The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  disfavor: well, we are such dust as housemites

  husband on, riding microscopic currents in the

  stillest parlor air. . . .

  UNSIGHTLY HAIR

  (1998)

  Sucking Flies

  No longer confident of the transfigurations, the

  assemblages, piercing coordinations, the wound

  unwound into a new winding wound again—now,

  I just put in the wording: I give words to the

  5passing music, taking it as it is, where it goes:

  who am I to prevail upon the shallows to reveal

  their source materials, the hidden currents,

  hidden drives (as the road signs say): what I

  am not is a teacher: if Heraclitus, Aristotle,

  10Bacon, Burke have not taught the world then

  teaching doesn’t work, is not the issue: (but

  the music gets so flat: the energies of

  transforming lift up, tensely integrative, into

  new formations young, beautiful: whereas,

  15merely to go along with scrambling mediocrity

  is to defer too much to the world:) oh, how

  flat it is (so much so that exclaiming about it

  nearly gets a rise out of me): is disillusion

  wise, or is it wise to fiddle with fragilities,

  20little dreams and hopes and foolish beliefs:

  there is a smallness runs under things like a

  crumbly soil that takes in what remains and

  gives back the beauties of the field: our

  bodies share these worm-shaken roads: but our

  _________

  25spirit, it is from before and knows no changes

  through all the lineations of consequence. . . .

  (1998)

  Balsam Firs

  With my wife and me, it isn’t so much that we

  have used each other up—we really can’t do

  that—but that time has used us up: we stand

  on the frail end of a long plank where things

  5get jittery and, because of the uncertainties,

  almost new again: but time, time, has built

  us so far out, we’re nearly off the ship: we

  turn to each other and say, look, there’s

  plenty here to do something about, but do you

  10suppose, so late, it’s worth getting started:

  still, life is now as it has always been, such

  as it has been, life, and we say let’s get on

  with it: colloquial idioms at such times

  soften sharpness—or, one might say, run an

  15iron rod out under the plank: I, myself, am

  not much use: I have churned the word mill so

  long that I can’t pick out anything from

  anything: I’ve said everything and mostly

  cared when it sounded good: but my wife is as

  20solid as a jug or judge: her words, purporting

  _________

  to mean, are bottom lines: I listen to her:

  sometimes, I write down what she says, too:

  but getting back to the boat, I’m for running

  a few sails up and hooking into the changes:

  25we’re feeling blustery and the open deep spills

  out where the farthest sight is only sea. . . .

  Tree Limbs Down

  The poverty of having everything is not

  wanting anything: I trudge down the mall halls

  and see nothing wanting which would pick me

  up: I stop at a cheap $79 piece of jewelry,

  5a little necklace dangler, and it has a diamond

  chip in it hardly big enough to sparkle, but it

  sparkles: a piece of junk, symbolically vast;

  imagine, a life with a little sparkle in it, a

  little sparkle like wanting something, like

  10wanting a little piece of shining, maybe the

  world’s smallest ruby: but if you have everything

  the big carats are merely heavy with price and

  somebody, maybe, trying to take you over: the dull

  game of the comers-on, waiting everywhere like

  15moray eels poked out of holes: what did Christ

  say, sell everything and give to the poor, and

  immediacy enters; daily bread is the freshest

  kind: dates, even, laid up old in larders, are

  _________

  they sweet: come off sheets of the golden

  20desert, knees weak and mouth dry, what would

  you think of an oasis, a handful of dates, and

  a clear spring breaking out from under some stones:

  but suppose bread can’t daily be found or no

  oasis materializes among the shimmers: lining

  25the outside of immediacy, alas, is uncertainty:

  so the costly part of the crust of morning

  bread is not knowing it will be there: it has

  been said by others, though few, that nothing

  is got for nothing: so I am reconciled: I

  30traipse my dull self down the aisles of

  desire and settle for nothing, nothing wanted,

  nothing spent, nothing got.

  Wetter Beather

  When a person inquires too much into my

  condition, I wonder if he searches for ill

  or good: as for my typewriter, it will not do

  well in a humidity, it takes on a gummy

  5lethargy, it refuses its spaces, stalling its

  keys which, certainly, just fling themselves

  idly against a nonchalance: but let a cool

  front through or let a heat wave require the

  air conditioner and the keys flick along as easily

  10as thought: this foreknowledge prevents me

  _________

  from hastening off, heavy manual machine under

  my arm or confined upon my hip by the arm,

  hastening off, I say, to the repair shop—

  a lucky patience because there no longer are

  15any shops for this device, and few ribbons

  around and sparse typewriter paper: I am in

  the midst of a technological redoing which

  I will not abide till the radiant screens no

  longer flicker: but my talent is so expired

  20that I need not trouble myself with digital

  advances, I merely amuse myself in the comfort

  of my own surrounding ignorance, with no

  intention of publication and, of course, little

  hope that others will press me thru the press.

  The Gushworks

  When what it was is what it is (or when what

  it is is what it was) there you have an overlap:

  for example, when you blow your nose, you

  could, you know, close the handkerchief on the

  5product: instead, you are likely to open up

  to see WHAT IT WAS: was it just a clear

  gelatinous blob or a crusty skin shield or a

  butterball of gooey glop: or as when you go

  to the bathroom, you could flush before rising

  10but you probably rise before flushing: you

  _________

  want to see WHAT IT WAS: you want to find out

  if what it was going to be can be elicited

  into a knowledge of what it now is: like an

  oyster-type gob, your nose, I mean: I am a

  15member of the vertical circle whose arc passes

  through a height above nearly all human interest

  and whose depth encloses the silences of most

  human shame: there is a sense in which the

  integrity of the circle is taut throughout,

  20indifferent to its notches and degrees, as

  indifferent as the discourses of my fellows

  remain to me: think little of me, I will

 
think no less of you: the axle goes right

  through my ears, and the merriment is in all

  25the go-round.

  Body Marks

  Nailing down the cause of anything is not easy:

  you notice a prominent strand in the random

  weave and think, well, that’s probably it: but

  that may be there just to mislead the born or

  5else it works only in association with a set

  of subsets or sublineations and only expensive

  time can rectify a balance out of that: I say

  why is my hipbone flashing out each step down

  _________

  my femur this morning when I walked less than

  10usual yesterday: well, too many stairs: well,

  slept on that side all night: well, it’s really

  your colon hurting: what? well, remember

  last night during that TV drama you had one

  leg stretched out to the coffeetable too long:

  15that could have defined a warp in your bone

  pain calls attention to: well, well: you’ve

  (I’ve) probably hit on it: which would prove

  it out this evening, hanging your leg up there

  again or not: that is the question: when in

  20the second grade, cut on the playground, I,

  playing hounds and fox (I was the fox, the slow

  boys the hounds) skidded my left knee over the

  spike of a buried stump, I got a 3 to 4 inch

  slash and nearly passed out: I felt so

  25important, though: imagine being taken to a

  doctor’s office! and all the expensive stuff

  was unwound and wound onto me, with taping

  and splinting (I almost said splintering):

  3 weeks off from school: stitches put in,

  30torn out by bending the knee, re-stitched, and

  you know how it goes when you’re eight: I’m

  70 now, and I still can see little white

  raisures where the stitches ripped free: you

  could know me anywhere: talk about identity:

  _________

  35I’m nobody else except myself, unless somebody

  has a mark just like mine (backed up by

  another scar (I won’t tell you about now) on

  the inside of my left wrist, not an attempt

  at anything selfcritical:) I’m sure you think

  40all this is just as important and worthy of

  posterity as I do. . . .

  Yonderwards

  I want to do a painting: I want to slur a raw

  shoulder: I want to bruise a man, look into

  a woman’s eyes you could travel through

  for life as through a galaxy or toward one:

  5I want paint painting-through rubs out: how

  about a sudden lush bush on the right hand side

  with a distant small bridge topping it: and

  from right top to left bottom a sweep (maybe

  water) quickly broadening down: but then a

  10goat’s head is right up front, on this side of

  the river (?) and when you look away and look

  back it is all a beautiful woman; perhaps, her

  bosom is the moon filling the upper left hand

  beyond the river: I want a painting to do me

  15in: I want to wilt down and supremely recover:

  but look what happened to Ozymandias and

  EVEN SHELLEY

  Depressed Areas

  It is one thing to be nobody, but to be nobody

  in the South! there is no roping in the rope

  ladder and there are no steps in the step: or

  you’re let to climb up high enough that a

  5missing rung will de-characterize your mounting:

  or something pressured by your step will fly

  up and pop you in the face: the blast will

  bust your ast: but if by any vine-swinging

  you cling on above the pitfalls and call out,

  10look, it’s me, I’m way up—why the South will

  notice its allowances credited you and now you

  “owe something back”—the old give-back back

  again: whereas out West the roads are longer

  than the wanderers and up north in the City

  15the homeless sit out among the tall buildings

  as noticeable and anonymous as Exxon: (if you

  own a little Exxon, no hard feelings): but

  who cares, poetry is like a swamp, it will make

  up anywhere there’s a bottom: and the great

  20trees after all whose tops only the sky can

  see . . . they topple and the water eats them up:

  what do you do when the metaphors are shaping

  up to oppose your case: why, end the poem.

  1996

  Dishes and Dashes

  I always wanted (when I was a boy—and even

  now) to have a stretch of water, at least a

  farm pond or house pond, a little circular

  flat thing with fish in it, pike and bream,

  5sunflowers: something glassy as the sky, that

  could fill up with clouds (cloud and could)

  that would crash into the banks where among the

  sedges and grasses mosquito hawks and dragonflies

  would pitch and tilt: the sheen and silver,

  10the stillness, a patch of lilies maybe, or a

  clutch of cattails a redwing might get close

  enough to jeer in: but I still have the sky,

  deeper than any stillness I could get water to

  hold, and the years go by and it clears blue

  15and breezy: the geese seesaw back and forth,

  talking through: (neither a sayer nor a doer

  be: be a beer (nonalcoholic)): much of my

  sin is not original: a little verbal abuse

  (herein demonstrated), a little self-abuse

  20(which I make a practice of keeping to myself):

  a few painful exaggerations and oversights

  (lies), etc., a fairly normal menu: more

  nearly original are things like being part of

  the web of human relations, wherein, for

  _________

  25example, we used to be tobacco growers, and

  my mother, a religious person, hated tobacco

  anyhow, but it would have killed her to know

  she was killing people, something not known

  way back then: but I, I brought the green

  30leaves up from the field by a Silver-drawn

  sled, poor mule: but lately I advised a man

  to stop smoking, and he did, but he gained

  twenty pounds and ran into diabetes and high

  blood pressure: put that in your pipe and

  35—no, no: that’s what I mean: get down

  on your knees and ask to be excused because

  there isn’t a damn thing you can do about much

  of the damage you do: pray, brother, pray,

  and join the praying crowd. . . .

  (1997)

  Auditions

  So there we were eating feathered dinosaur

  meat for Sunday dinner and expecting the

  return of Jesus Christ any minute: looking

  forward to the return when, by the way, highly

  5disturbing reorientations would be invoked:

  graves we had held still with rows of clam

  shells would blast open and actual grandmothers

  and grandpappies would flare up midair in musty