Gertrude and Ludwig's Bogus Adventure

By Charles Bernstein b. 1950 Charles Bernstein

for Gabriele Mintz

As Billy goes higher all the balloons

Get marooned on the other side of the

Lunar landscape. The module’s broke—

It seems like for an eternity, but who’s

Counting—and Sally’s joined the Moonies

So we don’t see so much of her anyhow.

Notorious novelty—I’d settle for a good

Cup of Chase & Sand-borne—though when

The strings are broken on the guitar

You can always use it as a coffee table.

Vienna was cold at that time of year.

The sachertorte tasted sweet but the memory

burned in the colon. Get a grip, get a grip, before

The Grippe gets you. Glad to see the picture

Of ink—the pitcher that pours before

Throwing the Ball, with never a catcher in sight.

Never a catcher but sometimes a catch, or

A clinch or a clutch or a spoon—never a

Catcher but plenty o’flack, ’till we meet

On this side of the tune.

Charles Bernstein, "Gertrude and Ludwig's Bogus Adventure" from My Way: Speeches and Poems (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999).

Source: My Way: Speeches and Poems (The University of Chicago Press, 1999)

Biography

Poet, essayist, theorist, and scholar Charles Bernstein was born in New York City in 1950. He is a foundational member and leading practitioner of Language poetry. Bernstein was educated at the Bronx High School of Science and at Harvard University, where he studied philosophy with Stanley Cavell and wrote his final thesis on Gertrude Stein and Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the mid-1970s Bernstein became active in the experimental . . .

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