Listen to Edmund Berrigan's voice as you read his two poems, "Perseids and Leonids" and "Poem (after Chantal Akerman)."
Perseids and Leonids
What happened to me is that I turned red on the swing.
I've never quite known what I've known then it's gone.
Among thousands constantly as we rocket to million
in my pockets are vital contents that move with me until
pockets change, and my potential empty pockets advance
towards future containment. There were eagles via kayak
in multiple channels and out on the dock we watched
Perseids streak across the sky, drunken 2-4 am when
we were still in motion, still in motion but carrying
space, a local geography can only be point specific.
I guessed the bus was gone and figured I'd need
a new job and new life, but it came back so I got on
and we went to Burning Man. It wasn't my idea
& I'd never go again, unless and as long as it wasn't an idea,
one of mine. At some point everyone you see becomes
a mixture of everyone else you've ever seen, the outline
of Dave, the forehead of Kenny, the eyes of Alexis,
smile and glasses of the young woman when the sparrow
jumped up into her palms and chirped and drank from
the water within them. What happened to me is that I watched
in wonder, grinning, and remembered it long enough
to write it down in my notebook, twenty plus years beyond
Poem (after Chantal Akerman)
relate to the quotidian lengths of the film
and I'm a ghost inside of it. So I can
else to do as I watch my old life pass me
meeting messages I'm not sure what
is half that they laugh at the fluency
movie is as old as I am but it needs
a binding agent sold as I am an extra
but the meat is uncomfortable everyone else is
I am uncomfortable but also enjoying how
of the cars parked only the red VW is alive
we await our own impatience banging slow march
watch for hints of life from things in cages
of corrugated cardboard the audience is growing restless
square upon square upon square from behind
any fool can write backwards in the dark
your color grid is soiled folded up into a couch
bed like writing the quotidian is also an illusion
light blue. He does not know what she sacrifices
someone else His pajamas are very
His nose is quite handsome but belongs to
O pioneers it is a restless
The poem is over but the movie isn't
Edmund Berrigan: "Books I'm reading or have recently read include Black Music by Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka), The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, Taxi Night by Cliff Fyman, Mannerism by Deirdre Kovac, Common Phantoms An American History of Psychic Science by Alicia Puglionesi, and Thelonious Monk by Robin D.G. Kelley. I also have a never-ending queue of poetry books that currently includes Garret Caples, Ava Koohbor, Chris Mason, Buck Downs, Renee Gladman, Erica Lewis, Douglas Oliver, John Godfrey, Hoa Nguyen, Kyle Schlesinger, Audre Lorde, and so on."
