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FURTHER READING
Poems by Anselm Berrigan
Zero Star Hotel [At the Smith and Jones]
Poem for circulation
Primitive State [excerpt]
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April frigging 6

 
by Anselm Berrigan

Meat pies delivered daily from
tuck shop the chalkboard
improvisionally utters to a
chump's eye. Somewhere in
the thick of the grip of the
shit that must be said to be
gotten out of the way. Can I
sit in your lap and watch
kitty videos? No, I have to
go to work. Can I go to
work with you? We can
walk outside together. 
Earlier I felt — how's that
radiation going — like 
a — I misheard that,
now they are saying 
things like "she's a 
new girl" — bartender
& medical worker of
other type — I felt
like an old creep making
younger wobbly guys
give me their opinions
on things: "he had all
these great lines! & then
they just kept coming one
after the other & it started
to make me crazy." Look
of indignation on early
morning L train face.
Inside that recreation
a phone rang. I did
not ignore the phone
but I did ignore the call.
This afuturistic handling
of little pads, first aid
for choking, and yet the
company came with dog
& I moved, no, was. 


Don't be coming over to join me
this bird says, you hover and
take up shade, you simplify
into unwinged liftoff, you
bear scars of an individually
unremarkable nature, you stop
nothing. I'll stay here without
joining you, I say, and create
as little energy in your vicinity
as I can disimagine. Fuck you
and your disimagination, this
bird, now beginning to resemble
Allen Ginsberg, yells at me.









Copyright © 2011 by Anselm Berrigan. Used with permission of the author.
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