The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1
Page 18
roil & change—
hold intestines in place:
so
the exchanges can go
1860on, the trades in
blood, lymph,
food, waste, water:
traffic through
barriers, each selective,
1865responsive:
if you have condemned the
body, you have
condemned a miraculous
residence—
1870temple
we should try to keep
the right spirit in:
the aggregates! the
widening accumulations,
1875providing the molecules,
proteins, triggers
we need:
imperfect, tho beautiful,
body: when it can
1880no longer defend, repair,
grow—when mineral
ash (that could not be
processed away) stiffens
the cell walls
1885so they lose flexibility
& effect—then the balance
turns
to invasion and
disintegration:
1890nothing permanent is old:
what is forever has no
youth or age: if you
could choose, how
wd you choose?
1895the biochemist, first
seeing how
two molecules select each
other & interlink
must think he
1900beholds
a face of God:
& from the center of all
these balances,
coordinations,
1905allowances,
integrations—waves
register & float away into
nothingness: there is
mind:
1910before you desecrate this
place, study its
architecture:
but the mind doesn’t
insist we know all
1915this: its commands
are few:
reproduce this temple
before it falls:
food, water:
1920barriers!
what is it, exactly, that
exists
when I see fish
travel in water & birds
1925in air?
resemblance
tying high above
difference:
wings, fins: air, water:
13 DEC:
1930my book came today, Friday
the 13th
woooooooooooooooooooooooo
wooo wooo woooooooooooooo
6:35 pm: we went
1935Christmas shopping at
Korvette’s and
Cherry Hill:
had dinner just now
over to Somers Point at
1940Mac’s: fried shrimp—
& Phyllis had
crab:
they have a good salad
dressing there: don’t
1945know what it is
(on the
order of French) but
they call it “Mac’s”:
bought Aristophanes’s
1950complete plays, very
saxy (I hope)—I’d read
Frogs & Clouds (no, it ws
Birds) before:
mostly, I walked
1955around carrying my
bk:
14 DEC:
today
came in an
opposite way
1960of rain turning into snow:
when I woke up
the gutterspouts were
dripping musical flutes:
the tones dangled &
1965broke &
ran together with
inexhaustible variety of
mood & shape:
but now (10:50 a.m.) the
1970same colorless, closed sky
turns weight
into fluff, fast pellets
into slow blurs
that touch rainpools with
1975many-fingered hiss
& melt into silence: &
the grass seems
to rise up &
cushioning bring down
1980the flakes:
as if a god slept hereabouts
and meant to make a winter
of his sleep:
(snow, a servant to
1985Agathon, cloistered up
with odes)
soft prisons are the
worst kind: bars
& stones are
1990honest, exact,
but this insinuation,
insisting it’s not itself,
this deepening
with universal touch: not
1995a path, road
left: only circles of
melt-stain under naked
trees (the flakes
caught in a
2000foliage to
branches) as if
the roots
sent up a warmth of
protest
2005or stirred radiating
summer dreams:
and (it’s not very cold)
the foliage melts & hangs
rainbeads
2010on twigs & branches—
points of clarity
concentrating light
into sources:
no birds this
2015morning: they
fear these white bodies
that fly into a still
white starvation:
a few seed, hung on
2020weeds & grasses, fall
& pepper the snow:
the reason I write so much
is
that I can’t do anything
2025else:
poem must be now
close to 40 feet long: I
can’t get it out
to write letters or
2030postcards or anything:
well
if
it
must
2035be
onward
to
the
end,
2040let’s
get
there
in
a
2045hurry: or
is that cheating?
every time the roll turns
it speeds up: as the
diameter decreases, the
2050revolutions per foot (rpf)
increase, so the poem
should rise to a pitch of
unwinding
at the end: a
2055spinning of diameter into
nothingness:
exclusions:
lepers on their islands,
drunks imprisoned in
2060drunkenness,
the disappearances (un-
noticed—the streets
seem always full,
lively & young enough)
2065into illness, stiff bones,
strokes, graves:
the silent child that stays
indoors,
unable to connect:
2070I feel the bitterness of
fate: I feel the
bitterness of fate:
what it means to
drive away from the
2075house: take a walk
down the street:
join the daylight
world’s clean going:
are we as innocent of our
2080joy
as they are of their
despair?
must do what we can,
accept the rest:
2085God, help us: help us:
we praise Your light:
give us light to do what
we can with darkness:
courage
2090to celebrate Your
light
even while the
bitterdrink
is being
drunk:
2095give us the will
to love
those
who cannot love:
a touch of the dark
2100so we can know how one,
hungry for the light,
can
turn away:
we’re here together:
2105is it known,
has it been determined
what is right to do?
give us a song
sanctified
2110by Your divinity
to make us new
& certain of the right:
should I sacrifice
myself for
2115others? would
they, alarmed,
turn in confusion
against me?
should I care for
2120myself only,
bring to its fullest
enunciation
what fate says in me?
we’re here together,
2125though:
let us know when
to reach out &
when to withdraw:
& so & so
2130the snow has
turned to grit: I had
lunch after
“who cannot love”—
soup, sandwich, milk,
2135chocolate fudge cookie, &
coffee (my wife’s home
today)—most
of the week she
works,
2140while I sit
home in
idleness:
I’m waiting to hear if
Cornell will give me
2145a job: I need
to work &
maybe I write
too much:
silenced by
2150exclusion: we
don’t hear the
suffering: it
doesn’t exist
and we are untroubled:
2155prisons!
constellations!
shapes that possess
&
entangle the mind!
2160run yourself through
Beethoven’s
Sonata Pathétique &
exist like a bush!
willing entrapment
2165of cell walls &
diamonds, a giving
of the self
over
into shape, structure
2170played upon
by motion & flesh!
they say there are
water molecules in the
void—
2175then it’s not empty!—
motions racing
through, particles &
drifts, a structure
woven
2180beyond the
diaphanous:
but here
around the roots of trees,
a black engendering:
2185prisons,
hold fast!
safe in these cages, I
sing joys
that never were
2190in any thorough jungle:
but betimes & at times
let me out of here:
I will penetrate into the
void
2195& bring back
nothingness
to surround all these
shapes with!
closing in
2200without closing:
running through
without filling:
opening out
with walls:
2205run my poem through
your life & it will
exist in you
like a protein
molecule:
2210clothes to try on, wear,
abandon or keep:
put away in the closet,
a memory ectoplasmic
with gone joys:
2215what am I doing?
what are my innermost
feelings?
do I know what I’m doing
or am I waiting
2220for it to
be done?
my innermost feeling is
a silky pouring of
semen, a rich
2225disturbance
in the groin,
broken loose, flowing free:
I remember a stallion
had been stalled for wks:
2230in the lot surrounding
him were mules & mares:
someone let down the
gate &
he hit the nearest
2235bony old mule and gave
her a rapt opening,
invasion & filling,
& in a slick moment he
was shot: as if shot,
2240dropped to the ground
and the loose wobbling
weight
poured & poured on the
ground
2245& he came up & took her
again: she braced
herself and groaned:
the rich pouring
of this verbal
2250itch:
I fall back:
shot:
winded:
God, relieved, sweet
2255floating relief:
imprisoned in marvelous
desire
and set free! beautiful
bth gng in & cmng out:
2260the men, embarrassed,
joked & hid
their hard-ons against
the fence: they
knew the stallion
2265stalled in the prison of
his honest lust: you,
find the exit,
the wooly
entry
2270and go free & take an
honest part
in the community: many
things to be
accounted for,
2275to take into account:
oh this poem is long:
the tape’s still thick
& slow:
Muse, come & take my
2280riding, rouse my riding:
we got a long long way
to go: present
the cage men will
dwell in, design the
2285gleaming city:
cars hiss on the highway:
typewriter clicks:
the thermostat snaps:
(sounds like a motorcycle
2290out there)
the day’s unchanged—gray
undivided clouds:
but the
snow’s stopped:
2295we went out after “& we
are untroubled” up there:
I unpacked my mother-in-law’s
new dishes
& Phyllis helped wash them:
2300(forbidden, theirs is
forbidden suffering:
they turn inward & inward
calls hopelessly
to inward: song, poor
2305song, lift them outward
if you can)
an object,
exactly perceived
& described is
2310when entered in the
tapestry
somewhat compromised:
part strength flows
from it
2315to its
compositional environment:
no tapestry
without
this clustering,
2320giving up of strength:
no tapestry then! if it
impose what may
enter! forget it!
but no exact
2325thing, either,
unless it
calls & calls away to
kindred things:
the job is
2330honest,
full as a suspected
reality
of tensions: to keep
the object clear as
2335it can be (& itself),
the
tapestry “one” as it can
be,
&n
bsp; without tyranny:
2340partial solutions: men
feared
at the end of the 19th
century
that they were going to
2345solve the universe: no
more need of physicists!
just as the
whole fell
together it
2350fell apart:
innocent again,
the physicists are
re-employed:
(I’m glad somebody’s
2355working:
wish I were making some
money myself)
@
back off there, populace!
2360the poet will have a little
room!
disburden the area: hey,
you: git off da stage!
the poet will take
2365a little distance on:
what?
can you think these
“private” things are
private?
2370they were got from
jokes & dirty books:
the poet, lawsee, but
sings to the general
& claims
2375but the murmur in the words:
have at you, sir!
the poor employee of the
ruling queen, the listener
to lies that
2380they may become truth:
the raiser of halcyons
into storm: the public
voice
that has no pleading of
2385its own: but, indeed,
bends to the great,
will take coins
to th’amusement:
that will, cold as a
2390glass, give
the hag the hag,
the beauty beauty, the
evildoer his face:
to the courts with your
2395disgraceful shows!
here
the poet lolls, suckled
up in the rapture of his
sacred saying:
2400a nerveless creature
because all nerves:
odd-one-out
because he stands aside to
see: fool that makes
2405foolishness a law:
will you be ruled,