Bill Berkson – Two Pages from 25 Grand View


Bill Berkson

Two Pages from 25 Grand View


Extreme Patience

Of those who, believing the world would end that day, assembled
on one member’s front porch and sat, waiting in the event that
this should occur – it hasn’t and at sunset they get back up and
disperse to separate houses until called when next to witness
such desirable oblivion.

                                the shadow on the page of someone chewing gum
                     the vowels are all in a row,
                                          rasping continents

                     Buttons and Bows
                     Boots and Saddles

           what with this wild and crazy relativism
                                born to be written
                     a speck
                                                              –a what?
                                          light, mere light


————–

                                an unmentionable painting by Gustave Courbet

                     Why the typeface suddenly appears
                                smaller, reduced, debased

                                                    One of us recalls the found
                                          letter and he who found
                                                    out her side of their story
                                                              there

                     Alice, Brigid, Miriam, Rusty, Eve,
                                          Bunny the girl next door

                                                              the last Andy Warhol impersonator

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