Chris Bullard

COLLAGE POEM

                For Ted Berrigan*  

and the sonnet is not dead 

The most elegant present I could get 

The academy of my dreams is opening its doors 

Patsy awakens in heat and is ready to squabble 

It is a Chinese signal. 

Could the mind turn jade? everything

feminine marvelous and tough 

Put away your hair. Books shall speak of us

Not me. I like to beat people up. 

As I am a cowboy and you imaginary

This is called “Black Nausea” by seers. 

There is no such thing as a breakdown 

Whatever is going to happen is already happening

On the green a white boy goes   

*In The Sonnets, Ted Berrigan adopted a collage-like method to repeat certain lines in different contexts throughout multiple poems. Each of the fourteen lines in this sonnet occurs in one or more of Berrigan's sonnets.