work their livers
Into such states of shock & despair
They slump, quit & die before
Hemorrhage, one by one, saving
You a lot of mess, and messaging.
It will take a long time.
You’ll have to lock the Farthing doors
Change your name, & hire wolves—
To bounce, and get rid of the evidence.
But you have this poem’s faith.
You will have executed the entirety
Of the Penny Farthing Universe
Before the snows of yesteryear
Return, & then we’ll duck out
The back door, after one last
Gulp of dark red wine.
Poem (for CB)
Here they play all the songs
You used to hear elsewhere
Elect me or die—Elect him and die
The and/or proposition of life again
You detect no effort so you make no effort
That’s not even modern
The poets won’t tell me where they are
They just did—they’re hanging out
With commies again. I’d make them come
Here but persuasion’s not one of my skills
On purpose, or on porpoise
I like to take non-persuasive
Porpoise rides, but don’t tell everyone
That’s the difference between
Secrets & Privacy
And the difference between
Everyone & Anyone
Anyone will read a poem
Everyone won’t
So fuck Everyone — and love Anyone
That’s the one thing the ’60s figured out
Except loving Anyone all at the same time?
That only works in artworks
And maybe back when we was just a few dozens
In 1960 there were 3 billion people on the planet
Supposedly that’s a lot
64 years later there are 8.2 billion people on the planet
I don’t want to write a documentary poem
But I imagine you get the point
Right now I have privacy because I’m out in public
Temporary privacy, but privacy nonetheless
I wonder if BB RF & CB are coming my way, secretly
If they arrive I will no longer have privacy
But I will be happy
But I also may die
This is my version of a CB poem
CB doesn’t drink these days
RF lives in the other direction
BB & I are having lunch tomorrow
I suspect I will be here by myself forever
Forever is up until when I decide to leave, motherfucker
I will never compose a poem this way again
I will never type up a poem on notes app again
It’s too easy
It limits my sonic vocabulary
It sounds too good in ways I can’t tolerate
It sounds like I’m imitating my Dad imitating Frank
That’s a good line for the historical documents
But I feel ambivalent about having typed it up
That’s a good line for the historical documents too
I was talking about it before I interrupted myself
With the recognition of continuous presents
It is for suckers, like life
That can’t be the last line
Don’t take Havok to a discussion group
That can’t be the last line in either
Don’t fall on the sword of chump integrity
That - can - be the last line
The initials who are poets just showed up
They didn’t
I don’t know how to leave
I want to be a typewriter in bed with a pearl
“come for the drinks, stay for the abuse” –anon
Country Dumpling
Sometimes, when I don’t want to go
back to my anarcho-victorian
non-home, which, lately, is
mostly—I measure my personal
kindness barometer, or not
I just wonder why my given
fate has to be bound up
with kind—this is not meant—
& not meant to be interesting—
beyond certain illusive particulates.
I’m not concerned to get here
A particular feeling. So I walked
through your nightmare—I can’t—
I cut out a lot of mouths &
don’t feel form should have the
emotion of a particular experience.
&—I didn’t even, sitting next to
the blue-jacketed black-haired
rocker, say anything resembling that
that, to myself, or them (book club).
Since you have this problem
Of doing it, then all of a sudden
It was even more absurd
Not to do & be doing it.
The arrival at cruelty still
Maintains necessary gaps.
It may be that harm
Fascinates us, that it isn’t
Supposed to be done. Focus
On the background in passing
& not in public—the focus—
Without the passing. Yellow
Teeth wondering how to keep
Talking. Inviting you to?
I’m not a fan of grass
Being green. My pictures
Are emotions, most of them.
But that’s not one of them.
after Willem de Kooning
Poet, editor and educator, Anselm Berrigan is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Don’t Forget to Love Me (Wave Books, 2024), Pregrets (Black Square Editions, 2021), Something for Everybody (Wave Books, 2018), Come in Alone (Wave Books, 2016), Notes from Irrelevance (Wave Books, 2011), and Free Cell (City Lights Books, 2009). With Alice Notley and his brother, Edmund Berrigan, he coedited The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (University of California, 2005) and The Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan (University of California, 2011). Former poetry editor of The Brooklyn Rail, he lives in New York City.