The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1

by A. R. Ammons

  experience of example,

  2760concretion, or sensuous

  actuality; or, toward the

  coincidental, the single

  example, event, or thing

  without context or placing,

  2765the isolated particular:

  poetry operates, not to deny

  the abstraction or the

  particular and not to diminish

  the distance between them but

  2770to hold in relation the

  widest play between them

  shooting irontoday, fair, saw the sun

  don’t riot bade lionsall the way down

  flowers flowtill, arc lost, it

  2775flower bowlstouching scattered up

  and down the ridge,

  bulbs and spherules glowing

  coals crumbling and I think

  it was 4:30 before the

  2780operation ended: this adds

  a minute or two

  to the hold of light

  The First Morning in a Few

  The first morning in a few

  the windows haven’t been

  2785ice-befrizzled, bestreaked,

  befoliaged, or befrilled,

  the numerous fronds & species: today

  is mostly plain

  pane invisibility: but at 33

  2790and snowing, sleeting, and

  raining, a few driblets stick

  to the panes still ice, clear

  as ice or water, a bomb gone

  off at LaGuardia

  2795and 11 people killed:

  the snow scanty, slow,

  big-flaked, I went out

  into a reality

  audible with unsuspected

  2800sleet:

  round and square

  dancing and

  dancing undetermined

  square or round

  2805I care not a fig

  for a fag in a fog

  fog in a fug

  fug in a fig

  fug a jug

  2810(jig a fig)

  sphincter of Oddi in

  your face!

  it was supposed to be warm today

  up to 40 or 45

  2815but it wasn’t and more sleet

  fell than ice melted

  now we have six new inches of

  snow

  This Is

  This is

  2820the great

  man’s skull:

  we saved

  it from

  the fire

  2825so you

  might see

  the light

  in it

  any part of the day you

  2830move out of the accuracy

  of honor you waste

  for honor, in no need of

  sanction, moves in its own

  self-evidence, necessity:

  2835if we prove

  unworthy of tenure

  on earth earth will

  give us notice

  the force of necessity

  2840merely operates

  (but lay a log across

  the flow, you have

  a bridge)

  poison earth, eat poison

  2845I get so much good out of my

  neighbors: they don’t

  speak or visit

  but they come

  home from a trip

  2850and put on the lights or I

  look out the window on a cold

  night and see one or two

  of their windows lit and get

  neighborly feelings

  Quilted Spreads

  2855Quilted spreads

  pigeons every morning prowl

  and rove

  the hills at

  fifty

  2860miles an hour:

  out walking, prowling, I

  hear them coming

  a soft, intense muscling

  then the visual speed,

  2865cushioned rigor

  constitutional

  quarter to ten and the sun’s

  nothing, more in the south

  than east,

  2870leftover moon

  are you looking for a minute,

  second in the welter,

  grain of what-for, nit of

  news, bind of delight

  2875just this way

  may a fart pule brown billows

  about your earlobes

  may your teeth acquire anal

  longings and fly home

  2880may your rump-grooving nose

  plunge into the shot pot

  towels pillows & bath rugs

  polyester fiberfill

  jumbo welt

  2885hand-knotted fringe trim

  CALL US FOR YOUR

  NEW YEA SEVE GALA

  an increased middle region

  answers polarities

  2890the pode which be

  de (pod) foot and antipode

  which gwine ter natcherly be

  de head, baby do,

  some lard, though, hung and

  2895swung about the organs,

  subcutaneous rugs, blankets,

  drapes, curtains, stuffed

  liver, swoll’n gut,

  (with a railyard of fuming,

  2900fussing, foaming, and verting)

  these enlargements, equatorial

  intensifications, of

  content between the mouth

  and so forth:

  2905forget the colorless, clear,

  frigid, polar life:

  come to

  where thepuddentang

  zonky wohwoh

  2910pleasure is

  will one waft whither wind

  winds forever

  the current moves with

  necessity’s inner accuracy

  2915but mind what will it do

  it will not accord

  as if a native element

  indistinguishable: it will

  not have currency

  2920but come into a state of

  its own

  terrain decision settles

  choice disposes

  some influence as to what will

  2925and will not be

  for example choice though

  will need to choose what

  cannot be unchosen what is

  like stone grain

  2930constitutional

  for example loneliness

  one need not look forever

  out of windows or into

  adjoining offices

  2935or mailboxes

  for the thing that will

  not come, the face from

  wax-museum memory

  no

  2940one may say loneliness if

  with me

  it is myself

  it will not remove

  it is mine

  2945I hold it to myself

  I will not let go of it

  it is clothes on a certain

  person it is a sharp watch on

  a hemlock jay

  2950it is the long tunnel of

  memory personalized with

  murals and hangings

  it is where I must

  hacking go

  2955there will be some terror

  I accept

  it is mine

  it comes

  and when it goes

  2960leaves furious fragrances

  one will dispose

  the disposable

  I will not for example love

  a new person

  2965not with that force’s full

  focus

  I will love sweeps, banks,

  and glances

  and lengthy spaciousness but

  2970I will not

  grant an extended reach

  or stir to fill a need

  the decision is a new knowledge,

  the matter shaped and settled

  2975monthly payment

  the last day of se
venty-five

  some sun this morning mostly

  gray this afternoon

  fairly warm some melting

  2980say thirty-five

  having missed the calisthenics

  of maturity

  I practice early and late

  to catch up with what is

  2985gone

  I am not wise

  please forgive me for writing

  even so

  correct me with your own

  2990deep acceptances of

  condition and self

  I call attention

  I enliven when I can

  to open press here

  2995string out the old

  string in the new

  happy new year

  Dung Ball, Round Graveyard

  Dung ball, round graveyard,

  wax ball, this sphere, nest

  3000cell-laced with permanent eggs,

  these dead moving loose

  in vines through branches,

  this orange body and apple body

  devoured, our mouths

  3005the substance of millings:

  the sabertooth’s big-game furnace

  burned forty million years:

  elephants, rhinoceroses stoked

  it: look in his skull, cool,

  3010polished:

  the hominid ancestor dreamed

  him through entanglements of fire,

  the polishes of volition: the

  more recent, the thinker, the banquet,

  3015observed him go closely by:

  have you heard

  the mockingbird:those who

  have nothing

  markhave nothing

  3020the woodlark:to lose

  words, a sculpture, let us

  see wind:

  the cart after a time

  goes not on as a cart

  3025rock the boat in a calm sea: people

  in storm wildernesses hold on,

  balance against, empty out,

  a mindlessness resembling the

  conservative: the revolutionary

  3030is stable in it and

  cannot bear it:

  the upland bog!

  a flat clearing

  means pond-water snowed under,

  3035and brown-shambled fringe

  broken high from

  by right cattails

  smart and clean as pricks

  bog

  3040clearing

  prick freud

  ruined everything

  tops in scoring and rebounding:

  violence, suspense, and non-stop action:

  3045strikes, spares, and splits:

  fireplace specialist:

  carpentry, masonry, plumbing,

  painting, roofing, wiring, heating:

  it looks like today

  3050though it commenced

  thea year isn’t going

  to amount to much

  firstgray skies

  meal-like gritty

  3055comessnow enough

  to make running whirls and curls

  righton the highway: we

  just went to FAYS:

  afterbought a plant:the death of god

  3060sort of jointythe god of death

  thecactus put it in

  a big glass jarcleared off late

  lasthad pretty goodthe flat light

  roots reckoncomes underwood

  3065ifthey’ll root alllike a fire

  rightright the others I

  beforegot last week did

  the

  servedthe content of the obsession

  3070changes but the form returns

  lay across the multiple

  polymorphous

  defining inventions

  that limit and

  3075accentuate so as to say

  we, too, exist

  I’m one fourth as

  old as the country

  I See Downhill a Patch

  I see downhill a patch

  3080mixed in the tops of two or

  three cedars—the lake,

  a mile’s breadth hardly wider

  than cedars’ tips

  when we dam sluices

  3085in river gaps

  we don’t violate

  the accuracy of flow

  but build a temple

  to flowing nature,

  3090housing for the river god,

  our structure interpreting river nature

  time outtime up

  in timedown time

  outage

  3095yesterday the west cleared by

  sunset and the sun

  went down

  a bright spot in an exact place

  but as it went deeper

  3100glow widened up and down

  the ridge

  until half an hour later

  the storm had broadened

  and caught up the earth

  3105in a rising fire

  but it was only nothing

  because here we are today

  (one who makes much

  of little

  3110makes much of little

  aches and pains,

  trivial inconveniences,

  slight delays, and is

  a pain

  3115to work with or

  be around)

  in a full radiance

  morning having broken from

  the very skin of sunrise

  3120bright and

  unrelenting and here just

  past now

  the windows beam,

  the floor scattered with

  3125the fallen lumber of light:

  thousands in wars have lost

  their hands and/or feet—

  specially in recent wars

  where things picked up or

  3130stepped on

  have exploded

  (if you can bear to feel it

  you will never cause it)

  Big Old Thang

  3135She stuffed vulvas in the

  cracks, hammered the main

  labiums together with

  vaginas and stapled

  the clitorises up till it was

  3140to the point he

  couldn’t get a thing in there.

  this is your spotty reporter

  folks

  putting one on

  3145first day after the first

  look like it all gone down

  (criticize in general

  praise in particular)

  The Stomach Is Quite

  The stomach is quite

  3150a development

  on the esophagus and

  if cross-country is

  efficient

  the small intestines

  3155represent a winding

  parlousness

  so I don’t think

  we will be

  concerned if the

  3160continuo’s overwhelmed

  underground

  by appallingly

  pretentious blocks of

  paydirt

  3165it goes on trinkling under

  there, eventually reappearing

  enunciating

  Big, BIG savings on all

  units

  3170low mileage

  fully equipped

  mint condition

  houseflies are spongers

  My Neighbor Shakes Feed along

  My neighbor shakes feed along

  3175the spruce thicket fringe and

  keeps the pheasant plopping on

  down, their central heating,

  main ramp to life’s roots:

  lucky for the pheasant they

  3180have a big ass and long

  tail to sustain them above the

  snow when their legs blop through

  you have to feel pretty

  good to have a good time:

  3185the aspirant spiral: you remember

  the aspirant spir
al

  the limbs’ topside catches the

  eye today

  high-lit with downsnow

  3190brighter than snow’s

  underglow

  thescads

  ordinaryarpeggios

  realmobbligatos

  3195of& cadenzas

  theof detail

  ready-to-wear

  (though the pentameter’s heaved we’re

  splinter assertions of the great iamb)

  Nature As Waterfalls

  3200Nature as waterfalls,

  lives, or generations

  spills fast,

  not fashion-fast

  nature as ridge is deep

  3205stay:

  these the oldest

  mountains in the

  world,

  authority fills the

  3210clearings

  under cedar

  thickets

  or writes precisely as the ridge

  across the blue dusk coelum

  3215authority’s springs and

  white-scaping falls, the responsive

  rounding off of hills,

  creek- and riverways

  are a spelling out no

  3220character muddles but

  characters, the wind’s many

  motions, inscribe,

  a telling not of one

  thing to another, pen

  3225to paper, chalk to slate,

  skyscraper to groundbase,

  microinscription to fossil

  but undivided telling:

  this writing

  3230makes bowls

  and fills seas: man older

  than the megalith faced

  unstoried stone, deep

  priority, as this about here,

  3235now after a hundred years its

  millions hardly broken into:

  here in America the

  fashion, the scale or

  intellectual sheet, sorts

  3240against a chasm without time

  and one the other criticizes

  to digest but, the reach not

  commensurate, the maw

  can’t feed: this not an

  3245evening land but a

  morning too early to make anything out:

  the ridge fills our moment