As We Know

by John Ashbery

  The staves for the hull of some desolate

  Ship; rather, it is in the disrepair

  Of these lives that we not find despair

  But all that nourishes and comforts death

  In life and causes people to gather round

  As when they hear a good story is being told

  And makes us wish we were younger but also cherishes

  Our advancing years, and to find there no fears.

  The tower was more a tower inside a house.

  Even its outside (tendril-clogged crannies)

  Was shaded from the view of most.

  It grew chaste, and slim, like a prism

  In a protected, secular environment

  That overlooked the torment, fogs and crevasses

  Of orderly religion. That house

  Grew all alone in a desolate avenue

  (Avenue so shady)

  That people began to forget coming to

  Long before its present state

  Of patched-up oblivion, and even

  In those days were those who remembered back

  To what seemed a state of true freedom:

  Bopping down the valleys wild, beaks

  Tearing the invisible ear to shreds

  But was actually a rudimentary stage

  Of serfdom dating from the Silver Age.

  Now, however, that house was as it was

  Never going to be: a modest yet firmly

  Rooted pure excrescence, a spiritual

  Rubber plant:

  A grave no one wanted to visit

  Which remained popular and holy down to the present afternoon,

  Something which nobody in particular

  Was interested in, yet which mattered more

  To the earth’s population in general

  Than practically anything they could think of.

  It was history just as it disappears in the

  Twilight of yesterday and before it

  Materializes today as everything that is

  Fresh, young, and strange, and almost

  Out of the house and halfway down the street—

  An index, in other words, of everything

  That is not going to and is going to happen

  To us once we forget about its progress

  And actually begin to feel better

  For having done so.

  It goes without saying that

  To have it make sense you

  Would have to belong to all who are asleep

  Making no sense, and then

  Flowers of the desert begin, peep by peep,

  To emerge and you are saved

  Without having taken a step, but I

  Don’t know how you’re going to get

  Another person to do that. It all boils down to

  Nothing, one supposes. There is a central crater

  Which is the word, and around it

  All the things that have names, a commotion

  Of thrushes pretending to have hatched

  Out of the great egg that still hasn’t been laid.

  These one gets to know, and by then

  They have formed tightly compartmented, almost feudal

  Societies claiming kinship with the word:

  (If on a priority basis however

  It takes longer to catch them)

  And their age flows out of time, is left

  Like a bluish deposit on the brown ploughed fields

  That surround our century: like the note of a harp.

  The phosphorescent spring fails, and newer,

  Numbered days come up. The wind pulls at

  The leaves of the calendar, peels them off one by one

  In a fitful expression of what time is like

  As it goes by, that’s like a look

  Out of a window, and then the moment has gone away

  From the window The vast quantities of scum

  Did not materialize. Only the sterile minuet

  Proceeds at an always altered rate

  Leading to bad feelings here and there

  But the main feeling is safe and out of reach.

  Love is different.

  It moves, or grows, at the same rate

  As time does, yet within time:

  The waxing is invisible, and can never be felt

  Outside time, as a few things—happiness,

  For instance—can. As perennial as time

  Is, and as insipid to the tongue, yet it

  Is built in another street; such luminescence

  As it has, it takes from the idea of itself

  Each of us has, and knows not, except

  To recognize, and feel secure again about its growing:

  I mean that it is a replica

  Of itself, which is itself the replica,

  Counterfeited from itself, which is something

  False, yet true, like the moon, and whose

  Earthly reflection is of a truly

  Hair-raising solidity, like the earth

  Dissolved in the sun, suffused with a kinetic

  Purpose it could never have for us

  Unless we dreamed it. It is, then,

  Gigantic, yet life-size. And

  Once it has lived, one has lived with it. The astringent,

  Clear timbre is, having belonged to one,

  One’s own, forever, and this

  Despite the green ghetto that intrudes

  Its blighted charm on each of the moments

  We called on love for, to lead us

  To farther tables and new, surprised,

  Suffocated chants just beyond the range

  Of simple perception. These, brown

  Motes, may unclasp themselves like

  Japanese paper flowers at any moment,

  Rending themselves into a final

  Fixed appreciation of themselves and whatever

  They were going to be confronted with

  Lest the politicians despair of its ever

  Becoming a diamond that gives back the night

  Into its smallest box and learns to live

  With itself, like a true feeling.

  III

  But, what is time, anyway? Not,

  Not certainly, the faces and pleasures

  Encrusted in it, the “beautifully varied streets,”

  The wicked taunting us to some kind of action,

  Any kind, with hands partially covering

  Their faces, to hide or to mock us, or both.

  No, these things are part of time,

  Or are rather a kind of parallel tide,

  A related activity. And the markings?

  Some say that the measuring of time

  Is a recognition of what it is, but

  I think the things that are in it

  Are more like it, though not quite it.

  Actually what is in it is controlled

  And colored by the units of measuring it.

  That summer jog you had

  A long time ago

  Is probably it, it fits so

  Neatly over it anyway, nobody

  Could ever tell the difference.

  And what was said

  All afternoon, long afternoons

  Ago, whatever it was, and it

  Was something special, you know

  You really can remember it.

  I wanted to forget it but it was like

  Not remembering it and having the whole

  Force of it brought home to you, and who

  Wants that? Who cares, anyway, about

  What it is or what it was like?

  You must be mad to care. Yes,

  I am mad, I think, and I do care.

  I can’t help it. I am mad,

  And don’t care. But it will not remain

  Any more outside of me for all that.

  It is the marrow of my thought

  That all night I stand up chewing,

  Trying to remember things, mostly things

  I’
d forgotten, and who

  Remembers these? And also

  Some things I

  Actually remembered, and here I am

  Trying to remember them all over again, to have

  Them live up to me.

  And it is as it was when I was a kid:

  The moment stays on, but is

  Lacing up its shoelaces or engaged

  In some other form of maddening and hard to

  Notice activity, but it gets its work done,

  And still it can stay it has stayed

  Around long enough to count for that

  So that it is I who have aged without

  Having done anything, certainly nothing

  To deserve it, like a lost cause.

  I would just love to go

  Would love it

  And you too want to go, with me,

  And there is no reason not to, nothing

  Keeping us here, we

  Can go out into the street

  Where nobody is, no dirt

  Any more, and climb to the lower edge of the sky

  And wait there, and soon

  Someone will come to take care of us.

  All I want

  Is for someone to take care of me,

  I have no other thought in mind,

  Have never entertained any.

  When that day comes I’ll go gladly

  Into whatever situation or room you want me in

  To take care of.

  And meanwhile I’ll wait, obligingly, full

  Of manna and joy, for that to take place

  Which it will, soon.

  But why you

  May ask do I want someone to take care of me

  So much? This is why:

  I can do it better than anyone, and have

  All my life, and now I am tired

  And a little bored with taking care of myself

  And would like to see how somebody else might

  Do it, even if that person falls on their face

  In the attempt.

  When leaves pass over, and then ice

  And finally warm, bottled-up breezes

  I’ll notice how it has all seemed the same until now,

  This very moment, and as a

  Duck takes off into the nether blue,

  Find my rationale or whatever, something

  Inside these movements all around me that

  Enclose me loosely like a cage with the bars

  Wide enough apart to walk through

  Into the open air, onto God’s road, in the blond,

  Shambling sunlight, and look back

  After all that, thinking how fortunate

  It has all been on the whole, and how, though joy

  Has been lacking, and that severely on occasion,

  Happiness has not. I must

  Make do with happiness, and am glad

  To do so, as long as everyone

  Is happy and doesn’t mind. The car

  Drove back to get me, through miles and miles

  Of mud ruts and mangrove swamps, and stopped

  And I got in and it drove away

  To a slightly less flat land where you

  And I can build a new life together on the shore

  Several inches above sea level as the blue

  Whitecaps on the charging waves come foaming in.

  The Americans, with a sigh, never call it

  By another word than its name. O

  People who loiter by the Pacific,

  Whose swaggering insouciance might convince

  If left to play, and who can never lie,

  Not even from the truth, how is it

  With you, nestling all of you on one side?

  The buildup predicted by others never

  Quite matriculated, and now some of you

  Are in this impasse, preparing to stay, while

  Others straggle here and there, finding

  Food, shelter, deserts, and in the tall

  Tales some kindling, an advantage, and

  You never look down.

  The narrator:

  Something you would want here is the

  Inexpressible, rage of form

  Vs. content, to show how the latter,

  The manner, vitiates the thing-in-

  Itself that the poem is actually about

  And which, for this reason, cannot

  Be considered the subject. Living

  On the tranquil slope of an inactive volcano

  All these days which group themselves

  Into decades, consuming

  The egg puddings of each one of these days

  Is like unto form as subject matter

  Perceives it through the cracks in its

  Makeshift cell, and knows

  There is light and activity outdoors to which

  It can never contribute, but of which

  It must needs always be aware, and this

  Oozing sore is progress, slow

  And miserable at times but magnificent

  In its conception, in theory, and may never

  Be anything more than this, but knows

  About itself. Luckily, the object

  Keeps making itself known to the opinions

  About form and remains strong and warm

  Long after it has gone out of fashion

  And so never ceases, even in its earliest

  Days preceding its demise, to be a runic

  Maquette of the ideal poem-construct

  Even after it has finally washed its hands of all

  Notion of form, pleads ignorance or conflict

  Of interest, and releases Barabbas to the

  Delighted distraction of the rabble whose

  Destiny is always to be of two minds

  About everything and will end up on your doorstep

  If you don’t watch out:

  You private yet public excuse for a still

  Active poetasting writer but whether what

  Is lasting in your work will last is the

  Big question: it’s poetry, it’s extraordinary,

  It makes a great deal of sense. It starts out

  With some notion and switches to both, yet

  The object will be partially perceived by the forms

  Around it it is responsible for.

  Note that, in the liturgical sense

  Of history, the way I see it, we are falling down

  In our duty toward the dustman’s spasms, derelict

  And decrepit as regards the outside world.

  Deduce a spasm? Aye, a very

  Insomniac’d tear it down so as to rebuild

  And resell it. Tear his tattered ensign

  Down? I don’t know, I thought it looked nice

  Hanging overhead, though I could

  Be wrong. Valentine, I need you,

  The mice in the plaster disturb all my reasoning

  On this vale, this slope. The outer districts

  Were succinct, full of enough plans,

  But on the interior was the abysm, no

  Invitation available, nothing about

  The plodding fever that grew him, and the worries

  That came after. No clue.

  In industry we are persuaded that we may in some

  Connection contribute a certain stone or effort

  And this lazily winds away over the hill.

  Or say that between the effort and the screws

  Some scorpion intruded, and to top

  It off a storm interfered with the rescue efforts

  Blurring them? What then? What do you make

  Of the red traffic light turning green to admit

  A few cars farther on in the shuffle when night

  Binds the tubing with rain and you

  Can see yourself only as you used to be in college?

  Make you mine

  Valentine

  Feelin’ fine too if consumed

  With energy to be mad and go on


  Confessing even if it means that the sought-after

  Absolution be rescinded after a time and those who

  Looked silently at you for a while direct

  Their gaze downward to the sunlit

  Tundra. And you go out to the party

  As toes slip into shoes

  And I am not just left on the corner

  But am as the traveling salesman of a joke

  With a permanent hard-on and no luck and

  All these samples in this here suitcase. Wanna see ’em?

  Otherwise, why, we don’t know too much. Fellow was over

  Here recently from the British Isles,

  Wanted to see something of how the life goes

  On. He never made it back. Well some of us

  Enjoy that way too as though we knew

  Life was a picnic or parade down under the

  Hassles and disrobing, the dust,

  But now well we pretend to see otherwise

  Into the great blue eyes of concrete that best

  Our city, in the time of industry, and so

  Panic slowly in the vegetal heart of things

  Until told to disconnect the operation.

  No wonder so many of us

  Get discouraged, know not where to turn.

  The truth is that nowhere in Europe,

  India or America is this a straight line

  Drawn, vertically, from one point to another

  So as to connect them and in so doing

  Provide a lot of fun and refreshment

  For the students so they may never

  Feel insecure again. Such a line may exist

  But it would be horizontal, like the Northwest Passage,

  And not connect people up with anything else.

  It’s a wager, and emptiness, and though warm

  And the color of baked loaves in the sun

  It has no idea of nourishment or where

  You should go.

  Its idea is that the Latin text

  Might also have existed in German or be so close

  It doesn’t matter any more and the cottage

  Be shut up at the end of summer and be there

  Come early or mid-spring, but this

  Presupposes a helpless mankind pigeonholed

  With a rival deity so that neither can make

  The hands of the clock move and it all goes down

  In darkness, with the sun. To the supreme

  Moment then, but it spreads out in sullenness

  Over a vast tidal plain to dissipate in what

  It is not even sure is horizon, is nothing but

  Images. Earthly inadequacy

  Is indescribable, and heavenly satisfaction

  Needs no description, but between

  Them, hovering like Satan on airless

  Wing, is the matter at hand:

  The essence of it is that all love

  Is imitative, creative, and that we can’t hear it.

  Oh, once

  A long time ago, in towns and cities

  The line was different. We lived