The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1

by A. R. Ammons

  here comes another warm

  spell up to the sixties:

  lately the temperature

  has been up & down on

  5615a four-day cycle,

  teens to seventies,

  really rolling differentials,

  spiraling through dragging

  nordic or tropic skirts:

  5620let’s not get into that:

  cunt is disturbing

  today if it goes to 45

  caterpillars run down outside

  may nick away in the sun

  5625the lilyshoots

  though

  or also,

  deeply puzzled,

  rush out firm

  5630to sixty degrees

  but bend stain-limp

  to the teens

  scare crows

  raise money

  5635field mice

  they said I ought to get

  a stereo because

  when from seventy you subtract

  fifty it only leaves

  5640you twenty mo’

  for stereo

  (lessen yall gits lucky)

  you do do do, too

  The Wife’s Plaint

  5645There may be

  more room on

  the outside than

  on the inside but

  there’s more

  5650room on the

  outside outside than

  on the

  outside inside.

  may hernias

  5655rot in your

  soup! the disgusting

  husband said:

  may

  cocksuckers ululate on

  5660your doorstep! the

  precious wife replied:

  may the worms

  in your round worms

  need worming & may

  5665a great Swish

  swallow your Knob!

  french-freud

  Cunit

  Cunit

  close as i can

  5670come without being there

  cuneus is okay and cunette

  fellow said he got his

  tongue hung

  in one

  5675once (which I never believed)

  and said whenever he did

  the rest of it

  started in to pecking on him

  is what he said

  5680till he couldn’t tell

  whether he was coming or

  going

  and his whole tongue got

  covered with red-peckered

  5685welts like you never seen

  cunnythumber

  slurp slop

  I never met a man

  with a dirty mouth

  5690(delicacy governs true passions)

  that had any real

  respect or deserved any

  everybody well-adjusted

  to sex keeps his mouth shut

  5695the elm is darkening

  with mere

  budbead

  I saw this morning

  come out on the porch steps

  5700and on a leaf of periwinkle

  a beadblack bug

  hemispheric so as

  nearly to stick flat

  to leaf or slate

  5705two red eyes

  one on either wing

  It’s a Wonder the Body

  It’s a wonder the body

  goes on making

  things not thought

  5710well of, saliva, for example,

  wondrous devising

  containing

  water, mucin, protein, salts,

  and a starch-splitting

  5715enzyme

  that has been accorded little

  common knowledge and small

  applause, like great servants

  who flawlessly

  5720disappear

  into their work

  eyes spread around

  inside scraps,

  tips, filaments of

  5725brand new or newly

  worn attraction

  the bigeye belly

  aphids that eat up theis

  roses arelove’s Polyphemos

  5730as pretty

  as rosesmaggots like

  twice as green,undertakers (too)

  their dew honey,work dead stuff

  and their petals flybut are unlike

  5735livelier

  a gray warm

  day with sprinkles

  not met on concrete

  I just went for a walk by the brook

  5740(high brooks are interesting,

  the collections aimless

  above the slope drop)

  geese again

  Today Was Like Vomiting

  Today was like vomiting:

  5745all morning and until

  midafternoon

  the wind scoured the trees

  like the dry heaves

  blustering dust and pollen

  5750till finally it brought

  the clouds up

  and by four the smallest

  rain came with a quieting

  wind and then later the

  5755true tensions found themselves

  and wind and cloud

  delivered the shaking

  spouting flood we’d been

  waiting for

  5760now there will

  be some ease

  the birds can settle

  we can have dusk,

  dinner’s smooth time

  5765because winter cut a deeper

  trench this year than usual

  I feared last year’s

  mockingbird might not make

  it back or through

  5770but there

  down in my neighbor’s

  orchardlike yard

  I saw the bird dive

  spread those barred

  5775rounded-off wings

  and splash into trilling song:

  I saw that yesterday:

  you know how a robin can get

  variable in a pellucid dusk

  5780and sound remarkable

  but not quite make it, as

  the mockingbird

  can hold no vocal candlestick

  to the woodlark

  5785sound’s most beautiful song

  Showers

  The grass is

  green by

  the time the

  5790clouds are blue

  how much

  more blowing

  will establish

  spring

  It’s April 1

  5795It’s April 1

  the willow’s yellow’s

  misting green:

  adding white maybe

  tonight or tomorrow

  5800Canadian air 30 below above

  the clouds has

  settled into the midlands

  and is moving eastward

  this will bring

  5805ground temperatures

  within range

  of the structural

  flare-out snow

  a look-see

  5810slightly more direct

  (- (-shut-eye

  ($ ($American dream

  (* (*34" bust

  great logs

  5815dragged to the fireplace are

  with ashspoon dipped away

  earthworms are only

  little long people

  I’m Unwilling

  I’m unwilling

  5820to write this

  morning but

  things

  keep nudging me

  to sidle with

  5825them into

  words,

  what is it, even a tension

  in the mind

  wants to play

  5830itself

  through the lit stage

  wing to wing,

  across and through

  severe illumination,

  5835burning every crick

  and hue

  o
f the hidden out;

  to be announced!

  pronounced!

  5840shaped, made, attended

  to, to have occurred as

  an item of what was,

  to be a thing that is

  the bloom shed of the

  5845maple is

  spring’s

  first fallthe maple itself

  a falls

  the milling fall making

  5850of bloom parts

  to hold through winter

  and open

  to spring’s first warmth

  and fall

  5855(so early this year!

  midFeb)

  the syrup keeps

  rising through the trunk,

  wooden fountain,

  5860and always from

  the replications and

  rondures, slope heights,

  of the tree

  spill

  5865the bloom parts

  the sent

  wide reaches of pollen, the

  lightgathering, dismissed

  leaves, hunting, spinning

  5870seed

  the tree,

  holding to one place,

  moves as far

  as possible

  5875abroad, away, away

  to other holdings

  it is not for the poet to

  speak the speakable

  that which long known & said

  5880requires no energy

  of finding or forming but to

  murmur, stammer, swear, and

  sing on the edges of or around

  or deep into the unspeakable—

  5885the unspeakable, silent sorrow!

  the unspeakable, silent joy!

  there was a time in January

  when the light was barren

  moving in blurs and glows

  5890between clouds and falling

  on the snow-and-ice-enameled

  hills, the streaks and

  thickets

  of ice-brush

  5895like ink brushwork

  ornamentation:

  the ridge, I thought,

  moves, flows, and

  I was held by a power

  5900beyond all but silence

  to contain

  a joy inexpressible,

  inexcusable

  standing not away or at an

  5905opposite pole but

  in the midst of which

  grief

  like high icy ghosts of

  lombardies

  5910slow-swayed!

  things arranged

  at their centers so

  that when we

  grasp them

  5915they turn slightly

  (like a dishwasher

  dial) and go into

  another tone or slant

  or cycle or flatly

  5920from kind to kind

  quandary lies centrally in balancing wings

  so much so that as we draw near, the directness of

  our sight blinds us to the full facetal radiality

  so we are not likely ever to dissolve the knot because

  5925we work against ourselves when we hope to for if

  we did, behold, the world and we would stop: how

  grateful we must be that as we reach to take the

  much desired in hand it loses shape and color and

  drifts apart and must be looked for all over again

  5930so are we shoveled

  forward half unwillingly

  into the future (where futurity is lost)

  praise or railing—

  these two the sky equally

  5935takes up unlimited

  and lets vanish

  The Sky Clabbered Up with

  The sky clabbered up with

  blue-clabber clouds

  and

  5940(meanwhile the temperature

  falling off)

  the whey-gray whey rose

  shutting off from earthly

  view the fine white

  5945cumulus heights (yogurt)

  but still whereas and

  whenever he did

  the cold kept coming and

  pretty soon drops

  5950of rain

  lost sharp swift

  substance

  and blurred their way

  down white

  5955(white down)

  big clumpy snow mixed with

  rain, one thing popcorn

  and the other popcorn popped

  there’s no accumulation

  5960anywhere

  on hemlock, garage, lily

  shoot, yew, nor in crocus

  cup, nor forsythia bell

  whenever it did & any

  5965flake touches anything

  it crumbles, shrinks,

  a little bit

  of nearly nothing

  A Single Fact

  A single fact

  5970inadmissible into

  sound generates

  billows of volubility

  whereas said out

  it would turn

  5975small as

  a drop of rainI looked down the

  brook at the outblanking

  high glaze

  running water gets when light

  5980falls (into) against it

  and thought how polished

  water lofts ripples stone still

  almost

  and about how the dullish gold

  5985gets down between the

  radiant-gray ledge shoulders

  and holds color over each brook-step

  ledge to ledge down the hill

  until of course (!)

  5990everything narrows

  and disappears going down

  into the burial of itself

  slope-lowering

  burial from my sight though

  5995for others beneath me

  it makes sights and tunes

  It Does Not Rain in

  It does not rain in

  air-conditioned rooms

  and the fan-wind blows

  6000(dust weaves in the rooms

  looms and glooms

  of loom-gloom) leaves

  pittering across

  dome-locked, skyless pavilions

  6005are grocery tickets or nasal

  tissues

  (the brown

  bushbrush

  here

  6010though hazes greenly

  dense)

  snot rags

  I feel like a master:

  nothing happens here that I

  6015do not wish and

  everything responds

  (when we arrive at the

  center

  a wing-gate flies open

  6020and turns

  us into new material

  out)

  like water in

  eddy

  6025about to find

  restful rondure

  then sliced

  from its widest

  circumference

  6030downstream

  cold

  currents settle

  from polar ice

  bottomward

  6035like falls

  motion holds moving—

  (the ripple I spoke of the

  other day,

  now the eddy,

  6040but also the millennial

  deep bends &

  sweeps of rock forms

  and sea currents)

  there’s ice under ice in

  6045Antarctica so old

  it’s lost to count

  but is still pressing down:

  the earth, mantle-deep or

  crust adjustment,

  6050is responding to that:

  I see into so much every day

  (sd the obstetrician)

  my breakfast nooky quivers

  mostly cloudy at sunrise but

  6055now turning clear blue in

  spot
s and a turning up and down

  of light (we may go to

  McDonald’s for lunch!)

  One Loves

  One loves

  6060absolutely andin wax museums

  forevermen have

  anything else iswax balls

  something elsebut in fire

  museums

  6065I know only oneballs of fire

  thing to talk

  about (poetry)

  and that

  covers everything

  6070(even on a moist morning

  midMarch, the street

  showered still-wet,

  flocks of birds foliating,

  defoliating shrubs and

  6075trees, the cardinal singly

  chirping, even on such a

  morning, the word, pliant,

  suppliant,

  wrenching shinnies up the

  6080ash-damp heights

  and higher cries out in the

  cindery desert for an

  answerer)

  headstone-shade snow

  6085melts slowly

  it still can’t quite clear off

  or get cloudy—

  dwelling mixed

  in between

  6090some of both and not much of either

  The Miltonic (Miltownic) Isn’t

  The miltonic (miltownic) isn’t

  milty or come

  to think of itall you can do

  tonicwith a day like today is

  6095eitherslice it and eat

  it, cake

  blue, radiant,

  frill green, also

  the maplejust-right cool

  6100bloomparts, cast millings,

  have shrunk into meal, so

  dry, granola, forsooth,

  that stepped on they turn

  snuff-dusty, a

  6105prepared, engineered reentry:

  I do not wish to speak too

  highly of nature where only

  what can work works,

  only the possible possible