FOR TED, ON ELECTION DAY

       for Ted Berrigan

      rain (second day in a row)

      morning (day-after-day)

      body smell, need a bath

      coffee cigarets ashes in ashtrays

      one-after-another pile up

      need shoes, yesterday walking

      in rain revealed a hole in my right sole

      sitting around not thinking of much of anything

      feeling drizzly, wait to go vote (later)

      ‛no’ to mass transit amendment

      have my fill of mass transport

      everyone wanting to transport themselves

      went to Columbia (last night) to hear

      Ron read translations (one of four readers, translators)

      fine translations drinking opium

      through pores of ordinary american

      unlike the others (studies in the subordinate clause)

      (non) relation to (any) poetry

      first school setting for me in 4 years (puke!)

      vergule

      everything starting to fit in place

      have a home

      be a home home

      reaping (this fall) routines

      reappearing in the dress of melancholy like

      the housewife of a house

      making (work) time go

      I’ve made some money working with my own hands

      I’ve made some working with my own hands

      I’ve made up much

      experienced some done some

      I’ve loved often enough

      been shot down enough to hurt often

      I’ve pitied myself as well as others (both ways unhealthy emotion)

      I’ve wondered if I could love someone else (morbid)

      I’ve made my doubts into poems

      discovering covers often get kicked off

      to cool the body’s heat and mind’s jungle growth

      I’ve wondered (and felt made to wonder) if my own ‛worth’ is

      ‛worth much’ and wavered

      well, Ted, when I saw you on 8th St last month

      we (you) talked for awhile and

      then went over St. Mark’s and Gem’s to take pictures with Gerard

      you said, the one thing that always disturbed you

      about my poems

      is there are no really embarrassing moments

      in them (I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, you were holding forth)

      I don’t really know what’s embarrassing, shot elastic in panties

      at a party that drop and stop conversations

      turn heads?

      who knows (‛who knows’ embarrasses me)

      and anyway there’s quite a difference between gossip and

      embarrassment

      (couldn’t get a word in edgewise, for two hours)

      what embarrasses me is

      I’m 28 and aware (and made aware) of it all the time

      I’m finding it difficult to stop smoking (still 3 pks a day)

      and have been drinking too much lately (out of what, boredom

      habit, pain? don’t know, who knows)

      smoking too much dope

      irritates the shit out of my nervous system

      being continuously irritated (snapping)

      putting on weight

      plagued by small aches and pains (right now open abscess draining

      behind my right ball, can’t sit)

      think I have trouble sleeping (and, I guess, really don’t)

      my habits and routines embarrass me

      and I still, although I don’t think so as much, think my arms

      too skinny (they really aren’t)

      my body too small or too big (varies from day-to-day)

      it’s embarrassing to feel

      my self body image etc (often)

      defined by people around me (my reaction to their reactions)

      that embarrasses me a lot

      zeal embarrasses me, your zeal for instance

      always lining up poets and their poems

      one up one down

      in relation to you and your poems

      (I’m embarrassed by the same zeal, ambitions,

      it’s no real consolation that when it rains it rains on everyone)

      most of all, this Election Day, I’m embarrassed by death

      death is really the only embarrassing thing

      and sometimes (unexpectedly these days more often)