Christmas Eve

By Bill Berkson b. 1939 Bill Berkson

for Vincent Warren

Behind the black water tower

under the grey

of the sky that feeds it

smoke speeds to where a pigeon

spreads its wings

This is no great feat

Cold pushes out its lust

We walk we drink we cast

our giggling insults

Would you please

leave the $2.50 you owe me

I would rather not talk about it

just now Money bores me I would like

to visit someone who will stay

in bed all day A forest is rising

imperceptibly in my head

not a civilized park

I think it would be nice this “new

moral odor” no it would not mean

“everything marching to its tomb”

The water tower

watches over us Is there someone

you would like to invite no one.

Source: Portrait and Dream: New and Selected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2009)

Biography

Born in New York in 1939, Bill Berkson is a poet, critic, teacher and sometime curator, who has been active in the art and literary worlds since his early twenties. He is professor emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute, where, between 1984 and 2008, he taught art history, art writing and poetry; Berkson also served as interim dean in 1992 and directed the Letters and Science and public lectures programs. He studied at . . .

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