Before I began life this time <br />I took a crash course in Counter-Intelligence <br />Once here I signed in, see name below, and added <br />Some words remembered from an earlier time, <br />'The intention of the organism is to survive.' <br />My earliest, & happiest, memories pre-date WWII, <br />They involve a glass slipper & a helpless blue rose <br />In a slender blue single-rose vase: Mine <br />Was a story without a plot. The days of my years <br />Folded into one another, an easy fit, in which <br />I made money & spent it, learned to dance & forgot, gave <br />Blood, regained my poise, & verbalized myself a place <br />In Society. 101 St. Mark's Place, apt. 12A, NYC 10009 <br />New York. Friends appeared & disappeared, or wigged out, <br />Or stayed; inspiring strangers sadly died; everyone <br />I ever knew aged tremendously, except me. I remained <br />Somewhere between 2 and 9 years old. But frequent <br />Reification of my own experiences delivered to me <br />Several new vocabularies, I loved that almost most of all. <br />I once had the honor of meeting Beckett & I dug him. <br />The pills kept me going, until now. Love, & work, <br />Were my great happinesses, that other people die the source <br />Of my great, terrible, & inarticulate one grief. In my time <br />I grew tall & huge of frame, obviously possessed <br />Of a disconnected head, I had a perfect heart. The end <br />Came quickly & completely without pain, one quiet night as I <br />Was sitting, writing, next to you in bed, words chosen randomly <br />From a tired brain, it, like them, suitable, & fitting. <br />Let none regret my end who called me friend.<br /><br />Ted Berrigan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/last-poem-2/
