The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  dry, unyielding, nothing getting up: feathers:

  this train has run out of track pppsssssstttt. . . .

  Rogue Elephant

  The reason to be autonomous is to stand there,

  a cleared instrument, ready to act, to search

  the moral realm and actual conditions for what

  needs to be done and to do it: fine, the

  5best, if it works out, but if, like a gun, it

  comes in handy to the wrong choice, why then

  you see the danger in the effective: better

  then an autonomy that stands and looks about,

  negotiating nothing, the supreme indifferences:

  10is anything to be gained where as much is lost

  and if for every action there is an equal and

  opposite reaction has the loss been researched

  _________

  equally with the gain: you can see how the

  milling actions of millions could come to a

  15buzzard-like glide as from a coincidental,

  warm bottom of water stuck between chilled

  peaks: it is not so easy to say, okay, go on

  out and act: who, doing what, to what or

  whom: just a minute: should the bunker be

  20bombed (if it stores gas): should all the

  rattlers die just because they rattle: if I

  hear the young gentleman vomiter roaring down

  the hall in the men’s room, should I go and

  inquire of him, reducing him to my care: no

  25wonder the great sayers (who say nothing) sit

  about in inaccessible states of mind: no

  wonder still wisdom and catatonia appear to

  exchange places occasionally: but if anything

  were easy, our easy choices soon would carry

  30away our ignorance with the world—better

  let the mixed up mix and let the surface shine

  with all the possibilities, each in itself.

  (1998)

  Mouvance

  Hilarity and sour scorn typify my reactions to

  passions of the moment: I mean, seeing people

  _________

  expend themselves into fugitive extremes, it

  speaks poorly of the power of the mind to

  5govern any kind of distances: until you

  consider that passions, except in intense

  subduals too longrange to bear, only come in

  moments, so if you are to get any passion out

  of life, you’ll have to dig it out of narrow

  10spaces or squeeze all you have into slender,

  if deep, circumstance: I myself have never

  known what to do about anything: as I look

  back, I see not even a clown but a clown’s

  clothes flapping on the clothesline of some

  15tizzy: is it really wise so to anticipate

  and prepare for the storm, so to gauge it in

  terms of other storms, that when the fierce

  lightning breaks and high wind falls blunt

  against you you just look away with a numb

  20nonchalance: what about the splintering free

  of the green branches, the bubbly pelt and

  spray of windy rain on sudden pools, what

  about the vigorous runaway of rivulets finding

  themselves: what, what, did not the vibrance

  25of the ground in that thud click your teeth:

  think of the tranquillity, all passion spent,

  when the passion passes and you lie back in

  a relief of sweet feeling: whereas, unspent

  _________

  you would just growl your way into the next

  30worry of the next storm: hark, the bells are

  ringing, the announcements are in preparation,

  might as well start singing. . . .

  (1998)

  Called Into Play

  Fall fell: so that’s it for the leaf poetry:

  some flurries have whitened the edges of roads

  and lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: &

  turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I going to

  5find something to write about I haven’t already

  written away: I will have to stop short, look

  down, look up, look close, think, think, think:

  but in what range should I think: should I

  figure colors and outlines, given forms, say

  10mailboxes, or should I try to plumb what is

  behind what and what behind that, deep down

  where the surface has lost its semblance: or

  should I think personally, such as, this week

  seems to have been crafted in hell: what: is

  15something going on: something besides this

  diddledeediddle everyday matter-of-fact: I

  could draw up an ancient memory which would

  wipe this whole presence away: or I could fill

  _________

  out my dreams with high syntheses turned into

  20concrete visionary forms: Lucre could lust

  for Luster: bad angels could roar out of perdition

  and kill the AIDS vaccine not quite

  perfected yet: the gods could get down on

  each other; the big gods could fly in from

  25nebulae unknown: but I’m only me: I have 4

  interests—money, poetry, sex, death: I guess

  I can jostle those. . . .

  (1997)

  Back-Burnerd

  No sooner do I say I don’t do something than I

  do: no sooner do I say I believe something

  than I don’t: the minute something comes up

  clear, behind me it goes: it no longer seems

  5to be surrounding: it wasn’t till I saw it

  that I saw it was a basket or bucket not big

  enough to hold enough: and anyhow when

  one is in the habit of looking for something

  how do you find something to do after you’ve

  10found something, why, look for something else:

  I guess we’re pushed ahead into what we call

  progress, hoping: I’m soaring today like a

  dead mole: I have as much get up and go as a

  rock bottom: the point of it all has folded

  _________

  15back into a parachute drag: the narrative

  has cracked, too brittle for bridges:

  my father, begetting my coming hither, begat

  my leave: my mother bore me between two legs

  but hence between twelve I will slowly go:

  20there’s nothing like nothing on a hungover

  morning: they say: I don’t drink: it’s

  just that phrases come to me: I think, what

  can I do with this: into the trash, a possibility:

  but I’m a saver, I hold on: having something

  25to hold on to for an old man, even if it’s like

  a turkey snood or slack eelette, is better

  than a smooth cutoff of things: we must not

  leave the hapless helpless hopeless: who

  knows when the next beautiful morning will

  30appear: for sure. . . .

  A Few Acres of Shiny Water

  I guess anything gets old: being rich, yep,

  pretty soon it’s old—occasional pleasant

  spurts of realization, then—celebrity, a big

  ox in your way wherever you turn, that gets

  5old: having nothing to do gets old in a hurry,

  going from having something to do to not being

  able to find anything to do, I’ll say: being

  in love, oh, dear, even that, about the third

  _________

  month, gets old as hell, all those re-arisings:

  10on the bestseller list—great the first week,

  also the second week; then it’s every week,

 
expected, tedious, getting old: market up,

  wow, up again, oh, boy, still up, up and up,

  I see, okay, really: you are finally thought

  15to be as good a poet as you thought—so; so

  what, what is a poet: even getting old gets

  old, the novelty aches and pains, surprising

  and scary at first, they don’t wear off but

  the novelty does: finding, and trying to

  20find, something new gets old: find a new

  risk to take, a new cliff to sail off from,

  pretty soon it’s a drag to get all the way to

  Nepal or a Filipino trench: telling about

  getting old and everything getting old gets

  25old, I’ll tell you, it sure does. . . .

  [They said today would be partly cloudy]

  They said today would be partly cloudy: I’d

  like to see the other part: this part is

  clearly apparent, which is to say, cloudy:

  alas, that ever flakes were snow: the effect

  5of lake effect snow is in dawn’s early light

  about five inches, the plows not out, the

  _________

  birds not singing, the muffled night turned

  to bleached silence: but what do we here

  expect, why, this: but a partly day promised,

  10this whole one so far is flurried: have

  you ever thought how the weather, of which

  there is such a tedious plenty, especially

  when nothing happens for months, say, no rain

  or no sun, have you ever thought how the

  15weather is just the planet carrying on, an

  atmospheric thing native to these millions

  of turnings in space: I mean, that it has

  no reference to us: the weather is its weather:

  it doesn’t even know that the roads are slick

  20or deep or that the hill roads are sliding

  passageways into ditches and brambles: it

  isn’t aware that someone is tangled in a

  drift or that a big drift is sliding down on

  someone: it’s just amazing how much it doesn’t

  25know: it doesn’t know anything.

  (1998)

  Feint Praise

  The world has dealt (nothing personal)

  outrageously with me: now, I deal back: it’s

  like arguing with the head-chopper, though, where can

  it get me: I guess I could get to where I’d

  _________

  5be saying, look, sir, do you fully realize what

  you’re doing: is there any room for

  negotiation here, like, your head or mine:

  (when an artist, say, striving to be normal,

  isn’t, there you have genuine stuff: not

  10necessarily the best stuff: but, how much

  better to replace the unachievable with the

  inadvertent: this is what an artist means

  when he says he’s not responsible for his

  genius, it just happens: but, alas, if the

  15artist quite normal enough strives to be

  weird, the shocking falsity wears so thin a

  sheen it’s soon hardly shocking and far more

  dismissible:) (the material in the preceding

  parenthesis is worth thinking on): (to go the

  20other way further out into the periphery is

  to lose hold on the central issues and

  become thin, manneristic, too arty, and

  mere).

  (1998)

  Surfacing Surface Effects

  A small moon nearly melted in the almost-morning

  night, I arise and thank God I can get up:

  (we used to use paper napkins but lately my

  wife has taken to pulling upscale cloth napkins

  _________

  5through wooden rings but since we don’t want

  to soil the cloth napkins, we now have no

  napkins at all): dawn turns the moon into a

  crust of bumpy ice, and I go out paled by

  reality to face the world, the world again,

  10still there (thank goodness, but still there):

  the smallest crevices and narrowest alleyways

  of pleasure microscopic nearly in the wide

  blank recalcitrance, a scope: (the weatherman

  said he would give us the causes of the changes

  15in the weather when what we wanted was

  CHANGES IN THE CAUSES)

  Free One, Get One By

  I’m over and done with: disengaged, I’m up

  for grabs: if you want me, you can have me,

  floating: I’m useless to any use; having none, ready for

  any direction: (this is not

  5exactly the way I heard myself saying this

  on the way to the typewriter: the first

  part sounds right, but then something ever so

  slightly fancy feeds a little rot in—oh, but

  that reminds me, one of the urinals at the

  10university is out of order and a blank sheet

  has been hung over it saying OUT OF ORDER but

  I think some leftover piss, hidden in there,

  _________

  has rotted: so I was thinking yesterday

  of ROTTEN PISS: imagine, rotten piss: even

  15that rots—and smells: stinks: stand next

  to it, it cuts your breath off (and your piss)

  one knows, of course, what things come to, an

  end, bobbing free, fortunately, in

  when: one on the row, say, wouldn’t want a

  20definite date, would he (she): but how rude

  to have the head man just walk in on you,

  possibly in your underwear, and say, hurry up:

  please, it’s time: what, no time to lift off

  the prepared speeches like balloons, airy

  25forms fingering the precincts of heaven for

  mercy: mercy, mercy: what could one do then

  but cast off into terror and restraint as

  filling as any significant finish: over and

  done with, available to the stars, one

  30has no further use for oneself, all that

  remains is to smell. . . .

  THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION

  (1998)

  Dumb Clucks

  Up, O Nothing, where the coming together of

  everything ends everything, the aboriginal

  emptiness, source of all beginnings, where

  spirit at last totally prevails, up there,

  5this awing site the brain sees, does it need

  a universe to back it up and, if not, is it

  anything but a wisp, or are universe and wisp,

  one and another kind of disappearance again

  all one: who cares: here, one is wed to two

  10and the outbreak of things into sweetness and

  pain binds and frees us: what, after all, is

  greater than the toe of a child, and does any

  truth supercede a gushingly ripe pear or

  peach or collection of grape pulps: one’s

  15fame in the hands of a reviewer is not so much

  a spur as a poniard: it is seldom the case

  that praise has so o’erswelled (o’erswollen)

  one that the doctor prescribes daggers: one

  sustains oneself on mice- and chickenfeed and

  20can be swept away in the wind of the slightest