The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

springs light forth and no dark trench

  invites you in, so where is the exploratory root to

  fix, where do the stakes that angle up the

  3250spread stand off: if you can’t get going you

  might as well get gone, goodbuddy:

  the snake dangled from the

  woods of his loins and, tempted,

  she offered herself,

  3255and the snake rose to the sweet

  fruit of that occasion,

  after which millstones of

  labor and kids-to-raise swung

  from their necks, and they

  3260awoke way outside of paradise. . . .

  there are those who think it okay to be the

  way they are: this conclusion has never

  reached me, nor have I ever it: not even this

  plan, this possibility: I bring you one—

  3265who?—dragging himself behind: up front

  moral conflict, chicanery, sleaze, and

  shtick ruffle the terrain, while there, in

  the rear, oh-oh the unprotected, uniform self,

  clear, dumb, whispers a single

  3270word: counter that with all this talk: how

  tiny the seed can be whose pulp is the world:

  (I should never criticize anyone because—

  _________

  so there be no loss—I glue the fault to

  myself): there is, there are, there be: there

  3275is the chance that: it is this that: wuz wuz

  if I am never to ease into the fame

  groove, I must at least secure the virtues of oddity:

  should a pip squeak: or should

  one wrap the whole world round in a film of

  3280disbelief and swallow it: the crow convention

  in the tall trees downslope yesterday (big-berry

  boluses) was somewhat unsettled, shifty, and

  quarrelsome: sudden callers would pitch into

  breezes and round back to a new perch: two

  3285would slice downward in an aggressive pairing

  disagreeable wing-flickerers would lift and

  relight—250 of them altogether and once or

  twice they all lifted off at once

  downwind like a loose cloud: and then by

  3290twilight, unnoticed, they’d left the trees

  picked clean: what sort of meeting was it:

  was the whole genetic neighborhood assembled

  to see and be seen: were the early stages of

  mate selection under way: will they pair off &

  3295square off, now: it’s 10 March: the redbird

  has been whistling and chipping since mid-

  _________

  February: small, bud-feeding birds have

  cheeped and sat still, fluffing themselves as

  in an adorning mirror: how do the birds know

  3300what to do, what it’s for, where to build, how

  to care: how does the butterfly, bulged out

  of the chrysalis, know what to do, having

  been nothing but a worm: it is a mystery:

  but no more a mystery than that I have a

  3305planet to sit on while I type this: that

  there is a mystery there, son: shore is: if

  you take anything seriously, you’re a fool,

  and a fool if you don’t: wherein,

  then, is one to be wise: ’tis wise to be

  3310foolish and foolish to be wise: leant over,

  scrambling, searching for the last years, one

  goes into a pixie dance at the lunatic poetry,

  the wooden structure wrapped in butcher paper

  meant to save one from death but, alas, it

  3315was but a painted show that careens and crashes:

  hark, here goes the squeaky thing again. . . .

  68

  hang on—oh, hang on—to our frailty, oh,

  don’t lose hope: the brain will be improved:

  scrawny bits will be fiddled free: where the

  3320bear used to roam inward, fear will otherwise

  _________

  be focused (or dispersed): the deadly ambush

  of the toothless tiger will no longer sanction

  alarm: we’ll get our hopes together: we’ll

  make it all up ourselves: we’ll outtake the

  3325IRS, confront the diagnosis, assuage the shunned

  lover: we’ll demark a height we could scramble

  into the emptiness of: we’ll find some place

  to go not round and round: oh, look upon the

  look of the bodhisattva waylaying wayfarers

  3330with enlightenment: or if that doesn’t work,

  we’ll invent endurances, anxieties, tests,

  losses anew to keep our souls sober and gravid

  with metaphysics: hark: we will go one way

  or the other or plow out a median: hang on,

  3335or let go: dissolve with ease or resist and

  spit: just think: if I’d stayed on the farm

  I’d be a happy holy roller: instead of this

  smart boy: this shaken isolate, this drained

  discard, this dust bit, too disconnected to

  3340settle, this comical comer touching down

  here and there on a surface too hot to stick

  with: but, unrolled, I still call on the Lord:

  I do: I say, like now, Lord, I just discovered

  there’s something to ask for besides to stay

  3345here: not that I’m asking: and not that

  You’re (necessarily) there: but if not, why

  _________

  You’re my Top Wishbone, my #1 Wishing Well:

  You’re my Everything: and my everything is

  nowhere near all there is: what shitty talk:

  3350I phoned my sister (there’s only one, now)

  last night: she lives in NC where clear

  skies (which we didn’t have here) enabled her

  to see the blue-blur comet: she said you could

  tell it wasn’t a star: blue: said it was

  3355over by the Dipper handle: I don’t

  like the close-by of these things:

  and the unlit ones, the asteroids: I don’t

  care for them: it’s the rocky mindlessness

  shining in high speed: the pitching roll:

  3360the possible pelt of the big landing: I don’t

  like things that “show up”: suddenly, I mean:

  and we with no units in outer space to

  misdirect them: we’re like some beaded braid of

  aphids and some animal comes along and eats

  3365the leaf: so long, dear ones: and what

  becomes of Mozart then, I ask you: and are

  mathematics (the several kinds) destroyed: is

  mathematics then something that isn’t: I love

  so many people (and most women even more)—but

  3370I don’t say anything: not a word: where, I

  would like to know, would that get them: tits

  to woo, clits to consider, floral warmth,

  _________

  what’s not to love: desertion, withdrawal,

  blame, responsibility, child support: hey:

  3375with women there are fewer things to

  play with but more to be in

  69

  I confess my confessions never concern the

  truth: I confess for dramatic

  substance by which I hope, like Shakespeare,

  3380to entertain you from distraction: I am so

  pure, so to speak, that I feel at home mostly,

  as you may have heard, in the severely empty

  heights, way up there, just coasting over

  content: you may be sure if any nipples are

  3385lipped or clits nipped, it will be in the same

  way Shakespeare shakes Dick III out on the

  stage, a wonder: I am not, h
owever, much for

  the wine of life, let’s say, as is WS: I am

  not for blood, let and loved: I confess that

  3390I have not yet seen a robin (24Mar): others

  have: I confess that trying to lose weight

  disestablishes me psychologically: but I wd

  not present you with murders, mummies,

  and marriages: that is grown up stuff: I’m

  3395sorry: I must just see if the pond will dry

  up: and weep for the squirmers in the oily

  _________

  leavings: I must not proceed out upon the

  stage and chop anybody’s head off, though

  there are a few people I wouldn’t mind jeering

  3400half to death: S. didn’t really care, as I

  don’t either, about any of that “content”: he

  just wanted to squeeze the syllables and feel

  them slide: oh, he wanted to hear the truth,

  that is, the accuracy with which the syllables

  3405slit the throat: the way a Hail Mary arcs the

  field and lands accurately in the fleet hand:

  all this is true, and lies keep it bright

  70

  no use planning for the future if you’re not

  planning on a future, or not much of one:

  3410rib-it, rib-it: the money you lavish plowing

  through the death facilities would have looked

  good as wine and roses: early wine, though,

  is bought with slender money: and as for

  roses, choose the wild: well, it’s Easter

  3415morning right now, with a nor’easter,

  out-of-whack, whipper-jawed, eight-inch dump

  load of snow on the ground, and it, as they

  say, agoing to snow: surprise, surprise!

  hardly anything so far rose compared to what

  _________

  3420fell: an illustrious, time-consuming irregularity,

  a dingbat of a dumbball, a porous containment,

  an outsized scrunch, well, a parfait miracle!

  an appropriate misalignment, a straight line,

  limp, a wonder to be told: sometimes, perhaps

  3425often, people need only be outside the

  normalcy of perception to be original: they

  may be as dumb as the next one but they are

  noticeably so: painters, for example, who

  don’t understand that the bottom of the picture

  3430represents the ground don’t know where the

  people in the picture should seed the corn:

  a brilliant piece of consequence (which, as

  Johnson says, is not the same thing as

  subsequence): more learned than I let on, I’m

  3435less creative than I should be: but I’m at

  least as creative as notice so far has noted:

  my entire life, stacked up behind me, seems

  sad: does yours: I often wonder if other

  people recall joy: I recall that there was

  3440joy but the recall is sad: what a small,

  spine-skinny, creepy little piece of

  ransacked misery I was, day in and day out:

  I turned every bright tomorrow into yesterday’s

  grief: maybe any day used up is worsened by

  3445no longer residing potential in the future:

  _________

  the hope of copulation turns into a lack of

  hope of copulation: somewhere in between,

  tho, a rusty lode swims free, a momentary stay

  against profusion: so that’s what it’s all

  3450about, just now, that just went by: oops: a

  dip in the dance, a leg underneath, a horse

  collar on the sheep: snickering at the funeral,

  laughing at the defloration: I know not what

  course others may take but I’m for run-over

  3455stationwagons

  HELL IS ON WHEELS AGAIN

  71

  it is so much easier to become known by doing

  bad than doing good: shoot

  a president, derail a train (killing several

  3460unexpectant people), bomb a plane or big bldg,

  kill, sodomize, dismember, and cannibalize a

  string of people and the pressure on notability

  will build up: but try to improve people’s

  morals (preachers) or instruct them in knowledge

  3465(teachers) and the news will spread slowly:

  of course, consequences vary: for the bad

  there is a lifetime of retirement (with

  study and physical exercise) guaranteed: the

  good sink away into the inadequacies of Social

  3470Security: for there is an hierarchy among

  _________

  criminals: get a parking ticket and the devil

  is to pay: open up with a repeater in a crowd

  and you get a private escort and suite: those

  who do important things are important: the

  3475rest is left over: the old fat man at the Easter

  brunch said to the taller old fat man, my

  bowling days are done: probably, his balling

  days are done, too: the old have time to mull

  things over or maul things over, depending on

  3480the history: but should one enter into the

  coral-fan immediacy of the present, into the

  skinny filaments of ice with thaws coming:

  should one hold back from his time, cowering

  in long-range views: the tragic commitment to

  3485now, should it be urged: should I push my way

  all the way out to the periphery of definition:

  out to where the thinning is mist, the risk

  high, the taste keen, the present drawn forward

  and backward into itself, now, just now, just

  3490now:

  THERE ARE PLENTY OF SEATS UP FRONT

  72

  I tell my poor pitiful graduating MFA poets to

  cast a hundred résumés out upon the environment

  _________

  and maybe one bread source will be returned to

  3495them: (fellow says he doesn’t mean any harm

  probably knows he’s doing some): (I’d rather

  be a misery than a miss): the man from

  Audubon is coming, to profile, defile, or maybe

  just file me: I must think what my meditations

  3500will surround: first, we artificialize nature

  then we naturalize artifice: oh, when I do

  come on close to my nearest native thoughts,

  my dearest figures and feelings, I can’t bear

  the trampling out through keys into trolloped

  3505letterings what others might snicker with or

  at and I, with my floundering ineptitude, might

  only precisely debase: hark, indeed: I sidle

  off into the peripheries where speech may be

  bluffs, and echoes may have mixed with woods

  3510and brooks their recollections: I can’t tell

  you what I care about: I care too much: can

  you listen around the edges a little, if you

  care, and take up anything you find and want

  as yours : because I feed in the periphery to

  3515secrete the kernel, I have an abundance to

  give without end, because, because it opens to

  the world and drifts back away to it: so you

  can know nothing, I tell you everything:

  but everything may surround islands firm enough

  _________

  3520to land on or lights strong enough to make a