by A. R. Ammons
4625taxes, and separation after separation from
the umbilicus to the loss of all connection
in the grave: well, there’s just so much to
say about truth that, the truth is, I’m getting
all mixed up: think of all the unpleasant
4630personal truths: our eyes are truly not
the way we want them: our ears are too large
or misshapen or insensitive: we are
egregiously well endowed or gravely into
shortfall: our skin is acned or the wrong
4635shade: the ratio of hip to shoulder is off:
I will have to dedicate a whole piece to truth
someday it is so hard to cover: for now, in haste,
I am fragmentarily (and truly?)
WAY COOL
104
4640Uncle John was a cap’m at the beach back when
the world was trying to begin: those old days
yes, sir: he could spot a school from the
shore: the rowboat would drop, and the men
would haul net out 150 yards into the breakers and
4645circle back, pop out of the boat and pulling
on each end of the arc drag in a furrow of
fish yea high and 100 feet long—spots,
mullet, croakers, crabs, whale shit, and stuff
like you never seen: the men, black, would
4650divvy up the catch (except the cap’m got more)
and sell what they could and as dusk came
fires along the beach would break out as the
men boiled fish in iron pots and roasted
sweet potatoes: talk about good: talk about
4655a hongry: all this is a strain in my makeup:
quite a strain: Lord, how I wish I had lived
then, for that! mincing words will not do for
the flap of a fish on the wet sand: something
you caught, something to sell: I went to
4660grammar school and plowed the fucking clods
instead, a serious person, little given to
human life: Uncle John was later sheriff for
sixteen years and owned a whole beach: he was
_________
feeling good one day (white lightning) and
4665reached into the back seat of his Terraplane &
gave me twenty dollars, me, just twelve years
old and in love with nothing but paper pads &
PENCILS
105
nature poetry, nature poetry
4670he’s got nature
poetry up piss ass
nature poetry, nature poetry
he’s got nature
poetry up piss ass DA deDA
4675I mean DUM de DUM
music for my opening: overture to my manure
(you’re out on the highway of life when
unfinished you end butt up):
no, I mean UP piss ASS
4680the wealthy need the wealthy: no wonder they
have so many parties (to which the wealthy are
invited): the money weighs as a responsibility
heavy with hauteur and guilt: the fortunate
feel they should fall but fear the pit: in
4685other words they’re like everyone else: except
they’re rich: I suppose you would like to
know something about my inner life: well, it
_________
stinks: no, no, I don’t mean that, I’m kidding:
what I mean is that I think you would like to
4690think that my inner life stinks, it is so
comforting to know that other people’s inner
life also stinks: but no, seriously, I don’t
mean that about you at all: don’t I know how
compassionate and supportive you can be (altho
4695that seems to pour forth more readily upon the
lost, forsaken, sick, or disadvantageously
challenged; that is, a situation in which
someone else’s inner life stinks more than
your own): well, I confess, my inner life
4700stinks but only when it isn’t gloriously
fragrant: merriment runs along kicking up its
heels down all my tragic streets, although when
I get to the theater district both my stink &
my fragrance seem of the stuff they play inside,
4705entitled bubbles on the marquees of dreams:
so, look out how you mess with me: I have my
finger on your pulse or in something else: you
have to be careful of transcendentalists: on
one side of their goofiness is carnal misery
4710and on the other the prettiest high slides
glee ever broke out of: that’s the amusement
park just down the riverside from the theater
district: who can ever be sure of anything
_________
and the transcendentalists get up there where
4715there’s (goodness) nothing to be sure of:
anyway, I love you, you know I love you, and I
want your life inner and outer to be doused
with radiance, even if it is really a
STINKEROO
106
4720what is the difference between a balanced view
of things and sitting on the fence: well, on
the fence, you could get barbs or spikes up your
delicacy: but the thing is, why did you ask:
are you angry at me and want to addle me with
4725a conundrum, short-circuit my head with a hard knot:
have you developed insufficient faith in my
prior responses (responses verging on answers)
or are you just a miserable little needler who
can’t stand anybody else’s happiness: I can
4730tell you what’s on my mind (forget about sex):
I’m roaring in the aisles over these long-face
poets who labor (poetically) over their
country’s identities and problems: their
symbols are going to come into control of ale
4735and “mixing and mingling” (forget about sex)
and they’re going to work right through hunger
and desolation, if possible before the funding
_________
runs out, and they’re going to liberate the
gods in the slobs, marry the spinsters, and
4740ward off disease: no, I lost it: you know
what I mean: it’s just a riot the way people
take themselves: my ribs burble: my eyes are
washed in the salt of my native land: I suppose
it would be only just to give these people
4745prizes: a leaden example pacifies the people:
that’s the best solution right there, effectuate
the lobotomy: give the people what they need,
no resistance to their fates: no, I don’t mean
all this: I just mean, isn’t it a sight, all
4750these horses careening around taking themselves
seriously: guess who gives a hoot: well, I
don’t know about your nation, but my nation
would just as soon not be bothered, and I
wouldn’t want to bother it, would you
4755BOOBS HOOT
107
Glenn (inventively—and wittily, as is his
kaffeeklatsch wont) (also quite a singer and
maker of songs) said why not let professors
improve their pay (lessening in buying power
4760since 1968—see Schwartz) by selling time
to local commercial interests: apart from
_________
the midclass break that lets kids visit the
facilities, one could have one or more mini
breaks, such as, in addition let me suggest
47
65that you visit Zikakis—good sales, good
service: or, Odysseus, come ashore naked,
bristled with brine salt—and now, have you
tried the Downtown Bagelry: not only would
this supplement the poor professor’s wage
4770but it would put the students, unused to such,
in touch with the realities that produce the
funds that universities suck off, no, I mean,
suck from: no tuna salad is to be had sucking
off, I mean, from Odysseus, not that the clear
4775visions of isles and spooky women and
attractive monsters don’t brace the spirit:
Glenn’s fun: also capable of pertinent and
deep thought: we like him, as do others: as
a professor myself I am conversant with the
4780opinion (now conviction) that anything
formulable enough to be taught is not worth
teaching—is, that is, exhausted, unless it
can be revived: for things are said and
taught only to get beyond themselves: students
4785must rifle through these forms in order to get
to the uncertainty, blips, and hints that
suggest the what-is-to-[be-]found is being approached:
_________
so what does the professor have: merely the
possibility of grace in redrawing the line:
4790I said to my neighbor, both of us new to old
houses, a tree, apparently on the line, has
leaned partly out of its roots toward your
roof, and it must be taken down, and he said,
whose trees these are I wish I knew: were they
4795planted by your old owner or mine, and are they
on the line or not, and who’s going to pay for
it: all I could think to say was, it looks
a little like the leaning Tower of Pisa—
GET OUT
108
4800the past lifts: the burning aches flow ashen: the
heavy waters fog out of the valleys, & trim
the mountain heights: high winds strike the
heights free of my pangs, become swirls you can
see through, too sheer for mares’ tails: but
4805how much is that mockery in the window: why,
it’s my reflection, swimmy, ghostly, wavery, oh
I’m just an old fool in a gilded cage: so, I
go on, and my image flies out of there, not for
sale: as it will fly away someday, without
_________
4810price: what a joke it was: and is: I took
the planet seriously: can you imagine: I
hear giggles along the outer limbs of the
galaxies and belly laughs in the cores: I
made plans, set goals, to make myself last in
4815something lasting: you can expect a gullywasher
to take failure away, but I succeeded well
enough in a way, and now I am here by the
going-away and my dizzy little arrogances turn
in an overwash to mud: hark: it is written:
4820better laugh a little yourself, so you join
the universal chorus: get with it: be
there with the high ride: so, now, am I to
take laughter seriously, or am I to laugh at
laughter: but I didn’t set the goals for the
4825goals: no, I set the goals when not for myself
for you or all of us: only in the very last
instant will you be undone in me, for you are
a carbuncled cask, its chain locks encrusted &
salt-sealed on the bottom of the deepest lagoon:
4830well, I don’t know about that: will the worms
send us back to the chef: will we be too rare
or too tough or overdone or sauceless: I
think not: I think we will be acceptable:
anyhow,
_________
4835LET’S NOT SPOIL THE TRUTH
WITH BEAUTY
HERE, OKAY
109
it’s bad news in the OK corral when the
beautiful wrinkle: the skin loosens and dries,
4840the lips pucker in waste, the eyes droop
outside as if trying to look in: isn’t it
specially hard on the beautiful when the looks
look away and they are left, not with their
beauty and the others, but with neither: is
4845it better to be ugly and unsolicited all
along: sometimes the ugly in age acquire,
what, attractive patinas gained by loss,
flexible wisdoms, acquaintances with distance,
and furthermore their bodies have not been
4850ravished and ravaged: reality polishes
character and sometimes ugly oldies
shine with a radiance right out of seasoning:
weathered, the beauty and the ugly look about
the same, except for spirit: the ugly rise
4855into eager equality, while the beautiful are
ashamed to be seen: this, in time, produces a
different facial expression: also, it is
possible that if you are ugly some beauty,
charmed by the foil, will give himself or
_________
4860herself to you: also (also, also) the rich
who need nothing often look with envy on those
who get shook up over buying practically
nothing: so (so, so) may the good-looking look
upon us, the ugly or poorly endowed (or just
4865poor), with mercy—so (so, so) we can have a
ball, too
EVEN AS THE CANNIBAL DOES
110
if you’re constipated don’t rape yourself
from the inside out: don’t sit down and put
4870the impulse right to the test, straining and
pushing, causing bleeding: take a little time
to relax, let the tissues adjust: if you lose
the urge, there will be another, if not right
away, soon: gently treated and not pressed
4875your action will begin to look forward to itself
rather than shrinking back aghast: but, of
course, this is just a little tip to try: it
isn’t the law—but it reminds me that if
everybody kissed my heinie that should, my
4880asshole would be worn smooth. . . .
LORD HELP
111
when I heard the learned astonisher, I said
to myself, well, I bedanged, I felt so
unpuzzled and, like a text or bottle of
4885goodie, 80 or 90% proofed, so I went out and
looked up at the stars and said to them, do
you realize how much we mites have found out
about you from this little dot in space: they
did not respond, you might know, because they
4890are just stars: (if I killed myself, then I
would only be dead: the achievement, unlike
the gesture, would not be great): I would like,
in spite of this alarm and that enfeeblement,
to hold on: the unfolding is not finished:
4895the big thing remains to do: but what is it:
is it a cluster of small things, terribly
honest, even if filthy and low-drawing, or is
