by John Ashbery
Out of that longing we built a paean.
Now everyone who crosses this bridge is wiser.
It doesn’t tilt much.
Look, the shore is arriving laterally.
Some people literally think they know a lot,
gets ’em in trouble, we must rake out
cafés looking for rats and exploded babies.
There was one too many last week.
I don’t know if you’re coding.
The cop pulled us over
in a shawl. Why do you want to go around me
when there are other circulars
to be had for the looking?
I never thought about being grounded forever.
This is Mademoiselle. Take your hat off.
There’s no need, I was here last Thursday.
All the best creatures are thwarted
for their pains. He removed my chains deftly,
processed my passport with gunk.
Now two times five geese fly across
the crescent moon, it is time to get down to
facts, in the tiny park.
There were priests posing as nuns,
quinces and stuff.
Tilt me a little more to the sun,
I want to see it one last time. There,
that’s just fine. I’ve seen it.
You can roll me inside. On wings of what perturbation?
He came for the julep.
He was gone in an instant.
We cry too much over
drowned dogs.
He came in last week too.
Said he knew you or somebody else.
It’s the pain just of replying
that makes so many of them take up different lines.
Too many goods—we are spoiled indeed.
Had we learned to subsist on less
the changing of the world might be different,
earth come to greet us. I say, the chairs have grown back.
The couple sat in the dish drainer
pondering an uncertain future.
The kitchen had never looked bleaker
except for two chinchillas near the stove, a beaker
of mulled claret, shaving soap smelling
so fresh and new, like smoke, almost.
He says leave it here,
that he comes here.
OK harness the DeSoto,
we’ll have other plans
for newness, for a renewing, kind of—
picnics in the individual cells
so no one falls asleep for it, dreams
she is a viola, instrument of care, of sorts.
You should have seen him when we got back.
He was absolutely wild. Hadn’t wanted us to go
to the picture show. But in a way it was all over,
we were back, the harm had been done.
Gradually he came to realize this
over a period of many years, spanning
two world wars and a major depression.
After that it was time to get up and go,
but who had the get up and go? A child’s
party, painted paper hats, bowlfuls of lemonade,
no more at the lemonade stand, it sold out.
That was cheerful. A man came right up behind you,
he had two tickets to the door.
We need starve no more
but religion is elastic too—
might want some at some future date—
if so you’ll find it here.
We have to hurry in now,
hurry away, it’s the same thing
she said as rain came and stole the king.
UNDER CELLOPHANE
None of it helped much,
not even my beloved Philosophy,
sitting dejected, hands in her lap,
moving her head slowly from side to side.
“You naughty, wicked boy ...”
But I cherished you last night ...
It makes no difference, night is like that—
different, odd. The gains we rack up
dissipate in cold daylight, random
to the touch. Look how the faint green
of the willow shudders. Last night it was another story,
some kind of bird was singing.
I have this warble in my head
yet can’t get out of my long johns ...
And if it was over, from side to side, rocking
as a distraught mother rocks her cradle
mindless of the screaming babe,
and if it all comes to this, what good are we to others
when we do descend the stair?
Lamplight and this and that, caring
out of one end of the tube, with the other hand
fastening the necklace clasp—
Oh you had some fine times too,
morning like pasteboard reflecting the light
at the dancing houses, and
a world wondering, opening like a bud.
You remember I was locked in a closet
and when someone came to let me out,
said, what is this lovely garden,
but where is the even lovelier one I was just in?
So all things come to bust:
the Joshua trees piling ever higher
their grief under the conservatory’s blank panes,
the way you look tonight,
the way you spun your tires
in the wet gutter, on gravel, in the sand.
And take this last piece of medicine:
You were found with the rest of your litter
dying or dead. Only you showed
some appropriate curiosity
that’s gone now to fan the flames
of scholarly ethics, and that’s just about all we’re about.
REMINISCENCES OF NORMA
Knowledgeably, she is knowledgeable about many things—
the stars in their errant orbits, a bud
sliding over a hibiscus, a cloud like a frown
on the face of a teddy bear. And then, more stuff.
The inquisitors were endlessly patient, amused—
you had to be, in that business.
And if they liked your answer, you were free.
It didn’t have to be true. Streamers, party favors,
confetti—all were yours.
I know now why some have seen the sun sink
and it fed their hunger, they came on unabated.
Is it my lord’s pleasure to mate?
In that case we have pogo sticks of different sizes and colors.
But he may just go away
thinking it enough for that day.
Bicycle came barreling through the sleet—
OBSIDIAN HOUSE
The fruits are ripe, dipped in fire, cooked and tested here on earth.
—Hölderlin, translated by Richard Sieburth
as was proven
when they entered the house
in which the priest was,
moping and sincere
like all exegetes. Zeppelin
hovered o’er him, bushes fancied him,
but it was to be let down on earth
they all embraced singing.
Further, one was sure
one had come to pass,
yet no slovenly proof was
ever forwarded.
The lines swayed
backwards and forth,
housewives queuing up for lamb chops
and all that this rhythm implies
excoriated
from above.
The tourist metastasizes his position.
These palms are lucky being within us
no matter what the tyrant truth says.
All along my childhood’s wall
I hoped (was hoping) for this occlusion
but not passionately.
A cheerful emotion hatched,
soon population o’erran the land.
We de
scended gently toward boats
to hear the boatswain’s
song, sung from the capstan, about how life intrudes
on the plodding waves
and no one is certain of desiccation
as a great marrow bone is gnawed.
It is as though a feast had happened
in plain sight. We forgot about the
treasure, forgot it had happened
among the madness of whirling wheat.
OH EVENINGS
The man standing there, the other stranger,
slips easily into the background
as though stopping were the last thing on his mind.
Another, lacking the courage of his convictions,
went mad from drinking seawater. That was an absolute rout.
Oh evenings! Learning where to look it up
became an end in itself. To this purpose
trained fleas were engaged to do sums.
Ants on their way to happiness paused
over the numbers: Did it seem like three
or was it just three? Is this where I came in?
More likely we all need to be blessed for the hole
in his savage argument. Surely, passing through town,
we contributed a little to the regional economy,
received credit for showing our faces.
So what if the only theater in town
had been turned into a funeral parlor?
There are few things more theatrical than death,
one supposes, though one doesn’t know.
Which brings me to my original argument.
Ah, what was the argument? Keeping our places,
assuming no more credit than what is due
our tame luster, our positive shine. Then people will go out
into the city, spreading germs, living like it was last year.
INTRICATE FASTING
This little bridge
three of them
blasted a recess in the rock
hoovered the mountains
played with a squirrel called Scrawny
(hangnail on the forefinger of Death)
a hundred yards from my home
what home you haven’t got a home
I do so have a home
Mottled later the pattern recedes
into my marvelous life
Hey how are you life
never been better
that’s good
’cause I want you to take care of yourself
understand
Yeah I understand
Aw for the love of Pete
The pattern’s got on mushrooms now
on the clothes of aborigines on magnets
They are sending a boat for you a
private launch
Tired of feeding the muskrats in this shithole
getting ready to tidy up and go
leave this wooden structure that doesn’t love me
Wait there are one or two small items to regulate
before you can go
I repeat I want my life out of here
dissolved in memory
Bring on the aromatherapy
boys there’s a job to get done
Me always in the middle
me whining
me probably not such a nice person after all
me on the stadium
me persiflating in the dire blue strait
me up to my ankles in woe
me rejoicing in the realization of my perfectibility
Loggerheads come on down
They’re waiting for you
in the cabin
this way please,
And that should be about right—
ALONE, I
know of him. I don’t want
to speak of him. He’s brilliant.
His underwear is radiant.
The Davis Cup
came apart in his hands. A seasoned jester.
A basket case. Mother brought the children.
We all survived tennis.
The gale picked up.
Buildings waved in it, and the tentacles
of a giant squid, seeking a memento
lost some years ago near the Donner Pass.
Seriously, I want my memento back!
The cabin cruisers of morning
edge tentatively closer—
why, it’s all a sham!
Prince Charming’s dropping cigarette ash
on topiary chessmen. The ugly sisters are uncertain.
Cinderella is out. Period. Gargoyles are in great demand,
but if so, why say so? You’ll come back, with childhood lusting
after evil groceries, and more of them to take care of.
Youth is wasted on the old.
Like I said, the days, these days, come calibrated.
WINTER DAYDREAMS
On the boulevard I passed a giant squid.
It manifested but a puny interest in me
or its surroundings, though one suction cup
thoughtfully grazed a ring of spikes around a boulevard tree
like a monocle one puts down absentmindedly
on the page of a newspaper and words like
worker ants quickly spring into action:
“It was not the FIRST TIME THE accused has been so solicited.
By his OWN ADMISsion four other rumpuses were given rise to
after that first YEar ...”
I was almost home then, by subterfuge or sheer pluck.
In the underbrush a walrus crows,
all decency shed, or shredded.
Little wonder that home is a bright place to be
if living’s your thing.
RUNWAY
We crawled out of the car
into the rest stop. Lady Baltimore cake
was served by Madame du Barry look-alikes.
“Don’t hurry, Mr. Executioner,” one chirped,
pressing the unwanted crumbs against my lips.
“It’ll all be over in a second,” she added encouragingly.
Red Skelton asked me if I had a book coming out. He seemed drowned
in lists of trivia and itching-powder dreams—
the kind that make you wake up
and then sort of fall back into sleep again.
His brother was cleaning up after the elephants. He
wore a crisp white uniform. Could have been a soda jerk,
or just a jerk. My scented glove offends
the daintiest among them, for they have no recourse
but cries of old London—an exhaustive repertory,
one first thought, but soon its coda reared—
a clutch of mordant shrieks.
I supposed it was the witching hour.
Nothing unusual happened. Soon we were leaving home
forever, to be pitched about on storm-tossed seas,
flagrant to be back amid multiple directions. For though there are some
who can live without compasses, it dissolves all complexity
if one is perpetually in the know. Sleep, directions—that’s all
I need at my chaste fireside, to take in the sights,
just as the wind starts and darkness longs
to take us down a peg.
RANDOM JOTTINGS OF AN OLD MAN
Like a fool, I let him into my house,
and he began dropping jottings everywhere.
Where once crepe-paper flowers had been,
jottings overflowed the basin into the water closet.
Urban affairs had kept him—
something about a rendezvous with kelp. “Hurry,
the paths of nature are creeping
to the corrugated tooth. And it’s a blitz of old stars,
tonight!” Something in me leaned into the vacant doorframe.
It was a still life of bottles and a jar
that once had held cold cream. We mustn’t wait here
for him, that’s what he
wants, and
if we do so he’ll want to eat us.
No more us to be with in the morning,
among the cups and shards. No more sticky places on the railing.
We held hands there too, once, for years, watching the
palms move out into the harbor.
The pianola never recovered from the loss.
Today the air is bright again and fresh with pods.
No mourners were sighted on the post road.
He came down to us with relaxed meaning in his grin,
cudgeled, cajoled us, told us breezy stories
about a widow in the henhouse.
After all regrets have been pocketed, the counter wiped clean
of terrible fingerprints, assuredly one moves westward
into sheepherding country. The ranchers won’t like it,
but they’ll let us live, closer to dying
than many insects are now, attracted by the chiming and gleams of the cash register.
Other oaths, other options will follow
in the wake of spring.
Millions of mullions waken, gesticulate to us.
HER CARDBOARD LOVER
The way you look tonight
is perishable, unphotographable, laughable. Sometimes
dyslexia strikes in late middle age. You are
the way I look tonight. At last
my love has come along.
And you are mine at last.
Slowly the orchestra wives pick over the set,
go behind a wall. The big smiley man is thinking,
thinking he has an IDEA! Well, if he says so,
You gotta believe him. One orchestra wife comes back.