The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  545my father said, my father said, ‘If you get pregnant, I’ll

  kill you’ ”: and this morning as I was pricking along the

  sidewalk, I heard this lady on the second floor porch say,

  I’ll be glad when I’m a senior citizen, the senior

  citizens cash in on so many advantages, I can’t wait till

  550I’m a senior citizen: said she: now, that, I thought, is

  the way to do it: I was pricking along to the library to

  look up trash in the unabridged: I got it all down,

  every bit of it, including the white: even the bottom

  leaves on tobacco, cropped first, sandlugs, when cured

  555brown and papery: I bought my first bicycle when I was

  15, I think, by being given the first pickings of the trash:

  I’m not just trash or white trash or country trash, I’m

  tobacco country trash, high-principled Scotch-Irish,

  poor white, redneck, riffraff trash: I know all about

  560it: and a lot about the other trash around: I take a

  trashy view of things: but, then, baby, I love what

  I know, and I know trash, there’s so much of it, democratic,

  everything turns into it, and so few people want

  it, there’s a surplus of it, pick up free: now, when Stevens

  565got on to the prospect of a coat-of-arms or royal lineage

  back there in Dutchland, he plowed a little money into

  discovery: my money’s in the bank and here and

  there, and, right now, thank you, I don’t need any: the

  only royalty I’m ever going to be interested in is royalties:

  570more and more, there’re going to be so many I’ll

  sway back and dig imperialism: from where I started the

  route was up or forget it, and I’ve come most of the way:

  people have heard of me never heard of Amenhotep, who swayed:

  I’m a born aristocrat, as anybody will tell you: it’s

  575unfortunate there were no funds to carry me off: I

  recognized the poet, the trashiest breed, right away as

  my most perfect and friendly apprehension: so I have

  become if not king of the cats, prince of the hogs & snakes:

  it tightens my nose and makes me feel possum-hungry just

  580to think of it: I’m going to sway my trash around until

  every elegance wilts: nobody has established a more

  cordial relationship with the heights than I have, a fact

  _________

  which has already caused the elegance to shrink even before

  it’s going to have a chance to wilt: but my sway will, as

  585time goes on, become the new elegance, bumpy and roughshod:

  take the old geezers and other rest-home spindly drifts of

  flesh: now, that’s trash: or how about all

  the mentally retarded or disturbed children or old folks:

  lesbians and queers of all varieties: migrant workers,

  590not getting anywhere: strung-out guitar pickers at

  hopeless junction so and so: aging hookers and johns who

  helped with the tide: retired persons: little old

  ladies floated up in Florida, no husband, no home,

  no children who want them, and not enough to eat:

  595we should call this The Republic of Barrels of Trash: we could

  now be entering the bicentennial year of The United States of

  Barreling Trash: “pretty soon the people on welfare gone

  be richer than working people”: The United States of

  Shining Garbage from Sea to Greasy Sea: the litter

  600glitter: all that remains of free enterprise is if

  you fail you deserve it: the land of the hopeless case:

  the land of the biggest lobby: we know what is right:

  when are we going to make it right: every legislature

  knows but what’s right is so plain it’s embarrassing:

  605the corporation, the military, the agency: the power

  blocs: all have exceeded the guidance and correction

  of the people: can here and there an honest man stand

  up and not lose his job: can here and there a

  decision-maker decide what he knows he should: not

  _________

  610very likely: it’s okay if some have more if others

  have enough: well, get out money for the trash to meet

  my pure country trash platitudes: I have not given the

  matter under study much study: I’m going to study up on it:

  surely, lean, firm energies and rightnesses are found unanticipated

  615in free competition: but then you need to be sure the

  competition is not rigged: surely people who find

  and make things deserve to be rewarded: but the lean,

  firm energies throw some people aside: we need to keep

  the energies but we need to correct them from abuse,

  620the particular cases of mischance, sharpfallen destitution,

  of suffering and disaffiliation: we need to sustain the

  fallen and extend opportunity to the fallen who can

  rise: it is not a great country that grinds along on

  the spills and breakage of the weak: it may be strong

  625but it is not noble: this is a noble nation: it must

  be great and noble: it must do what is right to do:

  it must hold back the chomping greedy, nourish the needy:

  my trouble as a propagandist is that I want everybody to

  be right (and, of course, happy): but is that, like,

  630nobody right or happy: ah, these spheral men: they

  stand there looking all ways till their feet rot off:

  what we need is for someone to choose one thing instead

  of another: and choose something that will carry at

  least a 60/40 ratio of good: when in again pops the spheral

  635man in a wheelchair saying, well, then, get it on

  up to 90/10 or 100/0: and there you are: if we could

  _________

  make a kebab of principle and skewer our chunks of

  expedient deals with rightness running through,

  the republic might shine otherwise and we could

  640call it The Land of Rightness Shining Through the Roasted

  Morsels: everybody knows it’s the awkwardest

  thing each one standing around the fire with a raw piece

  of meat in his hand, shoving and snitching and

  forming Cartels of Power to the Flames, or Clearing

  645Little Guys out of the Way to the Fire: a few

  principles could lend so much structure to deals there’d

  be a lot less haggling over shady adjustments of the

  moral or morsel self: but who will rise and announce

  the structure of the elevations: who will accept the

  650skewer of backbone in his own hanging meat: if the

  government becomes unworthy of the people, it’s a fine

  opportunity for someone as worthy as the people to get

  up and say, the people are worthy, and I am worthy:

  the machine probably wouldn’t re-elect him but what a

  655button of fresh air, could get to be habit forming: I

  went over to the Atlantic this morning and said, simply,

  long may you wave: the Atlantic didn’t say anything

  but it waved: put yourself in certain places, it will

  be thought of you automatically that you don’t amount

  660to anything or you wouldn’t be there: au contraire,

  get, by hook or crook, in to other places you will

  automatically be thought something: there is, then,

  obviously a genius to a place, a place spirit; for

  _________
r />   example, the bar of the Fontainebleau has not quite the

  665aura of a coffeehouse: likewise the executive suite

  at General Motors does not compare with the Lower East

  Side: the genius runs people away or attracts them as

  their own genius finds corresponding influences: feeling

  “out of place” is unnerving for anybody: practically:

  670this is a high floral season: pussyfoot clover has

  shot up and died: common plaintain is mid-cone in

  thready bloom: slight hawkweed is putting yellow

  buttons a foot off the ground: woolly mullein is

  breaking out halfway up into a flowering inferno:

  675for the gross showy, there is purple vetch stringing

  up fields, chicory looking windy, butterflyweed too

  early for butterflies, wild yellow daisies, and other

  sanguine displays: it was today (7-8-75) a page ago:

  today was Having Lunch with the Fucking Photography Committee

  680Day: pecan pie was a dollar a wedge: bavarian creme

  pie, only 80¢: (that only’s going to have a different

  tone when bcp is $1.60): the mt goes, how’s it

  going today: I go, it’s going fine: the mt goes,

  we going to get anything going today: I go, how’s

  685it going with you: going fine, the mt goes: I go,

  what do you say we get going: the mt goes, come:

  one way to write is not for permanent improvement but

  just to give the reader a place to be while he’s there:

  he might want to come back later and be there again:

  690even stuff written for long, arduous, out-of-time

  _________

  contemplation and permanent improvement can hope for

  nothing better than that: make an interesting place,

  people will visit: there’s just not that much call

  these days for polished doldrums (that’s doldrums with

  695a sea to shiny sea): people are interested in

  trash: that’s where pretension goes to take a spill:

  gulls, old model cars (or new smashy ones), sugar

  maples coming up bubbly through hoods, where hoods were:

  real rank weeds in the cooled, shoved-over sections:

  700cartons with good directions, This Side Up, Keep Dry,

  Handle with Care: translatable into tender

  philosophy: a good read: a place you can come as you

  are to: after a while, unrelieved relaxation makes

  you nervous: how I hate these summer vacations of

  705concentrated domesticity when you go straight from

  having too much to do to having nothing to do, blanks

  of time tumbling through you in which you can tumble

  the time through you or climb walls: or write dumb

  poems (like this one) so full of crazy ironies warping

  710around inside themselves and folding over themselves

  it’s a wonder they don’t give birth to snakes:

  what is it I want to do for my country: I mean, as a

  poet: that is, if I could get anybody to read the

  stuff: as if reading about something would make it come

  715true: that is, if I could come up with something worth

  coming true: Dean Martin has more effect on this

  country in a minute than I have in a lifetime: still,

  _________

  I want to do something, however cheap and narrow, for

  my country or four or five people who know me: but

  720if I did something for four or five people, I would

  want it to be in line with a larger good: I guess I

  should forget the grandiose, and all distant approaches

  to it, and just say how I feel: well, I feel lousy:

  I feel lousy, though, mainly because I can’t get through

  725to do anything good for my country: it matters how

  your relations with your wife are holding up, how great a

  father you are, whether you’re making progress with

  the oedipal situation or learning how to mosey with

  your peers: but the local effect does not suffice:

  730profound emotions of allegiance and patriotism (the most

  profoundly selfless emotion, probably) are with us,

  if not now much in the wear: I want to relate locally,

  but I want the local also to rise to join other locals

  till you get something like a union: I want a top that

  735shines and turns influence back on me: I’m tired

  of the hollow in myself that only damage comes to wound

  again: I’m tired of feeling that here on North Street

  I have no neighbor in Mississippi or Wyoming or in the

  lower Shenandoah Valley or along the winding byways of

  740the Blue Ridge (how beautiful, it lies like a long

  float on the land, misty with heat or humidity or

  pollution): I don’t want to be by myself: I don’t

  want anybody else to be by himself much: I don’t mind being

  alone; it’s loneliness that gets me: I’d do anything I

  _________

  745could if anybody else would do anything he could: back

  to the trash, back to this, this home away from home:

  it’s hard for a child to learn that adults are flawed,

  even corrupt: this young country hasn’t learned that

  corruption is the way: when it learns that,

  750maybe it can accept it or change it: the people look

  sad on the porches: the children play but seem puzzled:

  the old ladies don’t trust the street: the young men

  and women, uncalled for, are unemployed: braggadocio:

  you may be the type of person who can’t understand

  755why anybody would want to write poetry, let alone

  read it: that’s where the reading mainly is, let

  alone: most people would rather be a fountain than

  a basin, for some reason: but as for writing, why,

  it’s like walking, you aren’t working but you aren’t

  760doing nothing: but walking this morning, I heard the

  painter say to the kid, “You aren’t allowed on the

  ladder, period”: allowed on the ladder: I took

  yesterday off: why not work a day and rest a week:

  I don’t know if I had worked a week, but I rested a

  765day: I called it Knocking the Fucking Bitching

  Off a Day Day: as a transcendental affirmationalist

  I undergo throes complaining: I do better thinking

  there must be some reason to go on living: bitching

  can get you in the worst frame of mind: you think,

  770what can I find to bitch about today: and you can

  find something: that’s the leanest reassurance:

  _________

  is a tree a concrete thing: right: I mean, maybe:

  that is, it’s a specific location and disposition:

  not abstract: all right, all right: (who’s talking):

  775it’s also a microclimate: but in so many ways: it

  absorbs radiation, it shades the ground, it moistens

  the environment, it slows the wind: but then the

  corner concrete (not abstract) is also a microclimate:

  it bakes in the hot sun, an egg-frier: then there’s

  780the black macadam and the white streak, minority white,

  a climate in a climate: then there are the windy

  corners (fairly abstract), puddles, marigolds: all

  contribute microclimates to the high summation when

  the fellow on the radio says, it’s eighty-five degrees:

  785everything about works that way, from the dense local

  to the synopsis:
a waste is a terrible thing to mind:

  we’re getting a gospel singing group, The Rock of

  Ages: what a very different effect would be The Ages

  of Rock: this is 7-10: started back a way with

  790“you may be the type”: I’m the typist: when the

  going gets tough, the tough get going: I go warm up

  the coffee: (it has worked its way up from the wind

  through the waters, the leaves of bushes and branches,

  tangles and brambles, risen to summits and made

  795space, rounded out the vision to the lay of land

  and lands and now it looks into the human eye: what

  is it: it is the viability, the coherence, that has

  assumed disposition: nearly mute, having been mute a

  _________

  while, it wants to have a program but fears the layout

  800of justice to each detail will deprive amelioration of

  direction and force, that what is is so because it has

  worked itself out through necessity: wisdom will not

  fool with the just and fear assails the disruptive

  song introduced to turn the balanced unbalanced right):

  805aggravated: can’t handle the pile-up of phobias: can’t

  deal with tunnels, bridges, gaps: can’t get around much

  anymore: if you have a humidity problem, move to the