The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  something to do with taste: but I

  1950can’t stand and look at him or her

  all day because that would look

  foolish and he or she would start to

  notice, and nothing is really quite

  easy in the world: I can’t even say

  1955what I would stand and look at all

  day: we are tied round with ties:

  and lies: we are lie-tied and

  tie-laid: the world is ashen with

  flash and burn, desiring and desisting,

  1960reveling and retching: why do people

  not want things eased away instead of

  wired to the highly charged: is the

  disorganization of the languid so

  scary: not, for me, as scary as the

  1965crises of fear: tranquilized—oh,

  that has been my missing paradise

  so long, and its lack too long my

  hell: with nothing, thank goodness,

  to be miserable over, I’m miserable

  1970over nothing: but it makes no difference

  what becomes of me now because I’m already

  become of: unless, of course, I could

  _________

  write a good line: I could spell out

  my dream along a good line some beauty

  1975might take a turn to, and then we

  would be toe to toe on the floor,

  the music swaying us and educating

  our wishes and edging us toward the

  closure that is our temporary but

  1980essential solution: strip typing is

  like strip mining: you peel the

  surface off things shoving clutterment

  downhill, heaping hunks, spewing

  grit, filling cracks, riddling shale,

  1985making news out of old geology:

  massive millings: my strip typing

  says little but can be understood:

  whereas, many things so dense they’re

  very meaningful are hard to know:

  40

  1990I guess it’s because of the downward

  slide of everything towards entropy,

  the momentum of the downglide, that

  forms are like foam cast up onto

  floats of pause: if this is not

  1995true, I do not give a damn: I must

  die: that is what unsettles me:

  the reasonable/unreasonable dynamic

  _________

  of that, the popping up of bubbles

  that pop: makes sense in the local

  2000but why may I not dwell somewhere in

  luxury besides heaven: material

  tries to make it to eternity but

  recycles, and spirit that forever

  was forever is: forever, possibly,

  2005because it isn’t anything; that is,

  it’s nothing, or else it’s something

  time doesn’t fool with: equilibrium

  will not do what disequilibrium will

  do, the slope, the values of the old

  2010mill stream: then there’s the mill

  pond to swim in, dark, diamond water,

  so still, so deep, such summers! I

  can tell you right now: I can figure

  it out but still resist the figuration:

  2015I feel like I would prefer not to

  comply: but silly me, that’s because

  I’ve forgotten how grateful one can

  be for the permanent ease that does

  not know itself: what a comfort,

  2020that from here, there is a way out!

  and as a boon addition, no way back:

  it’s right, I suppose: I suppose it’s

  right: right or wrong, we string

  _________

  along: talk is cheap: it’s the only

  2025thing I could buy enough of to fill

  up this tape: and talk is action,

  and the mouth is an image, booboo:

  the trees are still bent, downloaded

  deep: white weight: more trees

  2030have splintered and resplintered,

  branches closing roads, whole trees

  lying down, root-reared: naturally,

  nature adds dearth to dearth, pure

  calm holding the frail limbs sprung

  2035as a bow under the evil wet: in

  nature, nature brings rescue to the

  rescue after every damn case has been

  given up: then, slowly say, the

  snow compacts to a risen degree and

  2040a drop of water drops from the clump

  and then another drop drops: sometimes the

  trees are like people, they just

  don’t have that much time: but it’s

  beautiful, and tonight ice will come

  2045back where water was: some people

  move to Florida: others wouldn’t

  think of it, think of it

  41

  the strong want to live on the edge

  but they are so strong they can

  2050seldom find an edge anywhere: while,

  alas, the weak inhabit edges everywhere

  and seek strength anywhere to pull

  back away into safety: how sad

  that what we have is not what we want

  2055and what we want we can’t find: if

  you say what you have to say then you

  have nothing to say: therefore the

  unsaid is the lens of observation &

  what will not tell itself will not

  2060be done with telling: stripping is

  what I do, keeling to this band of

  paper, a fleet rig on a round-the-world

  and back-around-again: it is so

  arrogant to say it is not important:

  2065imagine the gall, asking to be known

  for nothing, or to be known for having

  the gall to ask to be known for nothing:

  what I want is not something out of

  something—fairly easy—but something

  2070out of nothing: a difficult, primal

  figure: in what was space made: if

  _________

  space closes up, what is left behind:

  if this universe bloomed through some

  integument from another universe,

  2075where did that universe come from:

  presence only annihilates these

  troublesome questions: springs and

  kangaroo rats and insect bites and

  reed mats and dinosaur teeth: lots

  2080of stuff, begun and ended over and

  over, so that the loam of our lives

  is a loam that was life, flesh from

  flesh strangely begotten: flesh into

  flesh, a soilure and a soil: but the

  2085wonder of such infinite devising—

  tadpole and caterpillar, mushrooms

  and figs, mole rats and chimpanzees:

  five million insects and only a few

  white rhinoceros: ladybugs and plums:

  2090the list lists it is so weighty:

  just mud and information: enough

  oohing and aahing: everything taking

  and being taken—provender: the

  lacewing fly, something’s meal: the great

  2095quantity of things lies elsewhere

  42

  can you make nothing interesting:

  what is the first thing you would

  encounter on the first rim of nothing:

  why, a smell: a kind of a smell:

  2100that’s right: I reckon: smegma

  afloat in the round of a bauble of

  pussy piss: that is vulgar: that

  is so vulgar: Wallace Stevens wd

  never say anything like that: or

  2105think it: or smell it: I do not see

  how the technique of poetry could be

  reduced fart
her than this: so this

  must be the rim bounding nothing:

  smegma, though, is probably populous

  2110under the microscope, the dead paste

  of epithelial cells would be a living

  broil of carefully crafted life:

  there must be something closer to

  nothing than smegma—or even the

  2115smell of smegma: think how complex

  smell is: a single whole piece of

  smegma, one part in a million parts,

  capable of alerting nerve ends in,

  you know, the nose: there you go:

  _________

  2120dragging in a prominent structure

  already, a face fixture—oops, there

  goes a face on a head on a body, no

  we were going the other way: I tell

  you, you better be ready to look

  2125about before you find nothing, it

  may not be so easy to find: people

  always talking nothing, wonder

  if they’ve ever seen any: we have

  weather enough this morning without

  2130a forecast: (snow midNov) the upper

  branches of the great trees weightily

  woggle: the birch bunch tips over

  to the ground: the shrubbery skews

  and splits: no birds sing: all is

  2135closed: nothing is left uncanceled:

  getting about is as much a hazard as

  a hap: I’m trying to think of nothing

  (the forecast is for four to eight

  more inches) but even nothing has a

  2140rim around it, which makes it a

  something: still, somewhere within

  that something is a “float” of

  nothing, a kind of resilient blob

  wandering strange: pure nothing: the

  2145nothing right next to the rim might

  _________

  be something but not farther in toward

  the central nothing: if you cut out

  a specimen of that, you would have

  a piece of nothing, but then the

  2150“piece” would have to be entirely

  mythical or it would be something

  again: it’s hard to care about these

  arduous ardors when the eggs are

  nearly over, and the snowplow is due,

  2155due and late: and branches

  crisscross the street, bringing down

  lines (O ye, in the future, can you

  imagine, our landscapes (along our

  streets and across our fields) are

  2160strung with wires, phone, electric,

  high-tension, so primitive!)

  nature’s disasters trim nature up

  shipshape (it is a ship): high wind

  which we had last week cut dead wood

  2165out of the trees, though it’s so

  early in the season, the lilacs still

  hold their leaves—so much worsening

  the burdens—and today’s snow brings

  down whole diseased or overextended

  2170limbs, so the trees get skinny and

  light, their catchments shrunk like

  _________

  sculptural wire: ocean-bottom

  storms of lava make pretty islands:

  cracking faults make room for oceans:

  2175continent drifts into continent and

  crinkles up razor-young peaks:

  nervous mornings produce so much

  speech: pacing helps, too: I am not

  patient: actually, twigginess has

  2180not been helpful for some of the

  trees: really twiggy trees catch

  heaps (and heaps) of snow and bend

  way down till their branches crack

  off or they pitch head first: on

  2185the way to the campus a while ago,

  I came upon a log across the road &

  on the way back, a tree fell across

  the road right in front of me, and

  later on Highland a bushy branch hit

  2190me right in the windshield: I said

  to myself, if I don’t get on home!

  everything now is in a still, white

  suffering, an unloaded tension, I

  mean, a tension in which the load

  2195has not been un: and the tension

  makes me tense: I don’t like to be

  cooped up: I don’t have any Snowbound

  _________

  resources: my typewriter’s my only

  outlet into this cramped-up strip:

  2200I don’t get any easing away before a

  margin cracks me stilted or forces me

  back in on myself: when I use up

  this tape, I’m not buying another:

  this is a dot upon which what

  2205has happened has happened

  43

  sometimes I get the feeling I’ve never

  lived here at all, and 31 years seem

  no more than nothing: I have to stop

  and think, oh, yeah, there was the

  2210kid, so much anguish over his allergy,

  and there was the year we moved to

  another house, and oh, yes, I remember

  the lilies we planted near that

  siberian elm, and there was the year

  2215they made me a professor, and the

  year, right in the middle of a long

  poem, when I got blood poisoning from

  an ingrown toenail not operated on

  right: but a wave slices through,

  2220canceling everything, and the space

  with nothing to fill it shrinks and

  _________

  time collapses, so that nothing happened,

  and I didn’t exist, and existence

  itself seems like a wayward temporizing,

  2225an illusion nonexistence sometimes

  stumbles into: keep your mind open,

  something might crawl in: which

  reminds me of my greatest saying:

  old poets never die, they just scrawl

  2230away: and then I think of my friends

  who may have longed for me, and I say

  oh, I’ll be here the next time

  around: alas, the next time will

  not come next: so what am I to say

  2235to friends who know I’m not here and

  won’t be back: I’m sorry I missed

  you guys: but even with the little

  I know I loved you a lot, a lot more

  than I said: our mountains here are

  2240so old they’re hills: they’ve been

  around around 300 million years but

  indifference in all that time broke

  itself only to wear them out: my

  indifference is just like theirs: it

  2245wipes itself clear: surely, I will have

  another chance: surely, nothing is

  let go till trouble free: when

  _________

  I come back I’m going to be there

  every time: and then the wave that

  2250comes to blank me out will be set

  edgy and jiggling with my recalcitrance

  and my consciousness will take on weight

  44

  every now and then I drop a bead of

  rolled snot in the philodendron and

  2255mold grabs it in the eagerest flare:

  first thing you know it looks like

  a hairy dead daddy longlegs: last month

  I planted a piece of peeled apple in

  there and several days went by before

  2260a growth intensely green at the soil

  level took it over: but then the

  apple, weeks later, got too dried out to

  nourish its vanishing, and the peak

  part still stands shrunken but white and whole:

  2265I should dry up
: stripping

  down is like being worked over with

  mold but, dry, one finds where form

  finds everlasting: because usually

  you know, spirit is temporalless:

  2270throwing in a few new words & stuff:

  _________

  should have said timeless: but

  everybody pronounces that: another

  choice is to give one’s sweet water

  to the undoing and not mock oneself