The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan (72 page)

“I think my life is really awful.

“Oh God, write all this down.

“Oh, what a great song!”

“This is my night at the canteen. . . .”

“It’s nice work if you can. . . .”

“Oh, great. . . .”

“She’s dancing.

“They’re in New York City!”

“Of course they are.”

“Just like us.

“Oh God, he’s so great!

“Oh, he just got taken down from the table.

He did a snake dance.”

(It was a Johnny Mercer snake dance.)

It’s 4 a.m.

(laughs)

“Wordsworth put it pretty well.”

“He hasn’t done too much in this one.

“Now he’s going to do it. . . .

“It’s all so wartime.

“It’s so wartime no one gets to do much of anything.