by John Ashbery
that wasn’t the desert, and I said, “Why not try my hometown?
It’s warm in winter. Sometimes.”
Days later at the hotel bar I learned his real name
and his reason for wanting to trail me to my so-called hometown,
where I had never felt at home, yet never dreamed
of wishing for another. He said our great-great-grandmothers had been friends
in France, in the time of Marie de Médicis. “In any case
you can’t let me down now, now that I’ve tracked you here
and seen how you actually live.”
Was that meant to be a compliment? I suppose not,
yet something in his bright-eyed delivery made me imagine
I’d found a new long-lost friend. “Let’s go visit the post office,”
I proposed, and he eagerly assented. Walking the narrow streets
I would never again recognize, I got this wistful feeling,
like a long, slow song sung from the tip of a distant tower.
I’d been rejected again, yet how? Nothing had really happened.
My friend was looking straight ahead, not saying anything.
“Is this the place you wanted to come to?
It’s not much, I know. Terrazzo floor, frosted panes, a bit of brass
handle here and there, like a handle on a bedpost.”
“What’s that supposed to mean,” he said, and sighed.
“Tomorrow I must be in Ottawa.
I’d hoped to spend the whole day with you, but now it’s getting dark
and my bus will be leaving shortly.” How could he do this to me?
Easily enough, apparently. “But what about Marie de Médicis?”
I stammered, as the mist broke and then reformed its ranks.
“Shucks, there’s not much you can do in Ottawa on a Tuesday.”
“That’s what you think,” came the curt reply. Now all is darkness.
THE DON’S BEQUEST
It’s often more crazy like this
as I slide the wooden greyhounds along
their respective slots, ever in pursuit of the elusive hare
or is it a note of music, a particularly silvery one
heard only once, in the bow of a ship
what seems like ages ago?
In any case they are
dispiritingly spirited in quest of the elusive eidolon,
waft of breeze—was that laughter?—trimmed wick, whatever.
And we all know the race ends soon,
soon enough to be over.
So I spray this collection of days and hours
from the fat old album with a mist of Florida water,
something to bring them down
and to their senses simultaneously.
That’s all I get for my pains—a glimpse
of beard through the judas peephole as it slides back,
then shut. The barren February street still assumes
a fleeting charm, known only to itself.
At least I never met anybody who was familiar with it,
knew its surname.
It’s time to make my bequest to the land
we all landed on, and will be leaving at some point
in a hot-air balloon painted voluminous colors. I said
we could keep some of the currants, you didn’t have to hog the whole bushel.
And so it goes, earth crunching underfoot,
interesting thoughts flowing through the head, the scalp in heaven.
When I see a cabinful of these wanderers I want to shout, though.
Why can’t you all go back to chafing and wondering?
Yes, that’s what we all do best.
STRANGE CINEMA
In sooth, I come here sadly,
not trembling, not against my will,
hoping you will set the record straight.
You can, you know, in a minute
if the wind is right and no felon intervenes.
And we sit and you tell me how crazy I am.
I shall petition the other board members
but am afraid nothing will ever come right.
It has been going on too long for this to happen,
yet it was right to go, to go on as it did,
even if there was a strangeness in the rightness
that no one can now see. They see the night
in its undress, plaits unplaited, brushed,
the sound of the surf churning on distant rocks,
can think only about how heavenly it would have been
if it had all happened later or differently.
Now, according to some sources,
new retrofitting trends are a commodity,
along with silence, and sweetness.
Doucement, doucement ...
And when the sweetness is adjusted,
why, we’ll know more than some do now.
That is all I can offer you,
my lost, my loved one.
A STAR BELCHED
On she danced, but had forgotten
how fancy it all was, how plain too.
Outside the silver motel they greeted her:
“Lotta traffic today.” But she made no semblant
of hearing. “I say, he’s big sir.”
And on and on. The basement held no magic for her
nor for us anymore. It was as though we had come home
to dine on a single lamb chop, and it was gone.
The rain peered in the window
and directed its gaze succinctly at the linoleum.
All passion had been drained from the deep.
They might as well write it on blackboards.
Yet I was having too good a time to stop thinking yet.
Overhead the manager rushed. Now don’t pull
my sweater away like that. Yet in time manure produces cherries
the clerk murmured. So we all forgot to compare these groans
to the ones suffering had caused, back in the vengeful night.
The moment I stare I kiss you.
WHEN PRESSED
Why has the sailor come in
loo late? What star waters the garden?
You do intelligent things
at the first juxtaposition.
Luck is the composite of all these forces.
By then experience itself has been outlasted.
The grass shrivels.
It seems they came to lunch, through mist, on a Sunday many years ago.
On a sandwich plate was a letter, written in ivy,
casting doubt on the bearer,
your great-uncle.
They lingered, and fell apart.
We grew up impeccably, caught in the vise of sleep,
frequently taken advantage of.
Return me to that sense which I don’t know.
Encased in a world, not seeing anything wrong
with how it grew, not getting better.
The juxtaposition happens again, farther along this time with a rueful elegance.
The painters have whitewashed the building,
our roof looks sleepy. And they, the witnesses inside,
they had heard something of this.
We keep on extricating, not certain the patch is over
or what it included up till now.
Is someone slap-happy? Are all parades uncertain, rinsed
of cloud, like a tree in a tear.
Note that the box has been “discontinued.”
THE IMPURE
Your story ... most enjoyable.
I sat down and read it through from
beginning to end at one sitting,
whatever it is. Reams and reams of it.
White ambulances chase each other through the mist
and the fish swim by, too haughty
to have an opinion on anything.
These timed-release capsules work very well
but how could anyone know that? We are where
/> we began. This gray October day
that no one could have imagined, save Mama and Papa
sitting on their porch, having doubts about the weather.
When they go inside
it will all be over.
Casting about for some impurities
in your rock-crystal speech, I was struck by a tone
only mute dragonflies can keep up for long.
Then I thought about your brother Ben,
gone so long in the far land.
Would he return with the car,
with garlands flowing from its fenders,
to utter the word “drizzle”? Oh, Ben,
we liked you so much for such a long time.
Then you became insufferable to us
in just a few moments, for no reason. And now
we think we like you, Ben.
CROWD CONDITIONS
Across the frontier, imperfect sympathies are twinkling,
a petite suite of lights in the gaga sky.
Most of the important things had to be obliterated
for this to happen. Does that interest you, ma jolie?
Something else would have happened in any case,
more to your liking, perhaps. Yet we can’t undo the sexual posture
that comes with everything, a free gift.
Now the blades are shifting in the forest.
The ocean sighs, finding the process of striking the shore
interminable and intolerable. Let’s pretend it’s back when we were young
and cheap, and nobody followed us. Well,
that’s not entirely true: The poodle followed us
home from school sometimes. Men in limousines followed us
at a discreet distance, the back seat banked with roses.
But as we got older one couldn’t take a step
without creating crowd conditions. Men dressed like reporters
in coats and hats with visors, and yes, old ladies too,
crooning about the loss they supposed we shared with them.
Forget it. It all comes undone sooner or later.
The vetch goes on growing, wondering
whether it grew any more today.
Such, my friends, is life, wondered the president.
ENJOYS WATCHING FOREIGN FILMS
To stay here forever. To lie down.
Lord, let us leave these petty shacks
of masonite, this angular scrub-forest,
speaking incessantly of the love of man
for woman, of woman for man, of man
for man, of woman for both woman and man,
and journey to some antique pergola
whose orange lozenges cast the light of reason
on these appalled, formal faces.
And if we size up all that
crushed fabric that lies across the river,
pretending to no dream, no appetite, why then I
will become the accuser of the race in myself. I cannot outrun
the gibbets at the New York City limits,
but perhaps things are better off this way.
You can see clear into the checkered chevrons
of a child’s eyes, thirsting for grace
with the other millions. O don’t give up, just
pretend it’s Monopoly we’re playing,
and I’ve just landed in your hotel.
FADE IN
Continually detouring among the mountains,
some got lost, bathed in freshets.
Others stumbled onto the fringes of a large city
just as revolt was breaking out. Tourists, they were told,
should not try to escape, but enjoy the genuine hospitality
of the country, its superior hotels, some with rooms facing the ocean,
all provided with the latest in fitness equipment.
“Sure, try to put a good face on it, make nice with the natives
staring at us. I wonder when the bars open, or if they do.”
Back at the Hotel Frisson the mood was one
of subdued reproach, such as a tardy guest feels, even
after apologies have been made and accepted.
Metallic fronds brushed against the catwalks.
Every so often a child would come, always silent,
with simple gifts in her hands, like a rabbit eraser.
This couldn’t quite compare with real life though,
as we thought we had experienced it in the past,
even the very recent past. The monsoon, striking at five,
just as elaborate drinks were at last being served,
canceled civility, forcing huge residents to flee.
OVER AT THE MUTTS’
Funny, it says “hidden drive.” Look where you’re going!
I do, yet no drive emerges. Later on, maybe.
Tune in next week. My midair flight: live, awkward being.
Like the console radio says, none too consolingly,
you are your own hair and father.
Don’t ever live close to a canal. The noise of fish
is ear-splitting. When the barometer plunges it takes you with it.
I don’t mind heat so much, though.
It’s the barometric pressure against my zinc-lined stomach
that makes me come on all funny. Hey, can I come over?
She’s gone and stitched the lining to his dinner pail
filled it with nail polish remover
and left for the station. Next train isn’t till forty-eight hours
from now. That’s all right, I’ll wait. Where does it go?
Oh, lots of places that have plums and wolverines in them,
but it’s the jacket of your report card that interests me now.
Let me see it.
Why is it they always run out of party favors?
Here, I’ll look for some more, on the ground.
The forest wind-chimes are favorable tonight
and the horehound drops toothsome.
She was dancing in the next part of her living.
Yes, she danced, and it didn’t matter to her,
though others admired her gaze, her step, her hair’s moist highlights.
I brought you over to make something out of myself.
I’m sorry. I should have left you at home, between the bookends.
Oh, but it’s all right! Really! This afterlife has been a learning experience.
I am gradually turning to chalk, taking both of us with them,
and it’ll be all right in the morning too. I guarantee it.
PASTILLES FOR THE VOYAGE
If it is spring it matters a little,
or not. Some are running down
to get into their cars, shoving
old ladies out of the way. I say,
dude, it made more sense a while ago
when we was on the grass. Tell it to the Ages,
that’s what they’re there for. You know,
miscellaneous record-keeping, and the like,
the starving of fools
and transformation of opera singers
into the characters they’re supposed to be onstage.
Here comes Tosca, chattering with Isolde
about some vivacious bird’s egg winter left behind.
I turn the corner into my street
and see them all, all the things that have mattered
to me during my long life: the dung-beetle
who was convinced he could tap dance; the grocer’s boy
(he hasn’t changed much in eighty years, nor have I);
and the amorphous crowd in black T-shirts with names like
slumlords or slumgullion spattered over them. O my friends
(for I have no other), the beginning of fermentation is here,
right on this sidewalk or whatever you call it.
We know, they say, and keep going.
If only I could get the tears out of my eyes it would be raining now.
I must try the new, fluid approach.
OF THE LIGHT
That watery light, so undervalued
except when evaluated, which never happens
much, perhaps even not at all—I intend to conserve it
somehow, in a book, in a dish, even at night,
like an insect in a light bulb.
Yes, day may just be breaking. The importance isn’t there
but in the beautiful flights of the trees
accepting their own flaccid destiny,
or the tightrope of seasons.
We get scared when we look at them up close
but the king doesn’t mind. He has the tides to worry about,
and how fitting is the new mood of contentment
and how long it will wear thin.
I looked forward to seeing you so much
I have dragged the king from his lair: There,
take that, you old wizard. Wizard enough, he replies,
but this isn’t going to save us from the light
of breakfast, or mend the hole in your stocking.
“Now wait”—and yet another day has consumed itself,
brisk with passion and grief, crisp as an illustration in a magazine
from the thirties, when we and this light were all that mattered.
YOUR NAME HERE
But how can I be in this bar and also be a recluse?
The colony of ants was marching toward me, stretching
far into the distance, where they were as small as ants.
Their leader held up a twig as big as a poplar.
It was obviously supposed to be for me.
But he couldn’t say it, with a poplar in his mandibles.
Well, let’s forget that scene and turn to one in Paris.
Ants are walking down the Champs-Elysées
in the snow, in twos and threes, conversing,
revealing a sociability one never supposed them as having.