by John Ashbery
Better to sleep on the docks
than in the linen closet of privilege, always
wondering what it was that woke you—I’ve known
that routine too, like a serial killer
with nothing on his mind, who couldn’t make eye contact
with you for all the gold in Scotland Yard.
You think of yourselves as having lived a life of amused tolerance,
woozy with doubts, at times, but buoyed by your
delusion that all this, guarded moments and all,
is part of some life-affirming élan vital. Well,
I’m here to tell you you’re as doomed as the hoariest
chink or octoroon, or the “anthropophagi,
and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.”
Would anyone like this oar? The special ends tomorrow.
Often over the bluff-infested coasts a warm
zephyr breathes. We forget about memorizing
our parts and retreat to the dressing room,
silly with relief and grief. What! Was it for this
I squeezed the tubes of paint
on your pristine palette, and is it
that I am going to be rewarded by something
other than a fatal sting? And the lads
and lassies assure you that such is the case, that
in any event no one ever escapes the swimming pool
without being shriveled to a prunelike consistency.
O beaters, how did you find my forest?
What will you do if I stay here
just for the hell of it? In any case
it’s getting late, cat burglars are astir, and something
smokelike in the wind. I’ll be
off now, the tide is running, the ship
writhing in the roads, and I must finish
my diary by midnight, or be fated
to continue this life into the next. O
brothers, sisters, friends, catamites—
it’s been a long and intelligent journey, hasn’t it?
If I ever found myself here again I’d do something
about fixing the holes in the landscape
and healing the sick, though there’s about
as much chance of that as finding a used lottery ticket in a dungheap.
Tell you what—
you continue on the road to House Beautiful
and I’ll strain my eyes in their sockets looking
for a single white wave of a hand in the distance
as my train speeds by. I was told not to get
into any of this, not to talk about where I came
from, or my mission here, but I’m tempted
to share a few secrets with you, though I guess I won’t.
Remember me to those assholes the judge
and the bailiff. Speak kindly of me to gossip columnists,
praising the achievements I was once noted for, that are
sprouting like Roquefort, or a zinc tree. OK,
worry, I’ll catch up to you in a minute, once I’ve
dusted off my shoes and finished adulating myself,
adoring my stretched reflection in the funhouse mirror,
and stopped handing out tracts that look like Chinese
takeout menus. I’m both bogus
and bold. Not to put too fine a point on it.
Fascicle
No one ever had to face such turmoil
in these days of riots and student demonstrations.
Don’t bet on it. “No one the governor recruits
ever passes muster,” she said. “And painted rooms are bonny.”
Nevertheless, I opened my attaché case.
“It’s enough to fluster
Hercule Poirot or Inspector Javert. Why,
it almost seems as if we are arriving
in a port of Cyprus, the damaged
storm in ruins, past the mole
and the breakwater to the incredible piles
of volcanic tuff no one esteems, if indeed
we’re here. Let’s see, my flotation mask
is in order, ditto my Cypriot currency (dinars,
no doubt—isn’t everybody?). My cocktail and ticket
are perfect. Not so the drops of sweat beading my
headband, but no one cares what you look like—
it’s appearances that count. But here in this
cultural demimonde I’ve been banished to, they’ll seize on anything:
earrings, a trace of luster on the broad swath
of evening, signed by a renowned couturier. If it weren’t
for living, that is being alongside almost everything
that happens and hearing thirdhand about the rest, we’d all
have rotted at our moorings eons ago, sunk to the mucky
bottom of this cretinous ocean. Say, did he tell you the one
about the flea and the cabdriver picking his nose,
or has he saved you for more august reunions,
under a turtle moon, its starched sheaves heaving? In truth
he knew not to what saint to address himself
when the last panhandler buzzed into view.
That were a churring time.” Beats me, I mean
why we’re not to make more of it, if you
know what I mean …
Five O’Clock Shadow
I
Don’t just stand there, Kiki.
You’re onstage. They’re all looking at you.
“Along life’s weary path I glide …”
Leda, when it came time
to consider the swan’s suggestion, humbled
her braces, brought success to heel.
Tell her half the story.
Then weeping on these shoals,
like an enchantress extruded
in bar light, overturned the fashion
shoot, brought dumb heterodoxy
out into the open:
“For seven years I twisted the splint
till the pain grew more or less correct.
I should die in the right page.”
II
Another time we were digging a fire trench.
Along came a fireball,
stopped, asked the time of day
and went politely on his way.
In the house they looked out:
Yet another hour had come;
the alcoves were deep with remembrance,
remembered piety. A woman offered fruit
mechanically. It’s just like the games of my day
which no one can authenticate anymore:
How many times do you kick the can?
How long must you remain blindfolded?
And we knew the flag was a friend,
forgotten ceremony, nailed to the floor,
climbing, tooth by tooth.
From the Observatory
When they had climbed the Valley of Thieves
and rested at the aleatory base camp
a horseshoe moon began to pierce the curtain of dreams.
It seemed there was something wrong with everything.
The greenhouse was ethereal and too far away.
A gnat ignited the harbor; it rose up gold and sloppy,
with too many seals to think about. The basement
was a dirigible. The Home Counties bristled at suggestions
of voyeurism and venery: “Was it for this you came?
To watch us writhe and cringe? Are you happy,
knowing the palace janissaries have subdued us?”
The cult of personality issued conflicting commands
that managed to puddle every surface.
It’s like it was before the flood: Nothing
is dry enough or wet enough. What’s needed is a sense
of invitation, to this or some other domed picnic.
But since we’re here, we might as well memorize the rules
for future reference. All other details
>
are as the exterior of this wall that reared us: ancient,
trapped in an understanding of the present, where submarines
gather, and eavesdroppers ply their trade.
And the riddle
unknotted itself; the second agreeable ordeal began.
Fuckin’ Sarcophagi
And when they had mounted it on the flatbed,
the dogfish requested a commuter’s ticket. I’m no longer feeling
any of it. Generations of toppled heads
have come home to roost in my priory.
The smell of doughnuts frying offers them minimal
support.
All those years with the tree’s rings growing around me,
the leaves in my face, branches obstructing others,
have learned me how one deaf animal forgets another
in the rush to light. And there on the threshold it forgets
its name, its very purpose. And allows septic deviance
to whittle away at the formatted intertext.
It’s as well the hygrometer was swallowed
by a tusked creature, as we never came here at all.
All those suds on the porch and the front walk
only meant that baby likes to blow soap bubbles
when not involved in anything more strenuous,
such as teething. She sees through the holes in my coat
imaginable dapper Dans who one day will become part and parcel
of the AstroTurf.
When I wonder weather it’s over between us, ever over,
why, a shy spiral announces your cue:
You too are to have nothing to do
for the next five hours.
Look, I’ve packed lunch …
Betimes the bêtises fall where they may.
Getting Back In
Melodies of the past, fibers, tangled tracings …
Getting back in is the easy part.
Being stuck in today isn’t.
What is this “today” you speak of so incessantly?
It’s where the rubber meets the road and they discuss
in one long fawning kiss. It’s the posse’s
new poster child. It’s … My system was downloaded
but bogus retorts are still coming out of it.
It’s pleasures and palaces. A commitment.
This is where the road tires and all vehicles
instinctively lean toward some breakdown lane
or other but there aren’t any. The police,
of course, are aware of this but don’t let on.
I see where someone was put in prison just for dreaming.
Sixteen long years. And when they let them out,
they go back to it. It’s as natural for them as copper moths
or striped cabanas in the rain forest. You do have got to
give credit to the organizers, though. Without them this whole thing
would be as chaotic as a clambake. And us with no spirits,
no place left to land. No airport wants us.
And if we get juiced and relax everybody wants us
for purposes of synchronicity. A single item is too many,
but a pair is just fine, they say.
Well, I’ve had it with the ’burbs.
From where I sit I can see hundreds of freight cars,
some of them painted bright colors, but mostly
they are of a dark sort of color.
It’s so lissom, the light! Rabbits everywhere …
Gladys Palmer
Do not go into Hawaii.
Even the price tags are afraid.
A bunch of wetsuits slapped a utility pole.
Something like a pupil
accosted me across from the mill.
The new wave of hijackings
resembles the others only in intensity. Otherwise, forget it.
We sanded the floors
and invited the ocean in.
The yellow pages promised free ginseng,
and a glorious spring morning
eloped with a tired, dirty afternoon from the end of winter.
Bubbles issued from people’s mouths
before the solons could do anything about it.
It was foul to be afoot then, or a trick knee.
The man and the woman wondered:
Shit, what about the lost amulet?
What about it? Closer than the side
of this week’s truncheon, communicable
as today’s newspaper, yet everybody
got a piece to take home: The difference was significant.
I told the truth (it’s best), but unfortunately I was the truth.
Come along, we’ll forget till tomorrow
feet over these smooth pebbles, the prisoner’s
last question.
Heavenly Arts Polka
She wasn’t having one of her strange headaches tonight.
Whose fault is it? For a long time I thought it was mine,
blamed myself for every minor variation in the major upheaval.
Then …
It may have been the grass praying
for renewal, even though it meant their death,
the individual blades, and, as though psychic,
a white light hovered just above the lake’s layer
like a photograph of ectoplasm.
Those are all fakes, aren’t they?
In slow-moving traffic a man acts like he’s going to be hit
by the stream of cars coming at him from both directions.
Like a cookie cutter, a streamroller lops the view off.
There are nine sisters, nine deafening knocks on the door,
nine busboys to be bussed—er, tipped. And in the thievery
of my own dreams I can see the square like a crystal,
the only imaginary thing we were meant to have,
now soiled, turned under
like a frayed shirt collar
a mother stitches for her son who’s away at school,
mindful he may not care, may wear
another’s scarlet-and-sulfur raiment
just so he take part in the academy fun.
And later, after the twister, slowly
we mixed drinks of the sort
that may be slopped only on script-girls, like lemonade.
Who knows what the world’s got up its sleeve
next brunch, as long as you will be a part of me and all what I am doing?
Hegel
Like a coffee table, the chair slides
across the polished floor—its aides have brushed its sides
again. How it shines! Hugs are interspersed with kisses;
the scrofulous interfaces with the electric clock.
It certainly is midnight
and for once it was early.
She said she had “dishpan hands”—no one
quite understood what she was talking about, yet issues
were skirted, no questions raised. Now when a peacock
stares out of the barnyard, no one mistakes it for a Christmas-tree ornament,
goes up to it and says, I liked you better in felt,
or was it at the Rangoon racetrack? But a bird
always has the last word.
I Saw No Need
I saw no need to paint the sky,
to cheer the runners passing by,
to let the lovely forest bleed.
I saw no need.
I saw no need to argue writs
with one who in a courtroom sits.
I saw the folly princes breed,
who saw no need.
I saw no need to cancel love—
Heavens, what was I thinking of?
I cannot read what others read.
I see no need.
I know the earth is out of whack.
I pine for boys whose name is Jack
who never pause to spill their seed.
They see no need.
> And when visible day is done
all start to run. Stand up
to it. They stand up to you.
Hey, you never know.
I came upon a birch tree once,
a softly swaying silver dunce
in whose black branches mist had spread,
and gazed, and left it there for dead.
I saw no need t’explain myself
as others have concerning pelf.
This ditty bland seduces me.
Enough! I’ll leave it by the tree,
the idling birch.
I saw no need to go to church
yet wearily I there did lurch
from time to time, and in the end
I felt its body like a friend.
Soon I forgot my mission’s itch
and at the same time ceased to bitch.
Ineffable beauty where are you
I said I’m coming for you
and even if we don’t match up
eventually we’ll catch up
one to the other, comparing notes
or jotting down our favorite quotes.
All passion’s spent; the evening dew
comes transitorily into view.
Tomorrow it will evaporate
and morning tigers seal its fate.
So, when it comes to choosing sides,
You be the one who’s using guides.
Refreshed, I’ll to my perch return
and leave these cherries in the urn.
I, Too
Happy thoughts weren’t made to last,
but it is their compactness that eludes us.
The built-in obsolescence of every nanny, every pram,
is a force from God that issues from us.
How could we not like it, watching it emanate
like a breath of witch hazel
or a grayish-purple shroud?
Something has got to be done to the way we feel
before we get completely numb, like a colossus
floundering in its own wake.
See these hands?
Really we must make it up to them
or they’ll take credit for everything we’ve accomplished
which they will anyway.
And what’s-his-face can sit on his porch burping
uninterruptedly—propriety isn’t hardy in this zone,
but that’s not his problem. In fact
he doesn’t have a problem. We, who see
around corners, into strongboxes, must wear
the guilt of our glancing. It’s another appurtenance,