The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1

by A. R. Ammons

  glints and glimmerings:

  can motion alone then

  hold you, strange person:

  entertainments of flame and water,

  105flame in water,

  an honorable, ancient flame

  removed in high burning: water

  no less a metal of interest, subtly

  obeying: sit down and be consoled:

  110the death that reaches toward you has

  been spared none:

  be enchanted with the shrill hunger

  of distant children:

  do something:

  115the boughs ripen:

  birds falling out

  around here like plums,

  rolling around, tilting over, turbulent

  somersaults, a wrestling with divinity,

  120smooth & mostly belly:

  the tail’s a mean instrument but

  feathered

  gives poise, as of

  contrary knowledges:

  125the cats frizzling with interest tone

  down to pure motion: songs go

  such way:

  destruction of the world into the

  guts: regeneration:

  130the kill is a restless

  matter: but

  afterwards the fact’s

  cool as satiation:

  we just had lunch at the picnic table

  135under the elm: chunks of cantaloupe,

  peach slices, blueberries, all cool

  colorings in a glass cup: hotdogs &

  pepsi:

  brilliant replenishment:

  140icy destructions with the berry

  burst, the teeth in a freshet

  of cantaloupe juice:

  the robin’s nest, way out on a pear

  limb, nearly

  145overhangs the table: some

  worry, of course, a chirp or two:

  distant approaches: above, the yellow

  triangles of mouths:

  up the stairs you go

  150up the stairs you go

  beddybye &

  snoozy snooze

  up the stairs you go

  ho ho

  155up the stairs you go

  now the lawnmowers of reality are

  whirring on the slopes of absent lawns

  and sunday is in the world or part

  of it: I look across the valley

  160to the otherside big hills and realize

  the whole thing’s rolling

  tumbling in the smoothest quietest

  lunge, our

  bristlegreen rockship, our clamorous

  165house wherein difference bites so

  hard hardly

  a man will admit the common nickelodean core

  where metals twist in

  slow drifts of warping

  170pressure:

  nevertheless into raw

  space we turn, sun

  feeding cosmic drift through,

  expelling radiance of cosmic storm,

  175and we are at an

  incredible height going round

  something:

  in the whole coming and going of man

  we may not

  180get around once:

  at certain levels recurrence is not

  a bore: we clip an arc:

  buttered batter’s better bitter:

  what do you know:

  185Western Prong beat Old Dock:

  stir up them little wasps and you

  have a nest of hornets:

  past 21

  women suffer

  190unbearably (!)

  take bladder irritation: that headachy

  backachy feeling:

  that burning stitching itching gives them

  the weewees, makes them need

  195fast relaxing comfort: what women go

  through

  to make or lose a buck: in those

  ample haunches

  greased with sheer illumination’s light

  200is a mess of bacterial bloomers: it’s

  merciful to lust the eye’s

  small-blind: cultures from average nipples:

  knowledge is lovely

  but some of it shivers

  205into the blood stream

  and undermines the

  requirements of the moment: but

  desire spills antiseptic gold celluloid

  sheathes o’erall

  210and pours pellucid lubricants

  down the drains of microfloral

  habitations:

  the clitoris rises above

  surmountings, backs off, and

  215takes a testy peck or so:

  we went to the park & John swung on

  the swings and swung:

  little children, I told my wife,

  these little children, some of them

  220will live to say two thousand forty

  maybe forty-five, fifty:

  I said think of it by that time

  we, you and I, will have been dead

  so long

  225worms yet will scoff at us:

  it makes you think

  (twice):

  what are

  a few vaginal weeds in the teeth

  230compared with the traipsing gluebellies of

  candorous maggots: & other worms,

  all their noise:

  get down, yes:

  enwarm to eradication the carnal

  235longings: which are short:

  what, then, is the organization of the

  soul: scrambles to the peak,

  squirts off, slumps back: the

  long & short of it:

  240ducks were there, spinning, sputtering

  in the glass: popcorn, wiener rolls

  floating in the circumstance: but do

  they do do underwater:

  if a scientist, I’d devise

  245a test

  and count the dropping abstractions off:

  a glass tank with top

  and a careful observer

  could keep that duck in there

  250till he had to: yes, but the

  test’s wrong: suppose the observed’s

  disturbed & would much have

  preferred

  to go out upon the ground & hunker up on

  255a hunk of grass:

  could turn to billets due

  formerly:

  following a duck around au naturel

  though

  260could wobble a man’s weltanschauung:

  scientific objectivity puts

  radiance on

  duckshit even: we used to save

  coop chickenshit for choicest

  265garden plants:

  a powerful ingredient that

  through the delicacies of floral

  transfiguration

  makes tasty gravy:

  270friend of mine, brilliant

  linguist, told me

  a Southern Gentleman screwed

  himself in the

  penis

  275with a squirrel’s

  pizzle:

  puzzling:

  got it hung in there’s how everybody

  found out:

  280doctor had to cut it loose:

  let approved channels then be your

  contemplation

  so you will not wind up in a fix

  or fuxy fox, feel the fire asphaltic:

  285do

  not go in for strange devices:

  pins, strangulations or such:

  practices that lead gradually away

  from picnic tables,

  290the trivial fluvial fumes of sunday braziers:

  I’m not going to

  delay my emergence:

  I’m going to plop

  a polyp:

  295I’m going to pupate

  pussycoon:

  I’m going to shoot for the wings:

  I can’t tell you how many times with

  stalled i
nterior I’ve

  300watched the spiders hatch & thrive:

  I’m going to

  get something off my chest—

  incubus or poking heartflipper:

  I’m 42:

  305the rank & file has

  o’errucked me & cloddled on:

  I’m not going

  any longer officially

  to delay my emergence:

  310I want the head of the matter to

  move out of skinny closure:

  I want a pumping, palpable turgidity:

  I want the condition to take on flare:

  I want manifestation silk-dry:

  315I told this fellow:

  I met him out under a soaking

  elm tree:

  I said you’re needy:

  you’re so needy something’s rotten:

  320I told him just because you have a

  mailbox doesn’t mean anybody has

  to put anything in it:

  it’s your epidermal hole, nobody else’s:

  I was getting so much pleasure out

  325of soaking under the elm tree I

  couldn’t get interested in the guy’s nasty cavity

  and knew without looking I wasn’t

  going to put anything in there:

  too bad about the elms being in dutch:

  330Archie:

  Summer Session has agreed (somewhat

  reluctantly) to split 303 into 2

  sections, with one for Baxter. I

  haven’t been able to reconfirm with Bax

  335that he does still want a second course

  but I’ve gone ahead as if he did, with

  the understanding that someone will

  teach the plus-23 students and do so

  at the same time (8:00) as you.

  340Barry

  seeing in a green yard a sailboat for sale:

  worth a morning:

  when you consider life

  adds up

  345to exactly nothing:

  one day I’m

  going to go

  out & conjure

  the clouds down:

  350I’m going to try the cape on:

  if they don’t

  come right down

  flubbing their responsive damp bellies over the

  ambience

  355I’m going to strip and shit:

  as a writing teacher I tell them

  revise the world:

  they clip, trim, slice:

  they bring it in:

  360oh no I say you’ve just put it on

  stilts:

  they lob, twist, crack:

  oh no I say when they bring it in

  you’ve killed it:

  365reconceive:

  they bring in something new:

  what’s the use, I throw up my hands,

  we’re already two or three worlds

  behind:

  370down this drain, endless

  ingestion, getting

  bloated with world: anybody toss

  an old memo in: it’s squirting

  milk into treeping squabs:

  375burning’s going on down

  there:

  the whole world’s a few flakes:

  it’s sedimentation through seas:

  those in the heights need

  380substantial bottoms: need the

  sense

  things are leveling off: hate

  wide, especially open, disparities:

  equilibrium fills holes with hills:

  385feed in a grocery list, somebody:

  feed in how to fix a

  telescope on, say, a comet: feed in a

  few large pieces of legislation,

  couple committee reports, some lab

  390notes, triptickets, sailing schedules,

  the dawns & dusks of planets,

  contemplations of squirrels:

  somewhere along the line the computer

  is going to perpetrate a large announcement:

  395then we’ll know why the

  imagination’s

  winding no scraps up into

  windy transfigurations:

  in our day

  400comfort is sunrise at 5:25:

  couple systems analysts: bushel of

  female ticks, engorged: some dirty

  rats:

  cutworms:

  405nightfeeders that dusk arouses:

  cubic mile of infestation,

  corruption, rust, pus, pus

  caterpillars,

  snot:

  410tank of wound weepage:

  boxcar of love salt,

  fill, siftings, winnowings, dregs,

  curds, chips,

  aerosols of eagerness, dozen black

  415widows:

  a league of universal ivy stone:

  choice:

  much testament of need: 400

  singing horses, a flask of

  420wart-juice from the udders of the awry:

  families with a lot of living to do:

  should get turquoise, shaded coppertone,

  or spanish avocado:

  features for fun-loving families:

  425discover for yourselves where

  the problems are & amass

  alternative strategies:

  otherwise it’s D− & no pussy:

  Archie:

  430Thanks very

  much. That’s a

  real pleasure.

  Neil

  I scribble, baby, I mean

  435I breeze on:

  every mile a twist, I

  should be back:

  a smidgen slit of silence lets all

  in:

  440the land’s turning tables

  greased with the finest silence

  money can buy, still, the wind, mine & its,

  rattles over the ridges, splits

  the cords of wood & gristle:

  445to a cartographer

  part of Pennsylvania’s a broken record:

  curving grooves & ridges in

  visual music:

  day after day the camels of the rain

  450bear their gray way by: the ditches

  bend green grass in:

  but then drought enlarges in rapids

  the incidence of rocks:

  but then flood, so salient, though

  455with muscle swirls, could

  scrape you across a single

  prominence,

  splitting possibility like a paper shell:

  it is, even after an 8-day rain,

  460hard to know what to ask for:

  a baby robin’s been out on the

  lawn all day, all day wet and for

  many days wet though only one

  day out: maybe if it were

  465dry he could get to a low branch at

  least, some force from those fumbling

  wings, airier dry:

  here are the 18-year-old

  seedbeds & the

  47019-year-old fertilizers:

  they have come for a summer session:

  knowledge is to be my insemination:

  I grant it them as one grants flesh

  the large white needle:

  475what shall I tell those who are

  nervous,

  too tender for needles, the

  splitting of iridescent tendons:

  oh I tell them nothing can realize

  480them, nothing ruin them

  like the poundage of pure self:

  with my trivia

  I’ll dispense dignity, a sense of office,

  formality they can define themselves against:

  485the head is my sphere:

  I’ll look significant as I deal with

  mere wires of light, ghosts of

  cells, working there.

  1968 (1970)

  BRIEFINGS: POEMS SMALL AND EASY (1971)

  for John Logan

  Center

  A bir
d fills up the

  streamside bush

  with wasteful song,

  capsizes waterfall,

  5mill run, and

  superhighway

  to

  song’s improvident

  center

  10lost in the green

  bush green

  answering bush:

  wind varies:

  the noon sun casts

  15mesh refractions

  on the stream’s amber

  bottom

  and nothing at all gets,

  nothing gets

  20caught at all.

  1963 (1968)

  Mechanics

  A clover blossom’s a province:

  actually: florets cluster helical

  villages with visible streets:

  down the main arteries a ways

  5leaffarms produce common sustenance:

  a kingbee when all is ready

  visits and tries the yellow-doored

  purplish houses for virgin

  sweet, feeds in winged spells,

  10rumples everything, and leaves behind

  not as a gift or fee—seed, seed.

  1967 (1969)

  Up

  A clown kite, my

  self rustles

  up

  to any gust:

  5warps & whucks

  the wind: O

  my blustering orange

  and striped green

  immensities!

  10I get sometimes so

  good

  tickled at my

  self I slip

  flat down and

  15windless

  make no

  show of grief.

  1968

  After Yesterday

  After yesterday

  afternoon’s blue

  clouds and white rain

  the mockingbird

  5in the backyard

  untied the drops from

  leaves and twigs

  with a long singing.

  1968 (1969)

  Event

  A leaf fallen is

  fallen

  throughout the universe

  and

  5from the instant of

  its fall, for

  all time gone

  and to come:

  worlds jiggle in

  10webs, drub

  in leaf lakes,

  squiggle in

  drops of ditchwater:

  size and place

  15begin, end,