by A. R. Ammons
beads, flameless, racing
1305around, splitting, dying,
turning fiber into ash:
held activity:
let’s have faith to go
ahead & see if anything
1310will happen:
maybe the tape will run out:
(looks a long way off:
Muse! Muse! fiery
woman, what
1315you got to tell me?
tell me:
I feel weak so
much tape remains:
my back’s getting sore:
1320I don’t sleep good
with this going on—slept
pretty good last night:
woke up once
into a country of dreams:
1325wanted to remember them:
but mostly cloudy was
too bright, even,
for them: it was
a country, I think: great
1330many people: & no news
of my book at the pstffce
again this morn: so I
don’t feel
strong about
1335things: I
need plenty of help:
the crusty world
takes no notice:
Muse, what must we
1340do to hit the top:
it’d better
be good: give a little,
will you, please?) (I’m
bushed:)
1345but you can do worse
than be a singer of verses:
(I’m the biggest
fool that ever was—
assertion’s not the
1350way to the top, you’re
a little round fool—
to follow you off into
these woods: who are you
anyhow? some kind of a
1355prickteaser?)
& so & so & so &
so & so
&
so & so & so & so so
1360(some kinuva sans merci?)
lunch: hot dogs and baked
beans again: swell:
2/23: 11½¢ a can: cheap:
hotdogs run you around—
1365oh let’s see:
this morning’s coffee &
a chocolate fudge cookie:
maybe 30¢ altogether:
& all
1370that energy
turned into verse
will bring
you
about
1375four condemnations:
transformations!
metamorphoses!
mitochondria!
hell’s bells!
1380how my back hurts: even
by concentrating, I can’t
feel any presence
to my balls: missing:
wd it be masturbatory if
1385I if I
touched the area
briefly
just to make sure?
two cool tight weights!
1390thank you:
thank you very much:
if I had a flute: wdn’t
it be fine
to see this long thin
1395poem
rise out of the waste-
basket:
the charmed erection,
stiffening, uncoiling?
1400anyways, that wastebasket
is coiled full: wonder if
I should stomp
in it?
in & out: weaving in &
1405out: a
tapestry, looking for all
the world
as if it were alive:
(break we that watch up)
1410just took a ride out
to the refuge: 100,000
birds: mallards, grebes,
teals, herons, Canada
geese &
1415two excellent flyers
from which there is
no refuge:
one, the short-necked,
long-tailed red hawk: he
1420browses the marshes &
for the little bird,
little bird
he is carefully looking:
& way overhead, turning,
1425the quiet, black
vulture:
two avenues flesh
can take: the tight red
& the loose dark meat:
1430red ambulance
& black hearse,
brazen reminders: and the
birds fly among, regarding
& regardless:
1435the trash collectors came
while I was gone &
took the
week’s waste away: we
are purged: even
1440a house has the incoming &
outgoing energies
& losses by which it
is maintained:
the garbage truck
1445says on the back
“We aim to serve,
not disturb”:
sophisticated
assonance
1450&&&&&&&
intellections are
scaffolds, trellises
we wish some vine of
feeling would take to
1455& possess
completely:
spider build
a circle
hung in
1460the squares of: bird
light on & sing from
the top of:
we build them even
for the windsong’s
1465tenuous life:
chance
a vine will ramble up it
busting into leaves & roses,
giving the robin a place
1470& making all the air
around
fragrant: we build these
structures because we
have hope, at least:
1475we’re
flat & lifeless,
but these erections,
they have hollow spaces,
room: we mean
1480to change—that is,
a sprouting is going
to go on: good, bad, &
indifferent are gonna
clutter up all around,
1485rise through the
lattices
of held space
and sing all
together, rose,
1490thorn,
smear of birdshit:
gonna rise
right up out of the
ground
1495where the dreams wait
and be red & gold
and laughing to beat the
band:
intellections are
1500bowls we hope to fill:
motions on the
prowl:
don’t
cut them
1505down or bust them up so
the water spills
& the vine hunts
aimlessly over the ground:
do
1510not be impatient with us:
we’re coming along &
meantime
entertain yourselves with
the dry beauty of our
1515joists & timbers, slats
& designs:
if nothing ever breaks
into leaf
still we
1520meant to encourage
the vine: we like
the call of the
robin & his early visit &
the color of his hen’s
1525eggs &
the way he stands on the
lawn, erect—
dressed for a wedding:
intellections have a use,
1530don’t think they don’t:
if the vine couldn’t
find a natural tree, what
would become of it? if
structure without life is
1535meaningless, so is
life without structure:
we’re going to make a
&n
bsp; dense, tangled trellis so
lovely & complicated that
1540every kind of variety will
find a place in it or on
it: you just be
surprised: &
forgive us:
1545who mean song
direct & fierce:
(this day
ended
in spite of all
1550mostly sunny)
a dark night of stars
ensuing:
help me:
I have this &
1555no other comfort:
the song,
the slight, inner
unmistakable song you
give me
1560and nothing else! what
are you,
some kind of strumpet?
will you pull out on me?
look: I have faith: I
1565have faith: come or go:
I’ll always love you:
I have nothing else:
I have
nothing else besides you:
1570will you tear me
to pieces? I’ll go
on without you, until
you come again:
then
1575in the flare of song
we’ll make a common flame:
if it ain’t one fantasy
it’s anothern: where
are you, reality?
1580come out of there:
you drift around in the
background, drooping
like a suckegg dog:
probably I’d like you
1585all right
if I could get up close
enough to know you:
are you pieces of things
not quite fastened?
1590what’s your face like?
frowns &
bitters?
witchy?
scrawny?
1595warty?
withery?
maybe I’ve given you a
horrible mask
and behind that you’re
1600beautiful: or
is this another dream,
reality’s dream?
then, is reality to be
free of fantasies, those
1605I hang between us,
those I cast on you?
fact is, I’m having
this conversation with a
piece of paper!
1610and “you” are a figment
of imagination and “you”
have no mask
& if you did
no face
1615wd be behind it:
all this is just coming
out of my head:
the factory of fantasies:
some beautiful, some
1620terrifying,
some this, some that—but
all, paper & thin air!
a hundred dragons
and furies, satyrs &
1625centaurs—and one
Muse!
get food:
get water:
get sex:
1630bank account, nice car,
good address, retirement
plan, investment portfolio,
country-club membership,
monogrammed shirts, summer
1635home, cabin cruiser, big
living room (furnished
modern)
Money
Power
1640Food
Water
Sex—and who needs
paper conversations,
words revved up in a
1645fine motion and a headful
of dragons?
reality, I’ve got a feeling
you can be awful nice! but
if the only reality
1650I can get is a spare,
hard-bought one, why
turn on the fantasies and
let there be gorgeousness,
color & motion,
1655red & gold fabrics
and fine illusioning silks!
the man with bills to pay
dreams with a Muse!
reality is
1660knowing what you want
and how
to get it:
12 DEC:
clouds came in soon after
dark last night, and today
1665broke fact & prophecy
as snow turning into rain:
the starlings sit
like rainsheds,
vertical in the gray
1670trees: two jays
search the ground:
as
it neared midnight last
night, I felt
1675pulled to go out
and hunt the roosts of
birds, flush them & hear
the shrieks of panic,
blind beating wings:
1680I wanted to know
what birds do at night,
how they
handle surprise, of
weasels, foxes, snakes:
1685I wanted to know
if they’re adequate
to the night:
I wanted to hear them
settle down
1690as I turned away, feel
the sweet emptiness
of their panic:
yesterday at the refuge, I
saw a fingerling,
1695crosswise
in a rising gull’s beak
shiver at both ends:
and last night, after
anger & a family tiff, I
1700suffered a loss & breakage
of spirit, blankness
as of plateaus: my “poem”
turned to incontinent
prose, unburned by spirit,
1705and this occupation
with a rolled
strip of paper
blackened to
obsession, senseless,
1710slightly mad: the Muse
cleared out, leaving an
empty house:
but she’s back with me
today, I think: I hear
1715a little voice
singing
under my brain, and I know
she’s there,
modest & faithful:
1720at the postoffice, no news:
nothing is out there
in the world: or it’s
all turned to concrete:
I’ve won no battles & lost
1725none:
am engaging no
realities:
cause enough to stop &
tear: cause enough
1730to sleep today, rest my
back & brain: except
that song itself
is enough, needs no
appeals beyond itself,
1735tightens fantasy
into matter
to outlast
this day’s real concerns:
soundless mist,
1740collecting, sounding
in the gutterspouts:
the saliva bed sucking in
my pipe, the moaning suck
of a dying bird:
1745the burry buzz of a
distant, peripheral plane:
the yellow, octagonal
pencil, rocking as I write:
the air & surface burn
1750of cars on Tilton Rd—heat
kicking on & off, baseboard
cracking, freezer
wheezing—silence,
broken by keys:
1755*
***
*****
***
*
1760clusters!
organizations!
*****
*****
*****
1765shapes!
)/(/(/)/)/(/(/)/)/(
designs!
close suspension of
cloud: not a break or
1770beam: the jay
jumps around in the naked
/> sumac thicket, squalls,
complains, stares at a
head of sumac-seed,
1775pecks it violently, as
with contempt: what a
jar, moist rattle: the
seed-head comes still
again, indifferent:
1780the crown-of-thorns has
had so little sun, the
flour-flowered spike,
opening, is
pale pink
1785that in an outside
summer sun would be
blood red:
not much green
on the walls of
1790the aquarium: the snails
are sluggish (!)—
the sky is like
neon lighting, a
ceiling of light
1795without origin, no
fierce disc
radiant, recognizable
source: equal diffusion:
and when
1800the Florentines painted
radiant populations in
the heavens, they were
not wrong:
each of
1805us,
says modern science, is
radiant,
tho
below the
1810visible spectrum:
paradise will
refine our radiance
or give us better sight:
we’re fallen
1815now:
we may be raised into
knowledge & light:
lower would be
longer & longer wavelengths
1820to dark’s undisturbed constant:
may we
not go there
but ever & ever up
singing into shining
1825light:
but not too high:
there’s a zone we
do best in: beyond
on either side, we
1830go by instruments
and artificial atmospheres:
a stark way:
we are, as bodies,
“localizations”
1835supported by barriers,
holding in &
shutting out:
systems of
exclusion, permitting
1840certain inlets, outlets:
we are
“held together”:
minerals—such as
calcium—
1845selected, refined
& deposited to high
purities
give support:
specialized tissues
1850bind us to the bones: an
outer cage
protects softer organs:
lovely
loose mesenteries—
1855permitting digestion’s