The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

You know how babies in kindergarten catch (or

  give) a new cold every week, and how young

  people in college, you see their breakfast or

  lunch spilled by the walkways, or you see them

  5flash down the hall loaded with a bathroom

  urgency: it’s because these new people, their

  flexibility is so wide they have to take on

  the definitions of immunity, and their bowels

  have to adjust to the environmental influx:

  10gradually, they settle in: you sometimes see

  old folks cold-free and nicely trained for yrs

  at a time; they and not-they have fought out

  a partial standoff allowing lingering peace:

  young people are green, tender, responsive &

  15so delightful (usually): it takes time for

  them to become anything you can count on: I’m

  glad I can put, with all this talk, slosh back

  into the metrically-induced compressions of

  terrorist tightwads who’ve squeezed the

  20tradition so lean so long: these neat little

  _________

  packets of considered richness, excluding the

  wasted grandeur of dull prairies and empty

  seas, so much ice plunging off Antarctica,

  these little tightly packed exclusions, what,

  25is’t not nobler and a more a liking of the maker

  to sprinkle hedgerows up and down anything,

  repeat krill astonishingly, fill up a sky with

  rolling rows of discrete white clouds (imagine

  what it would cost!), what’s the matter with

  30dirt, dirt, and more dirt, and a little bit

  more: can one be big and rich: but what about

  the poor patch where only perking geysers can

  cough up a little green: oh, don’t mess with

  me: do I have to tell you everything. . . .

  Hooliganism

  Once (there was a time when) I was attracted

  to, if not attractive to, everybody, starlet

  and streetlet, athlete and bellybag: afire,

  I burned anything, including myself: kneedeep

  5in ashen brush, even some simmering fagots, I

  tried to separate the heat from the flame but

  gave up, pouring it all into the love of a wife

  now nearly half a century old—the wife a

  little older: most of those old flames (sweet

  10people) have flickered away except for the

  _________

  corner of my mind where lively they live on in

  honor, honorary doctorates circling their

  laureled heads—what schools they founded!

  taking what pains, with what tears, they taught

  15me how, roaring possibilities and tenderest

  glows: love, love, one learns to love, it is

  not easy, yet not to love, even astray, leaves

  something left for the grave: burnt out

  completely is ease at last, the trunk honeyed

  20full as a fall hive: when the light dies out

  at last on the darkening coals, the life

  turns to jewels, so expensive, and

  they never give the sparkle up: this was

  a fancy, and not half fancy enough and somewhat

  25lacking in detail but ever true.

  (1998)

  Slacking Off

  You don’t put them in, they can’t stay in:

  calories, I mean: you don’t put them in, you

  don’t have to get them out: you can sit all

  day at the TV, a couch potato, and shrivel up like

  5a stale french fry: you won’t have to exercise

  a bit, pretty soon a skeleton would look fat

  next to you: that’s a skeleton that died of

  thick bones from too much exercise: who won’t

  _________

  get close enough to the edge of definition

  10won’t get the edge in “living on the edge”:

  why won’t some come to edges others can’t keep

  away from: answer me that: okay, I’ll do it:

  if your differentiation, so-called, is a

  similitude broadly applying why then your

  15identity dissolves in happy safety with the

  group, crowd, nation, even continent, unless

  you’re away, say out of town or away on business

  or vacation: then you might find you had

  transported your singular distinction into the

  20midst of a major otherness: mostly, though,

  as you would probably want to get on back home

  you would warmly and wholeheartedly identify

  with your likenesses or kind: if your

  differentiation is poorly peopled, you may

  25rub the majority abrasively, and it may be

  dangerous for you to show your face or unwind

  your genome: better keep your mouth shut,

  unless you can represent the growing edge of a

  coming time when, it may be, you can move more

  30smoothly in and out of the circuits of grace:

  but if you come clean as an abomination, better

  snitch a helicopter and get the fuck out: the

  animals, you know, other than ourselves though

  much the same, are like archeological sites:

  _________

  35we need to plunder their behavior to get at the

  roots and devices pertaining to survival on

  this planet: the lions, how they interact,

  killing, eating, mating, their disputes among

  themselves: and the orang-utans, our motives

  40written simply, deeply, silently: even the

  bacteria, little hordes swimming this way and

  that together: a piece of fossil notable in

  me says hit it, git it, and git: but, of

  course, that looks out of place dragged out in

  45front of our cultural conditioning. . . .

  Quibbling the Colossal

  I just had the funniest thought: it’s the

  singing of Wales and whales that I like so

  much: you know, have you heard those men’s

  groups, those coal miners and church people in

  5Wales singing: to be deeply and sweetly undone,

  listen in: and the scrawny risings and

  screechings and deep bellowings of whales,

  their arias personal (?) and predatory at

  love and prey—that makes up mind for us as

  10we study to make out mind in them: the reason

  I can’t attain world view or associational

  complexity is that when I read I’m asleep by

  _________

  the second paragraph: also, my poems come in

  dislocated increments, because my spine between

  15the shoulderblades gets to hurting when I type:

  also, my feet swell from sitting still: but

  when the world tilts one way it rights another

  which is to say that the disjunctiveness of my

  recent verse cracks up the dark cloud and

  20covering shield of influence and lets fresh

  light in, more than what little was left, a

  sliver along the farthest horizon: room to

  breathe and stretch and not give a shit, room

  to turn my armies of words around in or camp

  25out and hide (bivouac): height to reach up

  through the smoke and busted mirrors to clear

  views of the beginnings high in the oldest

  times: but seriously you know, this way of

  seeing things is just a way of seeing things:

  30time is not crept up on by some accumulative

  designer but percolates afresh every day like

  a hot cup of coffee: and, Harold, if
this is

  an Evening Land, when within memory was it

  otherwise, all of civilized time a second in

  35the all of time: good lord, we’re all so

  recent, we’ve hardly got our ears scrubbed,

  hair unmatted, our teeth root-canaled: so,

  shine on, shine on, harvest moon: the computers

  _________

  are clicking, and the greatest dawn ever is

  40rosy in the skies.

  CAST THE OVERCAST

  Informing Dynamics

  We don’t live near a stream, but now we do:

  the water slipping down the side of the street

  would shame many a river with a big name

  inscribed on space shots, with a history, with

  5fish: three or four inches this morning and

  more coming: a flotation medium rising in the

  basement, alas, a mop and bucket my squeezing

  remedy: and Phyllis is off at a funeral:

  put down in this much water, one could drown;

  10at least, get wet: but what does the body

  care that has no spirit in it: it has already

  drowned in a medium sleep pales before: and

  the spirit, even: it was just a bit of

  electricity firing off joints and nets: off,

  15it isn’t there anymore: the body, though, is

  but it has taken on the temperature of the

  ground and sees no difference in itself: oh,

  but the difference to some! a lifetime’s

  worth of getting on with life: it is just that

  20quick cut between getting our monographs

  _________

  published about horse fever and keeping the drain

  free below the rainspout and putting a little

  aside for the kids’ education and—BOP—gone:

  I have so much trouble with that edge: the

  25day-to-day plunged into eternity: the look

  back then from eternity to the day-to-day:

  what was it all about, what was the use, how

  did we get so interested, so worried, so

  anxious: I say, meaning cannot be criticized

  30by time: where does time get off: while there

  is meaning, there is meaning: meaninglessness

  is not the opposite but the absence of

  meaning: when anything has served its purpose

  it might as well be abandoned, even meaning:

  35but meaning is really good while it lasts: too

  bad you can’t store it up anywhere for a download.

  (1997)

  Pyroclastic Flows

  I’m on drugs, now: this is the way people on

  too much medicinal uplift write: they are

  very nearly sorry that they cannot take you

  very seriously: they have been rendered

  5incapable of their own tragedy: they don’t

  understand how anyone can hold a strong opinion

  _________

  or crave a stiff measure: they are the first

  to hold themselves up to the mirror of

  inconsequence and smile: they don’t grasp

  10that their ribbons are on a flogging stick:

  I say to the man, are you my provider: when

  I need the feelings, I get down on my knees

  and say, wipe out some of the darkness, put the

  jiggle back in: how much is that: the druggist

  15flips out his counting knife and 5, 10, 15,

  there they go, one a day, twice if need be,

  only as prescribed: well, it takes a few wks

  of flushing and burning to get on them but

  then you cool out, you float, you are under

  20the wings of butterflies: the air, you know,

  is not just nothing: it is a medium like the

  sea but thinner: things, as fishes in water

  do, float in it—mites, and household plants

  called yeasts, sundry viral and bacterial

  25organisms: you’ve seen pictures of those big

  catfish breathing thick water: well, we have

  our own strainers, blockers, and sort of gills:

  already here 70 years, I don’t get too shook

  up about what floats in the air: as long as

  30it’s not me or only my drugs, honey

  HARD ASSETTE

  Odd Man Out

  I’m just an old man in a de-gilded (gelded?) cage: a

  bird, too: I think I’m a hornbill: when I

  blow hard, I get a horny sound: it whacks

  off tree trunks: my friends in the forest

  5want to know what’s the fuss about: frankly,

  I can’t keep it down: I try to hum a lot

  instead and look way out into the periphery:

  but as to a lodestone or couple of lodestones

  my attention wanders back and seizes exigency

  10out of aura: listen, talk about old: mineral

  deposits stiffen old men’s bladder walls: at

  the latrine, if you can get started, only,

  say, the first level, a third, goes, especially

  if you’re in a hurry: you cut it off: the

  15walls, you know, need to collapse to the

  remaining quantity: that takes time: you

  could shake away with a bladder hardly spent:

  old men have to stand there and soon they can

  feel the second level acquire pressure, and

  20then when they get down to the last dribble

  there’s probably half a pint unencircled: we,

  you, they have to work at it: but out in the

  forest meanwhile the monkeys burble, the floor

  viper slides: give it half an hour, then

  RAISE A BEAD

  Squall Lines

  They say of us old people, look, what do you

  care, how much do you have to lose: go ahead,

  cruise down the Volga and check out Petersburg

  or drive into New York City: if you get

  5blipped off, what’s that: it won’t be long

  before you blip off anyhow: why, what has a

  25-year-old built up in 25 years that compares

  with a 70-year-old’s trove: think of the

  perspective, the seasoning, the long loves,

  10the vigil till enemies die: also, how about

  the money, prestige, the real estate: what,

  you ask, do the old have to lose, why, more &

  more till sitting back in easy splendor they

  don’t want to go at all: but the 25-year-old

  15will complain that if he flips he loses what

  he had yet to gain: still wet behind the ears

  he doesn’t even know what that is (not that

  anyone does): alas, the old have little in

  that bank: the young inherit the world, but

  20we already have it, except we’ve had it. . . .

  John Henry

  This morning I greeted my wife’s waking with

  how’s my sweet little dewberry but, poor thing, the

  _________

  answer was a rotten sore throat, headache,

  upset stomach and, soon determined, 100.2

  5fever: so I said to her, well, there you are:

  sometimes these berries mold or canker on the

  vine: an oblong aspirin, coke (potable), half

  a slice of toast, and cuddled up in a corner

  of the couch with the Ithaca Journal and the

  10Wall Street Journal she is locating, I hope,

  the road to recovery: but that hacking cough: