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The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

Page 48

by A. R. Ammons


  through use gave me in time one nice

  looking thing, if I must say so myself:

  really nice: I mean, perfect: not

  quite as big as wished but nevertheless

  2605a considerable consideration: I

  wouldn’t take anything for it and

  wouldn’t have then, either, grandma

  _________

  or not: it worked out fine: this

  is probably the beginning of my

  2610confessional phase: you see, I am

  just as lowdown good for nothing as

  you are, maybe lower: I’m so lowdown

  you’ll feel great thinking you’ve

  edged me out: go ahead: one

  2615thing you don’t get in the movies,

  porn flicks, girlies is the smell:

  yep: smell-free sex: in fact, you

  get no sex at all, just head fucking:

  I do not complain: you’d be surprised

  2620how little something can be and be

  better than nothing: and there are

  notions sometimes as persuasive as

  the flesh (and less smelly): but it

  is degrading to think of sex as the

  2625flesh because in true love it is the

  spirit that connects, and the feelings

  are divine, tending toward the sacred

  and they generate children, sweet

  little innocents in a sense:

  54

  2630in this life if you scramble into a high

  place you have to fall out (of a high

  _________

  place) but from a low place

  you don’t have far to fall: in either

  case you hit the ground, but in one

  2635case it takes longer and

  you hit harder: the difference,

  already noted, noticeable:

  old molly hare

  whacha doin there

  2640runnin thoo the cotton patch

  hard as you can tear

  old molly hare

  whacha doin there

  runnin thoo the cotton patch

  2645fartin like a bear

  I don’t know who holds the copyright

  on that: my father used to sing it:

  a peanut is a pea, not a nut: and

  the difference between a watermelon

  2650and a sweet pee is, you

  recall, twenty minutes: other

  names for peanuts are groundpeas and

  penders: also, if you slip into a

  low place, you haven’t had far to

  2655climb: arch up: an undistinguished placing

  conforms more nearly to the reality

  principle: the distinction that

  _________

  lifts you above the fortunate

  attracts bullets and clay-makers

  2660and money whose fluidity dissolves

  centers: lie (lay) low: frugality puts

  you above others (and comfortably

  below your resources) but interests

  few: hardly anyone resents or desires

  2665frugality

  55

  if I say I did it, did I do it or

  did someone else do or say he did it

  or did I imagine I did it or that

  someone else did: or did someone

  2670say he heard someone else say he did

  it: I take the pieces of action where

  I find them: judge them by the

  curvatures of their unfoldings, by

  the reasonableness of their scripture:

  2675it matters importantly who something

  happens to, I know you know, and

  if something was done, it can mean

  a lot if you or I did it: so don’t

  get me wrong: sometimes I did what

  2680I say I did—if memory serves,

  memory filtered through by invention

  _________

  and displacement: responsibility

  bears where it can be placed: so,

  oh, yes, I stick with a sort of

  2685reality: but let the writer go:

  let reality come true if it can at

  the center of his fictions: let his

  dreams be as if histories: let what

  went before come after: but I didn’t

  2690do it, I didn’t do it, they cry,

  sometimes until they gurgle in the

  rope or splatter the blade—and

  sometimes, what’s more, they didn’t

  do it: mostly, they did: some that

  2695did it laugh all the way home: it’s

  hard to distribute justice fairly:

  injustice happens: money talks

  56

  one good thing about being too late

  is like too late to worry: it’s too

  2700late for me to worry about making real

  money or getting to be well known or being

  loved: another good thing is by the

  time it’s too late to worry, one has

  accumulated enough pickings, shreds,

  2705passing fancies, busted hopes to lie

  _________

  down in, enjoying the drowsy

  disengagement of incompletions,

  blocked adjacencies, and discontinuities:

  what the hell: what was

  2710there ever to have won anyhow: an

  hour of sun: a leaf gliding toward

  a brook: a pussy hair behind your

  ear: can’t you just imagine what

  sunlight does to the high polish of

  2715a high executive suite, a slice of

  late light cutting across the carpet:

  it’s almost better to have somebody

  to have nothing with than have

  nobody to have something with: the

  2720value of things slides: Bill

  Gates probably can sit among

  windows and feel shades, nothing

  in the world his money can’t cheapen:

  whereas the hungry child seeing the

  2725dipper spill into his bowl knows

  the world’s dark deliciousness: you

  can die starved from too much as from

  too little but let’s vote

  precautionarily for too much

  2730fall is here: crows are up in the air,

  like leaves: they arouse

  _________

  clusters of argument, squalling out

  quick turns and dipping fluttery as

  if shot: the wind loosens crows and leaves,

  2735I mean, and nuts hit the

  ground and water jiggles in the brooks again:

  do you care for those tightly woven,

  gutter-rutted, stone-thick, unutterable

  poems artifice sets up

  2740to stall the mind: well,

  I often do: overdone, it gets funny

  though: a shuttle scuttle

  57

  stars, too, are often twinkle-eyed

  with tears and their after-midnight

  2745lights shine through windows, lights

  lasting till dawn’s rising voltage

  puts them out: brothers try to

  commit—or do—suicide, or sisters

  waste away with eating disorders:

  2750wouldn’t it be nice if the troubles

  of the world spared someone: then

  we’d have miraculous ones to look on

  in happy disbelief: husky ball

  players lose their touch or endorsers

  2755pale away: and the general gravel

  of the cosmos, no one even notes

  _________

  what becomes of that: only stars

  give point lit high enough for us to

  see the widespread evenness of

  2760disaster: of course, of course,

  there are thrills and kicks along the

  way: and stars illumin
ate those,

  too: we let stars get away with

  plenty of roughage because we do

  2765appreciate this focus: in their

  lives we see writ large hilarity &

  happenstance out of control, as with

  us: and so we do submit our wishes,

  our longings that rise into

  2770recedings beyond stars to local dust

  in a street sweeper: we nestle and

  nudge till we get down: we dicker

  with our own dicks and G’s and sip

  the sweet readout of difference

  2775into nothingness: we thank our

  lucky stars for their help, but ever

  more we thank our unlucky for the

  low, low rhythm that holds the world

  together, apparently

  58

  2780you dragass around: you know you’re

  on empty: the light has gone out on

  your vowels, blue-lit with hallucination:

  the slick has dried on your rhythms:

  the pulp of your poetry has drained

  2785juice-clear, prose having

  decided what’s to become of everything:

  it’s like, well, if, like, you pull

  the wings off a gnat, you have a nit

  or nittwit: but, of course, keeping

  2790on is the only thing to keep: stop,

  you sink through: imagine you can

  knock up a knockout, or knock a

  knockout up: redress and re-dress

  the backdrop: though it’s neutral,

  2795breezes fan, snakes strike: but it’s

  neutral: project upon it filmed

  rights: play or play with your

  piano: I have the dominant gene that

  curls my tongue: the

  2800trouble is that it then looks

  like a sow cunt: I look in the

  mirror and think had I a boar’s

  needledick I’d do it to myself in the

  _________

  slitified tongue: this enables me

  2805to project recessiveness and “get”

  the echo of mixed emotions: (the

  major macroeconomic is that more

  people sweat a raise than raise a

  sweat): easy reversals lead

  2810to wisdom: the great practitioners

  on Wall Street take a different

  tack, a take tack, no, I mean: for

  example, you run to the computer

  every day and buy and sell and lose

  2815your money, whereas someone takes

  the long view, does nothing, and

  gets rich: also lives long because

  his belly is not entangled, just full:

  takes all kinds: you be the kind

  2820not already taken: be doing something

  excusable, like for mankind or the

  arts, and under that shield get rich,

  be greedy, don’t look greedy: this

  is really good advice, coming from a

  2825skeptic: who taketh up poetry picketh

  up an unemployment form:

  poetry’s the wealth poverty

  _________

  buys: some of the wealthy have bought

  poetry but were poor in spirit or

  2830their parents sucked and they learned

  to: the great thing about brooks is

  that water moves like jaguars and

  gazelles but is dead: the dead unless

  ruffled by worms don’t move and dead

  2835impounded water except for a nibbling

  fish or two doesn’t move: but water

  which is like stone, dead, dances and

  sprays, flashes and dives like life:

  and what is so good is it is immortal,

  2840immortally dead forever so it can

  keep on forever going away and coming

  back, a great action at no expense

  to life, the sun an engine long-dwelt

  in the heavens: but not a dweller:

  2845just the spirit of motion animates

  water: it glistens: we are ourselves

  pools in a long brook: husked, we

  glisten, too, glisten and glisten

  59

  we’ll just be here while we’re here

  2850and then we’ll just be gone: things

  will appear uninterrupted either way:

  while we’re here the figure we cut

  _________

  will be as if vacant, and when we go

  the cutout we left will cave in on

  2855itself: alas, but still, still

  we cry—do we exactly understand

  that this was the way it had to be

  (yes, of course) or is this a trick

  maggots, too, fall for: what are the

  2860maggots for maggots: dinky little

  molds and bacteria: no, nematodes:

  some kind of flat worms: something

  tiny that squirms: maggots, tho,

  mostly—as we do not—turn into

  2865something else, flies, you know, with

  wings: that’s probably where we got

  the idea of angels from: we’ll fly

  away or flies will fly away with us

  or seed us with fly seed that turn

  2870into little blunt-ended nuzzlers:

  a meditation like this is somewhat

  melancholy: hopes of setting a bit

  of stuff aside out of the round are

  founded like other hopes on hope: we

  2875pour in the formaldehyde and brick

  bodies up tight from rain and stuff

  and more stuff but stuff happens and

  earthquakes and volcanoes and cutting

  _________

  floods grab stuff back into the swim

  2880and motion cannot be prevented from

  getting back whatever stalled in it

  a “moment”: our white wings will

  catch updrafts and we’ll float about

  effortlessly as vultures but have

  2885trouble pitching in trees, clumsy

  brogans no adaptation for chicken

  feet: we’ll land flatfooted on rims

  of the deepest canyons and we’ll

  pitch off into the air: we’ll sing

  2890and glide touching wingtips and just

  keep doing that: I suppose: how

  can leftover things keep building

  up and not deprive the circulations

  of their soup: alas, it is all made

  2895right: I’m terribly sorry: it is

  made right

  60

  it’s a brisk, bright fall day and

  from these two campus chycks passing

  by, I hear, “I’m always so uncomfortable

  2900in my winter clothes.” what do you

  make of that: I’m always sort of

  snuggled up in mine: it’s the winter

  _________

  outside that feels uncomfortable:

  but they’re thinking ahead (they’re

  2905young; looking ahead to discomfort

  isn’t as uncomfortable for them as it is for

  me, say): but is she more comfortable

  in fall clothes: if so, even more so

  in summer clothes: how comfortable

  2910would she be in nothing: if there

  is nothing in the heights but nothing

  I suppose we can dismantle the arcs

  and get down: hello, folks, here

  we are down here with the pills and

  2915pressures, shoe polishes and handsaws,

  leaking faucets, and TV shows: our

  longest view is to the next meal,

  sex event, pay day, job: what,

  what is certain, not to mention

  2920certain to last: what, is there

  yesterday’s pie and tomorrow’s pie

  but no
pie today (the man said,

  whoever the man was): curiously,

  it’s down here where there are so

  2925many things that there’s so little

  to say, whereas the heights, which

  hold nothing, conjure inexhaustible

  inquiry and dream: plenty to think

  _________

  about: sidled aside, I shuffled

  2930about for anything that might do:

 

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