The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  3790flesh-flabby dugs dangle down: a mispleasaunce

  at the end of the road: I hope my literature,

  which was mere allusion, has pleased you: I’m

  signing off for today, I have to brush my teeth

  and get some sleep: tomorrow I have to get

  _________

  3795the garbage out by the road by 8 a.m.: (had he

  taken the “wrong” road he would have hit an

  EVEN BIGGER DIFFERENCE)

  79

  it is hilarious how sad the world is: I mean,

  for us: the planet itself, of course, rolls

  3800on free crushing over our surmises and tribulations:

  what is sad is sad but also the silverest

  ruffle in the dark-headed storm tower fleets

  so fast we burst in tears: we can’t tell

  whether to look to this moment or the next;

  3805whether to try to hold still while we gut the

  moment of its quickest physics, our work as

  patient and busy as dungrollers, or to rush off

  smartly to possibility in the next tick, a

  second chance, perhaps, or another moment just

  3810run over and left: that the world is so bad

  off (for us, I mean) is tragic, but the tragic

  fully ballooned and fleshed out splits into

  peals of tearful aches—I mean, how far can

  you go with a funeral before you die laughing:

  3815this defensive device has been as it were

  created by the earth for us, an earth that

  doesn’t care a hoot for a holler: (or

  sometimes, from the last minute gold in the

  west you can look across to the other side

  _________

  3820where a sunken thunderhead is topped in rose:)

  desire is an industrial-strength cleanser: no

  matter the microbe-ridged crevices of smegma,

  the tongues of some will swirl the velvety

  precincts of the little bead or some will

  3825slurp as if the clabber of paradise lumps of

  cum: glory nestles into a little dirt, and

  dirt slickens as fine as ecstasy: well, I

  suppose some polar opposite is spread apart

  there to arrange the coming together of things

  3830OH, DEAR

  80

  you think if you say you’re going to die, you

  won’t die: oh, no, you say, I’m going to die,

  you’re going to die, we’re all going to die:

  you think that takes the spell in and

  3835throws it back: la, la, it’s like one hell of

  a party: but, of course, if we do really get

  a party out of it now! but then, how are we

  to handle these thorny problems except with

  gloves, sprays, and rugged protective devices:

  3840we do not know as much as you might think:

  the planets were once all points of light and now

  they are so different no crazy inventor could

  have invented them: anything looked at

  closely becomes wonderful, especially—there

  _________

  3845she goes, that flimsy skirt, those legs,

  clicking down the hall to the restroom to

  piddle that pussy, lord, have mercy, (if

  she doesn’t piddle her pants getting there): of

  all the resources from dark origins, what we

  3850most implore is endowment, to stand in the

  fresh embarrassment of involuntary arising

  before eager astonishment and juicy possibility,

  to cause terror to tighten bliss across the

  sweep of the trembling abyss

  3855I have nowhere

  to

  go and all

  day

  to get there

  81

  3860trust no one: there is not a shred of loyalty

  that will not yield to advantage or change of

  circumstance: when you do what you’re supposed

  to do and others do what they’re supposed to

  do, trust is not called for: (the point,

  3865actually, is to foray for aye—and not to

  yield): (you know how wide the universe is;

  we can blow off a few spots and nothing

  ever missing): oh, foller the dollar, it knows

  the way: dam the way up, so the dollars get

  _________

  3870out of hand in mounds, deep chests, and long

  keepings, moldy trusts: put your dollars to

  work: and stay home yourself: if you don’t

  have two dollars, start with one: pretty soon

  you’ll be sitting around thinking of all the

  3875things money can’t buy: (it is important to

  note that all states are miserable: the only

  joy is in thinking it desirable to get from

  one to the other, state, I mean: California

  is the best state, because you can’t get to

  3880another state that way, so your misery can

  turn into the delights of imagining an East:

  oh, the tricky land of the luck-strewn East,

  the painted temples scribbled and scrolled

  so amply as to allow the falling out of the

  3885farthest personal chance, number: let’s see:

  what other moralizing can I do, orders give,

  prayers urge—all unimaged, unexampled:

  (take Long San Temple, for example, the

  dolphins yin and yang circling the center,

  3890a floridity of dragons (florality?) entertwining

  the outside of the circle, the inside of the

  octagon): Shakespeare, heightening artifice,

  renaturalizes nature. . . .

  82

  a hip pain, a swollen gum, eyes that stick dry

  3895at night, an ingrown toenail, a skin blemish

  precancerous, I tell you, I feel like shoot,

  I feel like wasted space: I mean I feel as

  out of place as if Mary Scots had feared getting

  salmonella from the chopping block: I feel

  3900like deeply undecided old men, drawn backward

  more than they can push forward, their

  lightning fork-shorn, their little slug soft as

  a snail, patches of decay festering in their

  groins: I feel approximately like that: also,

  3905I don’t feel good: instead of a young squirt

  you have a little bulging blubber: I need

  help: but you can bet a circumloca(cu)tion

  around your asshole (round trip, rim trip) that

  when the dogooders get out there saving lives

  3910(don’t eat, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t sit

  around) they’re fooling themselves out of

  knowing that too many live already (so

  hard to accept) and too many live too long

  (Medicare, Medicaid): we save only to drown

  3915in ourselves: not to rush out to save is to

  admit the truth: I can’t wait for somebody to

  save me: when I was ten about I was called up

  _________

  to the altar of the Pentecostal Fire-Baptized

  Holiness Church to be saved and later as I

  3920sat on a bench recovering, an old woman asked

  carefully and earnestly if I was saved: hell,

  yes, I think: saved from all that froth: no

  bit of foolishness people will not take

  seriously and the more removed from probability

  3925the less likely it need ever be tested by

  reality, so the more deliciously constant, the

  purer: I never can quite get over this

  propensity, the obviously true forsaken in

  search of a delusion in
a corny grotto: the

  3930thing for which there is no evidence shines

  what only deity knows: that light can intercede

  with the worst real circumstance: the people

  while foolish are no fools: they go for the

  good stuff where it’s best obtained, and

  3935cheapest: the gism never fails that is beyond

  this world, can’t be analyzed into failure:

  the fault that can’t be mended is no fault:

  BLADDER PROBLEMS

  83

  you’ve probably heard the one about the lay of

  3940the land: then there’s the one about my

  _________

  elevator not going all the way to the top

  anymore: and, of course, I’m like black

  raspberry jam—seedless (actually, I have

  plenty of seed, it’s germination that’s the

  3945bust): but hang, oh, hang, hang on, the fat

  lady is still primping in the dressing room: we

  have time to consider the considerations,

  whatever they were, I’ve forgotten: what was

  it all about: oh, yes, it’s all about what I

  3950saw this morning as I was sitting in the car

  over in Geneva waiting for Phyllis to come out

  of the Hanging Gardens store with her hanging

  tuberous begonia when coming towards me in the

  parking lot was this boy and semi-scraggly

  3955girl and he was trying to press down this

  erection, sometimes running his hand in his

  pocket: her hair was hanging down and she was

  talking: he probably had thought of the tip

  of her nipple or the lip of her barge-swinger,

  3960and there he was, ready: that, I said to

  myself, is what I can nearly remember: just

  think of gliding, think of that footloose,

  fancy-free gliding back and forth between the

  stars, and then that stillness you can’t hold

  _________

  3965anymore than you could hold a tiger, just a

  shiver of motion and you are powerfully done

  and undone: but it’s Memorial Day and those

  are memories: some of the people I was in the

  war with didn’t come back: that is very sad

  84

  3970consciousness is a kind of planet, inscribed

  on the outside with whatever’s seen or done,

  trekked or swum, climbed or scrambled down,

  while inside the molten moves (drives, slow

  shifts) redispose how the surface lies: we’re

  3975wardens, gardeners, waterworkers of the self

  keeping the circulations clear and the light

  bright; except, of course, we clog everything

  up and dumb everything down dim:

  I sit alone back to the window

  3980in a square of winter sun:

  the curve of the earth

  sinking into the deep beyond

  falls away all around me:

  nothing holds us up but

  3985a centering in motion, the great

  sun, unpropped, its center being

  hauled off, too,

  motion finding its ties

  with greater clusters and

  3990centers enveloping

  _________

  what’s up?

  what’s up?

  what’s up?

  what?

  3995what?

  85

  I don’t actually like the smell of pricks, I

  think: even pussy puts me off if I’m not up

  for it: light jam, though, though sticky, a

  dab, say, the thinnest apple, can improve the

  4000layout: or a spray, a touch of perfume by the

  cheek or lip can really brighten things: art,

  so transforming, addresses an aspect or two

  but often overrides nature too much, so that

  one can long to be back at the beginning, the

  4005substance put forward unaltered in its own

  surprise: work with it: who knows what

  combinations will do the trick: (listen,

  desire can turn the slickest scum marsh

  into golden shores): I’ve

  4010gotten to where no one is included in my

  sexual preference: true desire savors its

  satisfactions in silence, feels in awe the

  piercing surgeries of unforgivable beauty,

  stricken heart, pulled gut suffered dumb:

  4015true desire, covert, will not want its eye to

  _________

  be seen about, because it “takes two,” and

  meetings glance off killingly as much as tie

  together rope to rope: some loudmouth

  rattletrap old creep or some feinter and

  4020disguiser will keep the air full of sexual

  this and innuendo that, they burst the tension

  out of silence, these vulgarians, what are they

  about who are about nothing: desire keeps,

  rejoices in, and suffers its time: a woman

  4025in her reticences can be deeper than the stars

  and twice as foreign: delicacy and harsh

  sweetness fill the barge of pain; honor and

  service willingly show upon the lips of tender

  feeling: the coarse, ah, the coarse, unhappily

  4030they are not refined: to one aright, the

  garden of the woman is full of flowers: the

  porcelain gardenias of the upper arm, oh, the

  marigolds of the armpits, petunias in the

  groove between the jaw and neck, oh, the navel

  4035dandelions, oh, the verbena, viburnum, tiger

  lilies, musk roses, the orchids of the eyelids

  oh, yes, the scent, every inch another, and

  every one a seeping nectar, a dew distilled, a pop

  sicle: of course, if you get old, sour, and

  _________

  4040wrinkled, too stiff to lope, slap, and yodel,

  why, then you have to love the spirit more:

  by then the flowers have fruited and the

  nectarines lie about and the grapes split of

  their own plenty, and the casks of honey clear,

  4045and wine, cool as the hecatombs, revives the

  flowers of the mind: say goodnight, Archie

  GOODNIGHT, ARCHIE

  86

  Love Poem

  1

  4050You can’t fill

  a shallow

  dish

  with a strong

  faucet:

  4055a

  dribble, though,

  will brim it

  over

  2

  4060A baby wren

  can’t

  use

  _________

  a whole squirrel

  but a skinny

  4065flow

  of the lacywinged

  will soon set

  it off

  3

  4070You come on

  like a comber

  foaming

  at the crest:

  stir me

  4075only

  please as a

  pond lap

  slips

  87

  Old Age

  4080Whatever is

  wrong

  won’t

  be

  wrong long.

  4085this is the beginning of my next piece: I

  don’t yet know what it’s about but I suppose