The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  fiercely despised even by the moderate:

  305but the lugubriously weighty members,

  they seem bestial and need to be

  tied up: nevertheless, there may be

  those who prefer them to the dinky

  winks: the dabblers: the little

  310bitty bouncers, splintery, lacking heft

  or duration of stroke: other

  orders apply, though: and overcompensating

  executives order regulars around,

  mere laborers not at the crevice:

  315in life, I’ll tell you, you have to

  bend down and get what you can: you

  may have to peck around the biscuit

  when the biscuit’s gone, drain a drop

  of honey from a bottle already tossed:

  _________

  320git in there and git it while the

  gittin’s good: though others walk

  away with a thousand times as much:

  7

  when I was young under the apple

  trees, the very whispering of the

  325breezes seemed the parental (and

  societal) authority: so I became

  hooked on the nature of things:

  when I learned the breeze and the

  repression were not the same, I still

  330did nothing about it, because it

  seemed disrespectful to me to criticize

  the creators (after all, they (or

  he or it) made the apple trees) so

  I went right on thinking myself wrong

  335(in some ways I was) and the superego

  right: I’ve run around supporting,

  literally propping up, my victimizers,

  establishing them in praise cubicles

  when oopsy-daisy they were as screwed

  340up as I am and made a mess of creation,

  namely, me: Lord, here I am old, and

  my life of service has drained me,

  and I have worked to earn the respect

  _________

  of those I no longer respect: have mercy

  345on me: you cannot, I suppose, give

  me another chance: right? well, I

  never expected it: but I certainly

  do wish I had worked through my

  adolescence and kissed the past

  350goodbye (only to return later free

  for a different worship:) I don’t

  suppose you want to hear anything

  more about me today: well, you know

  after a hard freeze, say at the end

  355of November or very early December,

  ephemerae and moths bound and flutter

  about on a warmish day like posthumous

  trash: what do these things mean,

  starting so late as ghosts when the

  360hard water is dripping from its

  prophecy of what’s to come: dust-winged

  soft-flown entities, not a bee-buzz

  or mosquito-whine among them, the

  living dead or doomed, the mockery of

  365summer, of fall, already shut down,

  the crickets stunned silent where

  they stood like little cargoes of

  recollection: I don’t suppose you

  want to hear anymore about bugs:

  _________

  370when I was in the second grade, I

  came home one day, and my mother made

  me kneel before her aproned knees,

  and she ran a fine-tooth comb thru

  my hair, and the plump little head

  375lice dribbled out onto the white

  apron: I was looking right at them:

  their fine legs wiggled their

  relocation about: my itchy scalp

  felt so good: my mother scraped away

  380for days to get the nits: we were

  clean people: I caught them boogers

  from somebody, but I never did get

  the itch, even though a few poor

  people came in smelling awful (to

  385school, I mean) because their parent

  had greased them for the itch: one

  time a student told the teacher her

  mother said “she warn’t greasing

  fer the itch till adder Christmas”:

  390it smelt so, I mean: better to scratch

  than stink for the holidays, is my

  opinion, too: I had a clean pair

  of overalls every Monday morning:

  that’s the way it went

  8

  395if Homer can nod, I can have

  narcolepsy: it seems even with Mr.

  Stevens that he was a poet when he

  was scarcely himself: he made

  being verbs of being: his head buzzed

  400wuz, wuz, wuz, wuz, although,

  nodding, he sometimes slipped an active

  verb through: oh, but

  sensitivity comes of being’s

  states of being, these linked equivalences,

  405were, been, was, is, are, be, you

  name it: whoever

  could muster a hive of in the’s and

  of the’s like Mr. Stevens or who could

  warp the obvious into half an hour

  410of tangled nothingness (that

  only needed to be unbent) like Mr.

  Stevens: but Mr. Stevens’s lines!

  laid like a railbed, tie after tie,

  with no sign of integrated

  415progression but two stiff pieces of

  stretched iron: you should see me do

  other poets, beside whom this praise

  raves: but the tape is too narrow:

  _________

  the lines turn in on themselves:

  420they can’t get loose, they break

  back, they can’t lope into loops!

  well, they seem to be doing okay

  right now: perhaps, I was wrong:

  I’ve changed my timing now to fit

  425this: we poets endure, become the

  source of such curious effects: we

  are paid (infrequently and in small)

  for that: but heck: for such fun,

  even if so little, what fee: I put

  430my attention, weighty baggage, in

  the locker room and try to lose it:

  or like one of those little

  luggage motor trains, so cute, it runs over

  me: anything to get it out or away:

  435I put it down here on this strip:

  I dabble the surface and dither the

  image: who is in there: not certain:

  but then at least when I strike a

  clean mirror, however fearful, I

  440shout—I’m whole, it’s me: I’m

  split, halved, but included: if I

  get it outward, though, engagement

  releases my paint into the splattering

  of reality, so many hues and

  _________

  445daubs, such singular intricacy of

  who am I and who are you: and look

  at us together (possibly), angels

  and worms following that: I feel

  that my attention, torn down

  450and thrown out, has been picked up by the

  trash truck: maybe it’s enfeebled

  enough now that it will gentle along

  like a drought brook, a small irrigation,

  not a tearing up by the roots or

  455drowning: not a jaguar slink-quick

  as shadows in a jungle storm: but

  strong enough to beg mercy, peel

  apples, and slowly stroke whatever

  will love me: none but a dullard

  460fails to praise the dullard: maybe

  not the intellectual dullard as much

  as the emotional dullard: the lethargic,

  the slow, unexcitable, understated,

  the puncturer of loft, the groun
ded:

  465no event rising up before him raises

  him: he entertains the latest craze

  with slumbers: how enviable: one

  whose attention cannot quite unravel

  itself from dream or sleep or mere

  470wandering, who cannot focus on focus

  _________

  whose spine chills with reptilian

  patience: go to the sluggard,

  thou sluggard, and slug it out

  9

  the hills are alive with indifference,

  475a trembling, high-voltage

  who-gives-a-hoot: I am so glad I

  feel it so strong: they are not

  after me, the hills, nor is anyone:

  and I am not responsible to raise

  480them high or treed or consoled:

  mountains could bother them: but I

  don’t care: mountains don’t bother

  them, though, because mountains,

  too, are indifferent, only bigger:

  485no imperatives are delivered from

  the peaks—except, of course, it’s

  hard to get up them and not much

  easier to get down: but I don’t

  have to follow lofty urgings

  490ignoring which could bring pain:

  except, perhaps—“don’t stand below

  high boulders on a deforested slope

  in pouring rain”: I mean, one does

  have to mind the constitutions and

  495configurations of things: pay no

  _________

  mind and you may have none to pay:

  hills, if not totally indifferent

  (and, of course, they are) communicate

  by abrupt concretions, not words:

  500I would rather be communicated with

  with words, especially since hills

  don’t have any, and their concretions

  are roughish

  10

  don’t go on about it: put your mind

  505on love, and let havoc strew its

  detritus where it will: it will:

  but let that go: fix your beam to

  love, which everything befalls and

  so little outlasts: learning much

  510you open up realms to know, but who

  knows little knows little to know:

  I had to weewee but in the bathroom

  I said, is there no weewee in the

  weewee-er, but it was because first

  515thing in the morning a colonic, but, but,

  bolus of wind gathered through the

  night was shutting off the tube (or

  tubes) so I just had to concentrate

  like hell but one drop led to another

  _________

  520till a tinkle made plenty of room

  for the bolus and then everything

  eased: later, during a fast walk

  the bolus stirred free, too, and

  then, of course, I felt fine: how

  525are things doing: they are going to

  change: how will things get: on

  the whole, worse, or in the hole,

  better: past the worst, things

  cannot be bettered: when life is

  530sweetest it’s scariest because it

  could go by—it seems to go so

  fast—or end: but a great benefit

  of misery is that while one might

  endure it, one need not cherish

  535keeping it: funny balances pop up:

  one thing certain is the overall

  effect: all balances end in perfect

  zeros: well, with the exception that

  some zeros are bigger than others:

  540when one black hole moves in upon

  another (or they mutually collide)

  it has been discovered by supercomputers

  working in tandem that the hole gets

  bigger (twice as big?): I think a

  545second grader could have told them

  _________

  that 1 plus 1 is (or are) 2: I’ve

  known 3-year-olds to do it: babes

  in the woods:

  11

  the man four-legged with arm braces

  550isn’t there anymore, and the lady

  too fat to wobble her knees past

  each other, where was she, and Mrs.

  Fox, a decisive sharp lady with a

  constant near-smile and a fine-lady

  555accent, where will her like be found

  again, here by the waters of the

  Inlet, the boats’ reflections too

  glassy to bob, the gulls crying

  downward swoops, the ducks flicking,

  560drawing those huge wedges of

  ripples behind them: but here is a

  young man and woman holding hands,

  looking at the vegetables as from

  another planet, she with a bottom

  565broad & warm for planting, his

  schlong adequate to bed the

  deepest seed, and the black dog

  licks the baby’s face, the stroller

  bumping to the plank cracks:

  570even where the air is empty it is

  filled with space and sunlight,

  the jabber of buyers and sellers:

  _________

  those who miss the missing will soon

  be missing: Mrs. Fox, are you gone,

  575or do you wait somewhere in a nursing

  home and someone else is preparing

  your potatoes, mashing them maybe

  when they are already cold: are

  you healing, may you return, will we

  580see you again: we hardly knew you,

  still now we realize we loved you,

  your face set with a smile, your

  quick movements, your choice salad

  leaves: the market will leave the

  585shoreline, the giant poplar will

  give up more than its leaves, the

  ladybugs all frigging this morning

  on the green plant or weed will have

  to shop this strange place for

  590the needed damp: the wind almost

  totally missing will show up somewhere

  else and sing a different song or

  maybe the one known here heretofore

  12

  do things close up or close down:

  595flowers merely close? markets close

  one way or the other but not both ways,

  maybe neither: knitting knits up

  “the raveled sleeve of care” and life

  closes up or down depending among

  _________

  600other things on your attitude: so

  much for my attitude: the trouble

  with optimism is you have to be

  optimistic before you can be more so:

  I’ve heard that the greatest novelists

  605in all languages were not good writers:

  is that what guarantees Stevens’s

  greatness: freshpersons confused by

  so heavenly a daze would be dismissed

  from my classroom: but great persons

  610need not apply the rules of rubes:

  neans (neanderthals)—those ruddy,

  brutish, flamboyant little breezers:

  nice to have a nest of them in the

  basement for quick service but not if

  615first thing you know they’re in yr

  wife’s suite: stocky, they’re tough

  to kill: but tout de suite,

  cro-magnon with an elephant tusk cd

  do away with them, outreaching: I

  620wish we had them here: I would chain

  them up in the basement when I didn’t

  need them so they couldn’t get to

  my sweetie-pie: I guess the women

  were a little hairier: I wouldn’t

  625mind some light chest hai
r about

  _________

  the bases of their boobs: what

  afterdinner treats to call the ladies

  up the stairs to put out the cigars:

  you can’t have everything; why not

  630just concentrate on what you want:

  should you miss a trick or trick a

  miss: direction imbalances: doesn’t

  it make hills rise up behind you,

  pressing you up into the open, to

  635think that the fathers amounted (!)