The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1

by A. R. Ammons

  scald and rinse every word

  till it takes on and gives off

  1835the exact hue (drift)

  for for

  the most part

  language moves our lips while

  we grind, hiss, haw—

  1840let the words have no rich soup

  they cannot themselves generate

  if fellows burr, hum, buzz, loop

  break out strict shears

  snip ropes from the heavy molasses to

  1845hang those fellows with

  tipping from pole to pole

  we flash through uprightness, stability,

  truth but

  unchanging reality

  1850is the polar extreme’s

  intolerable

  exaggerated weather

  the temperate zone the land of soft announcement

  one desires leisure, ease, if

  1855those are to be desired, when one

  might desire action, stress, doing

  as being, too, ideal

  I write this to be writing,

  wife gone off with a stationwagonload

  1860of women to Rochester in the snow,

  son at school,

  office hours this afternoon,

  meeting,

  Christmas coming,

  1865me home

  go through

  I’m not sure there’s enough light

  out there to make a day of

  but look

  1870a patch of blue the size of a man’s hat:

  it could grow into a radiant clearing,

  blue inanition, dome of

  high feeling, starvation

  when a father dies

  1875the sky comes unlooped from the stars

  The Hen Pheasants Streak Out of the

  The hen pheasants streak out of the

  thicket

  down the hedgeline through the

  yard

  1880selfcentered shortsightedness

  fag pag jag

  feg peg jegtrouble

  fig pig jigshovel

  fog pog jog

  1885fug pug jugstir-fry

  is life ais life aa puzzlement

  show deathshow truth a bit of

  corrects killsa difficulty

  or is or is

  1890death atruth a

  show lifeshow life

  correctskills

  as you go into life (some say they

  wish they were alive or dead) you must

  1895forget where you’re going

  which is into death

  but as you go into death you must begin

  to take a more general and perhaps

  generous view of life, and not be

  1900so particular

  but that may be the difficulty

  that we are heavy

  to relinquish our made selves,

  mirrorments, to the trust of the

  1905great unwieldy, unspecific self:

  in these transmissions

  we are not like to be consulted:

  our talents turn to attitude:

  verbal flak:

  1910(a bishop or royal personage

  displays his

  flabella, a touch to the

  human that he sweats)

  picking up brilliants, bowerbirdwise,

  1915etc., or as with the builder

  of beercan palaces, tidbits, also, of

  tile, mirror, sherd, whatever with a

  paste, mortar, of cogitation, sealing

  throughout making of-a-piece: but if

  1920you seek brilliants it’s

  no matter what shines:

  the value is apparent in apparent shining

  but those who dwell upon

  and on the invisible

  1925value not the visible

  apparency

  not diamond-shine

  but rarity or hardness

  so invisible

  1930to deal with muddlement

  which is not

  just a mixture but

  a single speaking of multiple clarities

  (very puzzling unless the

  1935clarities are so small

  as with sand

  they will lose their special identities

  to a general view)

  to deal with muddling or muddlement

  1940confine the currency of inquiry

  within fairly narrow banks urging

  and also guiding flow

  so that means can go out among the

  areas and question closely

  1945so to speak

  or drop bits of matter at the roots

  of things so that answers may grow

  (we need have faith

  only

  1950that of course currency is

  winding

  that can never wind away,

  cannot go far without returning,

  an observation

  1955so succinct

  faith

  is perhaps too high a shelf to bother)

  when I look death

  in the eye

  1960my pavilions quiver

  and my crystal battlements

  and walls of high castle

  dance in the afternoon breeze

  this one

  1965death swept

  shape

  broken off from the

  earth broken off

  from the mother

  1970spent now except

  for the flicker of

  burning out

  supposed to get cold tonight

  the ephemeral lasts because

  1975it’s back fast

  Dawn Clear

  Dawn clear

  by sunrise

  hazes rifflesyou want to be

  furrows and floats bullfucked when

  1980of fluffmine is no longer

  appearthan a penguin

  so the sun

  has too much

  to come throughquilt raffle

  1985to come throughantiques

  handcrafted gifts

  make verballive country music

  things tangleswhimsies, furbelows, and

  mazes puzzlessundries

  1990clusters

  consonancesbitter winds

  dangles knots &clink the tinkle

  stuff to havebell in the tree

  somethingand find

  1995to fool withcold’s exact key:

  when time hasthe big male

  a bigger presence,pheasant sulls

  margin, thanlow on one foot

  things or actions

  2000I make things

  and abandon

  them for you

  the sun didn’t do much for us today

  but it de-snowed the garage roof

  2005and left a crop of

  smallish icicles down the eaves-row

  If You Were Standing under the Elm and

  If you were standing under the elm and

  looked up it would be dark

  but if you were above it (flying?)

  2010and looked down it would be

  white:

  dust or flurry snow, the fine

  sifty stuff, has not missed a twig,

  hiding it from the sky: but if it

  2015gets windy and wrenching or if a

  crow lights somewhere and flaps his

  wings squawking, then

  darkness may be noticeable

  In the Old

  In the old

  2020days

  of vaginal, or coincidental,

  sprays

  hairpie diners

  could have plum

  2025tart, peach or

  strawberry

  tart (in the old days words didn’t buy

  much)

  get morepedazo

  2030out ofde

  going outburro

  authentic theatrical

  forms with

  mimes, masks,

 
2035puppets, processionals, players

  (singers

  keepgroups

  mybands

  wordwriters

  2040composers)

  islets and islettes

  informal (isles)formal (tisles)

  soup aisle

  aisle de soup

  2045do-ahead dough

  super bargains in vinyl flooring

  roll-ends for bathrooms, entryways,

  pantries, laundry rooms

  grind

  2050she said this afternoon that

  because of the snowsqualls she

  might have to put a damper

  on her shopping expeditions

  the sun came out enough

  2055to moon

  behind the snowclouds

  so, everything loaded,

  there’ll be no unloading

  today

  2060unless by dusk the wind comes unsprung:

  the hemlocks,

  sculpture all day, now

  nod in the breezy free-ends

  ohyesohyes

  2065so many whales plundering through,

  more whaleback than water

  hemlocks made to order

  to hold snow

  were also made

  2070limber to sway snow

  loose

  or at least hang unsplinteringly

  in white

  holding:

  2075lamb sandwich

  Namath, ribs bruised, limped off the cold

  field today, Shea Stadium snowy, windy,

  four days before Christmas, Namath who

  broke all showing-them-how’s expectations!

  2080if we are reluctantif only one could

  to step into the fieldmake or find a bit of

  when it is our timewisdom that turned

  we may be reluctant to leavethrough a situation

  the surroundingsor two would hold

  2085when our timestill or still hold

  has passed

  it’s after sunset

  cloudy

  cold and gray

  2090but tomorrow is

  to reach the mid-thirties

  Forecast for Today (Winter’s Firstday)

  Forecast for today (Winter’s Firstday)

  (you may

  recall) was

  2095thirty-five or so (which hasn’t seen

  twenty yet)

  beefed up this morning by a promise of

  sunny spells

  but now at five minutes to one the drifty

  2100tinkle of snowflakes

  merely continuos: a few minutes ago,

  in truth,

  a blue patch appeared sky-high but the sun,

  wintering elsewhere, wasn’t there so

  2105nothing hit the ground here:

  couple three months ago

  I cut a grapevine out of the big cedar

  to reduce weight’s becluttering darkness

  but here the snow’s

  2110getting into the tree as much as

  grape leaves shaded light out:

  at dusk a flock of pheasant

  will be-wing, shrieking rusty flanges, up

  and beheist themselves,

  2115belaboring beswung boughs:

  the squirrels in the thicket

  had such a good time this fall

  up-and-down winding

  chasing each other

  2120I bet there isn’t a flake

  of loose bark unfallen

  on a trunk

  in the whole blame thicket

  all I ever know is

  2125rigor between the shoulderblades,

  lumber in the gut,

  hard theory-light in the head:

  I process life by shaking,

  I’m a sifter: I wish I were limber

  2130and relaxed, able to affirm the self

  and take from the world a small taking

  limberer than lumber

  I swerve attention out of the mix of

  myself into the outerness where otherness

  2135can conjoin my outerness whereas

  only I can look into myself

  and I spend enough time doing that

  the sun broke out before setting

  but set behind new clouds moving

  2140in: the Christmas tree’s up and

  John & I have bought presents,

  everybody has bought everybody presents

  I Come in from the Snowy World

  I come in from the snowy world

  of muffled roads and she says

  2145how’s the outside world

  and I say

  still outside (gotterdattoom)

  Giants Beat Saints

  you can’t step forward with

  2150both feet on the ground

  proverbs suck up recalcitrant reality

  and spit out a beam of light but

  emerge among them

  systems of conflict, divergence,

  2155contradiction: too many

  proverbs obstruct the view

  but enhance the reality:

  not the wisdom but saying’s finding:

  the middle regions

  2160toilet paper chinks cracks

  against excessive windiness:

  jocundity

  the beswirling elm this morning was attacked

  by white bees

  2165last night after sunset the weather

  warmed up, night-snow-blue clouds

  heaped on the horizon,

  holding, glowing underneath in earthshine

  in winter here

  2170the sun arcs a

  southern circle of small compass

  and has

  slight surface relation

  to temperature

  2175except

  ice will melt off a car or

  highway great

  in direct radiation

  but it warmed up last night after sunset

  2180to twenty-five and the fronds and

  jungle foliages (that make

  in teens climates)

  ran off the windows, thaw’s

  deconstruction:

  2185how does a running back hold it

  sight

  feeds on a

  medium

  whose

  2190source blinds

  but no big

  sound gives

  off little

  earfuls

  2195although the ear can be exploded

  (not death

  but life canone forgets

  bebefore one

  missed)is forgotten

  2200the squalla bit of

  comes ondried hydrangea

  from the westblossom

  across the lakecomes loose and

  with the sunthe wind

  2205behind itrolls it

  suffusing it,over a yard of

  oblivion meltingsnowcrust the wind

  everythingvariable

  enough to

  2210play

  the blossom with us,

  no, there it

  goes behind

  the garage

  2215on the way down

  but then the

  squall hits

  with fierce soft

  mingling

  2220snow

  ghosts stand up

  and walk off the roof

  Poetry Is the Smallest

  Poetry is the smallest

  trickle trinket

  2225bauble burst

  the lightestf

  windseed leaftipr

  snowdowne

  poetry is the breakse

  2230the least loopd

  fromo

  the general curvaturem

  into delight

  poetry is

  2235the slightestf

  hue, hint, hurtr

  its dance too lighte

  not to be the wind’s:e

  yet nothingd

  2240becomes itselfo
<
br />   without the overspillm

  of this small abundance

  •

  you don’t mind, do you, I

  2245said to the mountain, if

  I use this ledge or, like,

  inspiration pavilion to say

  a few things out over the

  various woods, streams, and

  2250so on: by all means, said

  the mountain: I was a little

  concerned, I said, because

  the speech is, like, aboutonly

  the individual vs the majorwhere

  2255structures and, like, Iwe

  are

  was thinking of siding withto

  the individual: but, oflose

  course, said the mountain:all

  2260well, but, I said, itare

  we

  doesn’t make any differenceto

  what I say if it doesn’thave

  make any difference: please,here

  2265said the mountain, be my guestand

  there

  •a

  trifle

  a slice of clearingonly

  2270widened over the ridge atwhere

  sundown and the sunwe

  stood in it a minute,are

  full glow flapping up againstto

  the garage and treeslose

  2275and through the windows againstall

  the walls and it was very niceare

  say around four twenty,we

  gold effluvia goneto

  by four twentysevenbe

  2280here

  •beholding

  everything

  poet friend of mine’s

  dick’s so shortstill his fat wife’s

  2285he can’t pull it long enoughradiant every morning:

  to pee straight with:he humps well, probably,

  not to pee onstringing her out far and

  anybody by surpriseloose on the frail hook:

  sideways, he hunkersand, too, I notice she

  2290into the urinal so farfollows his words

  he looks like, to achieve,closely like one who

  relief:knows what a tongue can do

  Christmas Eve Morning

  Christmas Eve morning

  a sifting of snow

  2295blurry clouds

  with near-clear spans of western blue

  still at nine