The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  2275finally with permanences: the great

  sharp-pointed aspiring stones one

  sees in graveyards along the road,

  well, one understands the grief and

  loss and the great wishes, but, below,

  2280the face has drifted into a twist

  and the bones have soured sticky:

  the unrollable foundations above

  topped with a spire or flight of

  angels are such a laugh: such a

  2285big laugh: but then what a nice note

  that is, life a big guffaw,

  possibly, even, a celebrant guffaw,

  possibly a word to us all: I hadn’t

  meant to get off onto a happy

  2290note, but life is just irrepressible

  even in death: it all comes up

  again and starts over: why give

  a millennial hoot: the hills around

  here are three hundred million years,

  2295repeat, old: rather than see chimpanzees

  in terms of ourselves, I would rather

  _________

  see ourselves in terms of chimpanzees:

  rather: what a funny looking word

  rather is: tah

  45

  2300will I will the will to go on—what?—

  from here, where does going go, except

  to gone? oh, I dream in this wise,

  now, yes, yes, yes—images—the

  body bent to the cane: some way I

  2305may get away: below neutrality, the

  ease of neutrality looks good, a

  positive: we’ve had some rain,

  dribbles at midnight, the rain pipes

  thunking clocks: but the ground

  2310is wet only two or three inches down:

  below, summer’s drought persists:

  not that many of these slate-slabbed

  hills have more than 2 or 3 inches

  of ground to wet: roots crickle the

  2315stone granular: but no soil, loam:

  when rains wash, they wash the grit

  away: naked roots touch into pools

  of unsoaking water mineral-enriched:

  first frost is possible tonight:

  _________

  2320we’re peeling the last of the peaches:

  the trees are smirched dry-red, frost

  or no: tomatoes, you know, the vines

  wilt right down, cold-bruised stems:

  the seasons roll straight ahead,

  2325swaggering from side to side, cold

  to hot to cold to hot: time that

  takes away every second it gives

  goes straight, too: we are not in

  keeping with its round bubbles or

  2330animal balloons: though we see

  ourselves too short to bend, look

  how our figure 8 contains infinity:

  our figure 8 Möbius keeps two sides

  on a single side: don’t mess with

  2335us: we know we’re doomed whichever

  doom it is, here or there: our

  cousins the gorillas, a sweet people,

  I wonder what they know: their eyes

  seem blurred like the eyes of our

  2340anxious: have they peered through

  too many leaves or eaten too many:

  familial troops with big daddies:

  too much submission to the shoulders

  of the red stick? I’m sorry, I’m

  2345sorry: I do not feel that obfuscation

  _________

  is a good cover for mystery: no,

  mystery is what comes true at the

  center of the perfectly clear: I

  mean, all efforts at clarity having

  2350failed, one succumbs to mystery:

  but merely to screw something up, or

  scribble over it, or substitute

  something for it—that is perverse,

  mere perversity: mere perversity

  2355resulting in the unintelligible is

  not mystery but a neat trick one is

  not likely to get away with for long

  46

  the yellow leaves left on the

  birch flip in the wind like

  2360butterflies trying to pitch: when the

  wind lulls they light, then dance

  like frit in the sun when the

  wind’s shiversome again: if you’re

  fortunate enough to live as long as I’ve

  2365lived, you may be as old as I am: awake

  some mornings, I don’t know whether

  to discharge a gun or an obligation

  47

  battalions of leaves routed by the

  wind scurry to defeat: smegma flakes

  2370off the chilled penis: a chipmunk

  pauses to dampen a stone his own:

  a robin or so left stands erect at

  dusk, too stuffed with honeysuckle

  berries and crickets to budge: so

  2375the big surprise is, fall has come

  and all the banal transitions are

  running their changes: and what new

  has one learned—why, that the leaves

  that served have been dismissed, if

  2380not torn, from the branches and by

  this we learn that in falling we are

  puzzled about what we took or gave:

  did we just play the DNA through, if

  we did: was there a high form we

  2385shamelessly enhanced: was there a

  current otherwise unannounced but

  for a peppering of people: or did

  nothing give a shit and we fell out

  here the way a rock could appear in

  2390the sky: whatever: taken a day at

  a time, I can tell you the way the

  _________

  sun first tipped the treetops gold

  this morning, and the way we found,

  some of us, our dicks on waking hard,

  2395and we so hungry and all—what a

  great opportunity for roaring

  exultation: but then, the ball can

  whip a right angle out of the cup,

  and where are you, where are you:

  2400or nemesis riding a 60-year-old

  memory can sweep through wiping the

  the bark off your bushes: how did

  I, for example, mistake this place

  as a place for ease, when the place

  2405itself shifts, boils, drowns, shakes

  worse than a teenager: I guess if

  you were to compare the two best

  poets in the country, it would be

  like comparing apples and bananas

  48

  2410missed by every movement, exile of

  every glare-ridden trend, never the

  tissue of any issue, I traipse to the

  bookstore to see if I’ve arrived in

  any index, not, notice, as a relevant

  2415subject, but as a slur, since one’s

  _________

  hunger gets even down to that: no,

  no: in Nature Writing, nothing:

  nothing in poetics: unbeat: well,

  I’ve proved Emerson unimaginably

  2420wrong: one can live in one’s time,

  and lucky for it, with no involvement

  in its politics: I love the chicanery,

  fraudulence, expedience, greed of

  the political (read, human) world—

  2425those allow, those qualities, for so

  much invention, unprescribed variety

  but my time line, such as it is,

  shears the peaks off politicos’

  peaks: I’m not in Nature Writing

  2430because I’ve been too deep in nature

  to notice: nobody noticed: oh, well,

  it was enough to see: except on a

  cold, windy, clear Sunday afternoon

  with
not a damn thing doing: then

  2435one’s heart longs to be noticeably

  dismissed, at least: in the still

  pond of nothingness, rock the boat

  or there won’t be any waves: someday

  I’m going to write on how Stevens

  2440makes his be buzz: I am: scram:

  49

  if I don’t know what it is it could

  be anything—a slue-footed, coned,

  tail-bent galligarngion: so it is

  helpful when words pinpoint, trimming

  2445excess: this tape is so skinny: I

  have to crack off the lines and roll

  the trimmings back into the next line:

  there is never enough room: the

  lines have to digest something, pack

  2450it down, shove stuff together: my

  wife has a trimmings doctrine: she

  thinks trimmings should be removed

  from the premises: raked-up lawn

  grass, leaves, dead branches, old

  2455rose canes, squirrels’ walnut nibblings:

  she doesn’t believe it’s right for

  a red oak to have its leaves: she

  doesn’t think anything should find a

  way back into the ground: she doesn’t

  2460want to wait for no “slow burning

  of decay”—as Mr. Frost would say:

  rake it up, she says, get the blanket

  under it, pile it up by the road, let

  them haul it off: mercy, I think,

  _________

  2465what the hell’s wrong with letting

  a little natural stuff help hold the

  hill together: or why not see if a

  little loam can drift out of decay

  into soil and regrowth: but, no, it

  2470won’t do: rake it up, clean it out:

  strike the v out of archive and you

  have another archie: well, we just

  finished driving to Chicago and back

  and we’s tired: oh, yes, yes, yes,

  2475we’s really tired: plumb tuckered:

  50

  life has left me beaten up and beat

  down, yet, I confess, I am neither

  beat, beaten, nor Beat: sorry to

  disappoint you: I have every hope

  2480still to turn into a decent, moral

  creature: the sky’s broken but cold

  this morning with a touch of rays

  splintering through here and there,

  little threads or gauzes of threads,

  2485mixing with hanging currents of flurry,

  bridal veils for the marriage of heaven

  and earth: a glorious, cold, early

  _________

  winter morning, another beginning,

  sweeter (and cooler) than the first

  2490morning of mornings: who knows how

  primal succeeding days can become:

  some (many) through time have expressed

  an interest in world dominion,

  minions from software manufacturers

  2495through all the stages of hardware,

  bullets and shafts, even saintly

  philosophers softened into gods: I

  declare if I don’t think that may be

  a good idea: what appeal from a

  2500short, meaningless, jailed life should

  one announce—a willingness to go

  along and take it all or an arousing

  desire to cast limitation aside,

  greeting the unaccomplishable

  2505unaccomplishingly, a work never done,

  a surrender intimated only at the

  setting out: hark: why buy in to

  the world’s soothing controls: why

  yield and smother: why the lying

  2510silence: why not say, this is what

  I want and never be without work in

  not getting there: but puling

  compliance, how sickening, sucking

  _________

  up to safety, behaving into honor!

  2515ass kissers’ noses are in a crack,

  their eyes abutting butts blindly:

  whereas the bright face addresses

  hills from the clear summit air of

  mountains: ah, but the lowly, the

  2520lowly, they seldom kill, they are

  unthreatening, they are shining examples of

  having less than we: are they not

  innocently adorable: I am not beat:

  to be beaten is not losing while it

  2525loses beating

  51

  this summer the weeds, even, and

  trees dried up and died: the mullein

  on the back slope stalked out with

  shriveled leaves and the little

  2530flowers keeled over, the only way to

  go: oh, this tight strip breaks my

  rhythms, loosens my stable tables,

  pours everything toward the middle

  where it runs off, a streak: there

  2535isn’t room enough to lay something

  down flat: speaking of flat, the

  only thing that recommends Ohio is

  _________

  that Indiana follows it, and the

  only trouble with Indiana is that

  2540Ohio is left over: out west from

  here around Angelica, Cuba, Olean,

  Salamanca, Bolivar, and Jamestown,

  the reservoirs of the Alleganies and

  the pools scooped out along built-up

  2545roads have so retreated into themselves

  that hardly a snitch of water remains

  a heron can wet his toe in, and

  the big empty bottoms have sprung up

  a fur of grass: looks like a lawn:

  2550the fish and things are nervous as

  hell: the congestion, I mean, is

  worse than traffic into Chicago, the

  big limousine-type trucks thumping,

  the double-exhausts over the cabs

  2555chuffing black, the smell of roasted

  coffee (just burnt gas) all

  over perdition: what is there as

  much fun as a trip:

  52

  breaking up the hang up hanging

  2560awful in the mind, that is the procedure:

  finding the form of the process, the

  mode, how you go about dissolving

  the knot (that burns your feelings)

  a sort of lightered knot tar draws

  2565out of, a knot that spits and pops:

  fire’s a solvent: faster at times

  than water or psychological breadth:

  the form forms and if you’re empty

  space only, the form is open

  2570to artificial, say, irrational, say,

  mad fixations that drop into your

  bowl: arrange a full life or

  the terror of emptiness will fill

  emptiness with terror: love’s the

  2575best filler but isn’t cheap and

  anyway money can buy only a semblance:

  if your forms aren’t full of love it

  doesn’t matter what they’re full of:

  I do the best I can and god, I suspect,

  2580does the same: his plans allow for

  the emergence of the unexpected and

  attempt amends for the consequences:

  I am in this way made in his image:

  53

  so here I am fist-diddling in the

  2585poot-shanty when my grandmother

  appears at the door—surprise!

  surprise! she frowned (this is my

  grandmother poem) and my sex education

  was off to the races: well, there

  2590were other problems, too: for example,

  I found through exercise of my 11- or

  12-year-old sexual rights that my

  glans p
enis wasn’t free of the skin

  which kept tearing a little from time

  2595to time and getting sore: sex was

  in those days a secret, something

  that never happened: I lived with my

  sore penis right through sunday school

  with no one to tell about it to:

  2600but it came loose all by itself and