The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  _________

  spiritual clothes and go off with the Lord: &

  10others of us, some in overalls, some in

  sack-print dresses, would just be given the old

  go-ahead: nobody left behind to look after the

  little dinosaur biddies or Silver, poor

  thing, shut up braying and whinnying in the

  15stable: the certainty of all this seemed to

  me, even as a kid woozy on the edge of question,

  to sort poorly with the advisability: I didn’t

  care that much, though, about disrupting

  farming: good Lord, worming tobacco, digging

  20up manure, lugging slops: (October is a

  lost April): (a matter of leaves, coming

  green or going gold, leaves and comings): I

  was so full of poetry this morning, the rose

  leaves of the maple tree reflected by the

  25rising light back onto the hardwood floors, and

  stuff, I starved myself at the piano with a

  haunting tune (of my own composition) and that

  just about brought tears to my wife’s eyes,

  and she was all the way back in the bathroom

  30fixing up to go off to the Farmers’ Market:

  but there is the frost on the ground: who can

  be rich, really, except in grief, water turned

  against everything it nourished, the sweet

  fluid become splintery, furry with death-

  _________

  35spicules: the big chrysanthemum bunch,

  somewhat compromised, the hanging impatiens,

  shot (my floozy neighbor said, impatiens is

  not gardening), the nasturtiums, really worse

  off: but the fire bushes, the flame bushes,

  40have you noticed them: when the chlorophyll

  goes, a red redder than the reddest rose

  burns them up! how exciting, how like the

  world’s brightest fucking blood: sensual

  grief: the old cliches of time: time that

  45seems so insubstantial, so weightless, how can

  it haul so much stuff off, where are the

  grappling hooks, the sliders and rollers, the

  lifters and blowers-away, alas.

  (1997)

  Between Each Song

  I once would have said my sister Vida but now

  I can just say my sister because the other

  sister is gone: you didn’t know Mona, lovely

  and marvelous Mona, so you can’t feel the

  5flooded solar plexus that grips me now: but

  you may know (I don’t know if I hope you will

  or hope you won’t—tossups between having and

  holding) but you may know someone of your own

  _________

  I don’t quite know the pang for as you do: I

  10know but don’t believe Mona is gone: she is

  still so much with me, I can hardly tell I lost

  anything when I lost so much: love is a very

  strange winding about when it gets lost in

  your body and especially when it can’t find

  15the place to go to, the place it used to find: Mona is

  in my heart in a way that burns my chest until

  my eyes water: are you that way: even in the

  midst of business I could think of caring for

  you for that: but my sister Vida and I used

  20to have to daub (we called it dob) the baccer

  barn: cracks between the uneven-log sides

  had to be filled airtight with clay so the

  furnace and flues could “cure” the tobacco

  with slow, then high heat: we would dig a

  25bucket of clay from the ditch by the road

  where streaks of white and red clay ran, add

  water for a thick consistency, then climb the

  rafters inside the barn and dob the cracks:

  can you imagine: kids: (perhaps it beat

  30empty streets filled with drugs): I REALLY

  THINK WE SHOULD GET IT OFF OR GET OFF IT

  (1997)

  Mina de Oro

  Old fools, you know, can’t tell where they are

  sometimes: they lose track of what is serious:

  (when it comes to the stock market, I don’t

  count my chickens even after they hatch:

  5trends in the night can sweep the coops away:

  excessive liquidity sloshes in great swells

  around the planet, gullywashing some guys and

  washing some others up onto the shores of

  splendor: great mounds of money generated

  10from money, money free of any derivation from

  commodity, can just send frail craft into a

  tizzy of bobbing: but, of course, if you

  catch a swell right and ride in with the combers

  you can be deposited on material shore

  15safely): (but, you know, them brokers and

  flimflam artists, them slick journalists and

  fee seekers, they start up a wind, like a

  typhoon of love of money (yo money), and the

  liquidity break your dam down and wash all yo

  20money out in the street: you have to watch

  them fasttalkers, they know what the weather’s

  like, and they changes it the way they want it:

  put a little money in something conservative,

  maybe a bond fund or a little bit of a stock

  _________

  25fund: how about a municipal: if you going to

  branch out, get a little GE, a touch of AT&T,

  and a couple of pharmaceuticals: look out for

  them highflying IPO’s and you better keep yo

  mouth shut cause somebody gonna find out you

  30got a dollar left:) my father said one time

  this old man lost his sow, she ran off, and

  he saw her tracks where she trotted by this

  old ditch: so he hid out behind some bushes

  one evening and about dark he heard something coming

  35and when it got close he jumped out of the

  bushes right onto the old sow’s back, but it

  turned out it was a bear, and the bear took

  off, just lit out, don’t you know: that’s

  what he said anyhow.

  (1997)

  Widespread Implications

  How sweetly now like a boy I dawdle by ditches,

  broken rocky brooks that clear streams through

  the golden leaves: the light so bright from

  the leaves still up, scarlet screaming vines

  5lining old growths high or rounding domes of

  sumac: how like a sail set out from harbor

  hitting the winds I flounder this way and that

  for the steady dealing in the variable time:

  _________

  old boys are young boys again, peeing arcs

  10the pleasantest use of their innocence, up

  against trees or into boles, rock hollows or

  into already running water! returned from

  the differentiation of manhood almost back to

  the woman: attached but hinge-loose, flappy,

  15uncalled for and uncalled, the careless way

  off into nothingness: where, though, but in

  nothingness can the brilliance more brightly

  abide, the ripple in a brook-warp as gorgeously

  blank as a galaxy: I dropped the mouse,

  20elegantly supersmall, from the trap out by the

  back sagebush, and all day his precious little

  tooth shone white, his nose barely dipped in

  blood: he lay belly up snow white in the

  golden October morn, but this morning, the

  25next, whatever prowls the night has taken him

  away, a dear morsel that me
ant to winter

  here with us.

  (1997)

  Above the Fray Is Only Thin Air

  How do you account for things: take night

  before last, a dry night, still, leaves from

  _________

  the maple by the driveway worked a solid

  semicircle on the driveway, really pretty but

  5thick: I raked it up in the afternoon: but

  last night around midnight a drizzle that

  turned slowly into a quiet rain started and

  kept up till day and after day: but not more

  than a few leaves fell, and plenty are still on

  10the tree: except right at the tip of some

  branches, now stick sprays, where, by the way,

  the hornets’ nest rides right out in the open,

  stiller than a balloon: but, I mean, why

  didn’t the weighted wet leaves come down, even

  15in bigger droves than on the dry night: my theory

  founded on guesswork is that the dry night got

  so dry it got crisp, and crisp cracked off the

  stems from the branches: and so the leaves

  just fell off: they didn’t need any breeze or

  20rain: is that wonderful: do you suppose it’s

  so: who knows: maybe the night of the crisp

  fall was really no more than a bear climbing

  up there and shivering the tree, shaking them

  down: I would just as soon know the answer to

  25some things as how a galaxy turns. . . .

  (1997)

  Home Fires

  I don’t know how big I’ll be tomorrow, you

  know TOMORROW, but I wasn’t much yesterday:

  now I am more than I ever thought I would be

  and that is fine with me, even if TOMORROW

  5I will be more (or less) because in many

  pertinent ways I’ll be far less TOMORROW than

  I am today: know what I’m saying: I’m saying

  it’s okay: it is better to be first at the

  finish line than finished at the first line

  10(tho that is hardly worse than last at the

  last line, unless, of course, that’s the

  grave’s rim, in which case one would not wish

  to be first in any case, unless, as in some

  natural disaster—an asteroid or an

  15artificial plane down—you might want to be

  the first to go): if you go, here is a little

  poem I have written for you . . .

  Chez Vous

  I don’t

  20know

  where you’re

  coming

  _________

  from but

  it’s

  25no place

  I

  care to

  visit

  (1997)

  Pudding Bush Sopping Wet

  Every now and then when I’m writing poetry I

  decide to write a poem: here following is one

  of my recent efforts:

  Hierarchy

  5The lard

  above,

  the fat

  guy,

  the big

  10cheese

  a poem repetition hampers: three times the

  poem tries to get off, only to be hauled down

  and started over, or continued in the same way:

  but on the other hand that kind of repetitive

  _________

  15punching socks the point home: try another

  one. . . .

  Nip Sipper

  If you

  stagger it

  20ought not

  to be

  just because

  you’re old

  this one is, of course, very clever and

  25alludes to the history of western civilization

  also to domestic abuse and also to persons

  unmentionable in high office dealing with

  significant affairs: but since my poems strive

  to dislocate themselves from social affairs,

  30I play connections diffidently: it is

  preferable to be an important poet by not

  saying anything.

  (1997)

  Spew

  Somewhere out toward the tip of the downswinging

  limberest limb the hornets attached their

  _________

  sturdiest chance: so now the nest (not heavy

  as a big mango which would crack off the branch)

  5like a paperlight airship bounds in the

  thunderstorms but holds for the fair stillnesses:

  (my point in all this is isn’t it odd that the

  hornets know to seek security (and safety) in

  the most givingly insecure settings): (how &

  10whether to apply this to human affairs, who

  knows how or whether): as for me turned out

  to pasture like an old mule, I graze among the

  skimpy thoughts for energy to keep me standing

  up, however rickety, however far down the reach

  15to the little feed: I remember this farmer had

  25 mules when tractors came along and the

  stalls of the stable emptied and two tractors

  sat there instead all winter, eating nothing:

  except for one old stiff mule, Pet, she was:

  20they just let her out to graze, never to be

  called for or hitched up again: I can see her

  now nibbling out on a pasture rise and thinking

  to myself well, there you are: here near the end of

  August, my wife’s hostas (as in, hosta la vista)

  25have spindled up into white shoots of bloom,

  some opening, some open, some closing, a long

  list of a serial event, so good for a cloudy

  morning: I can’t write any more “poems” like

  _________

  this poem I’m writing: I’ve “done” too many

  30already: who dwelling over the WWW can find in

  my poor pasture whatever but nettles, sourweed,

  and an occasional chicken snake—

  (1997)

  Vomit

  When I went out in the dewy morning this

  morning to see the hanging nasturtium, often

  dry if it doesn’t rain, there was a cool

  cicada sitting right there inside the rim of

  5the pot: what, I said, and nudged him with my

  pen, but I suppose not having been in song, he

  was asleep or spent or dead, mercy: he looked

  so big, the black-veined clear wings extending

  behind him, but I just now went out there again,

  10say, noon, and he isn’t there: I do hear a

  cicada, though, up in a pine, I think, and it

  may be he: or she: the sun is shining, the

  front has passed through, the humidity has

  dried up: it is at once cool and warm: I have

  15eaten a bellyful of fruit: also, a piece of

  plaincake: when I am toothless, I shall recall

  pound cake and milk: also hummus.

  (1997)

  Thoughts

  I was reading in the WORLD BOOK about A. E.

  Housman wherein it was reported that he died

  and was buried, so I said to myself, “Well,