The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

by A. R. Ammons

  Al, we know you’re there, but you don’t know

  5we’re here,” and that seemed to screw up the

  strivings for immortality: no use to be

  immortal in the bodies of others while one’s

  own body molds away or flakes off in pasty

  chunks: this is a version of an old thought

  10of mine: one forgets before one is forgotten,

  so don’t worry about being remembered, just

  worry about being, that’s something to worry

  about: so, Housey, I wish you could have

  gotten what you wanted out of life: but the

  15other fellow had a right to get what he

  wanted (or try to get what he wanted) out of

  life, and since that wasn’t what you wanted

  well, there you go, but we know where you’re at:

  in fact, tho, A. E., you’re not in your grave,

  20not the real you: whatever of the real you

  is left is here with us: you’re here with

  us, in a sense: the grave holds nothing, or

  what soon will be: but no one, now, dead or

  alive can hold you in his arms and dry your eyes.

  (1997)

  Spit

  Thinking I’d better be prepared when I went

  out to meet the ocean, I blew myself up but

  burst in time: so the next morning,

  actually nearly before light, I converted

  5myself into a ghost crab, peeked out of my hole

  over the sand, and there it was, the whole

  wide thing, gray as the morning and on no

  business but its own: when it washed over me

  I waited, sealed off, underground until it

  10washed away: then I came out and the

  ocean had become itself again: even so, the

  sight burst my horizon: women’s preferences

  evolve the form of man, I’m told, a pretty

  lousy trail of taste, the women apparently

  15wanting strength but not too much, independence

  but heavily nurtured, paunches, wheezes, and

  some broken-down feet: men, though, choose

  women, too, but hardly a shriveled-up old

  shrew or shrunken prune hasn’t been fucked

  20over, over and over: the results lie and limp

  in the streets: run-over heels and busted

  belts decorate open air fashion: what went

  wrong, you may ask: or is it right: why doth

  perfection here and there in the wildest

  _________

  25statistic only appear: c’est la vie: yep:

  something is more cockeyed than broad shouldered:

  desire is the supreme beautician: she (or he)

  deodorizes and/or fertilizes most any patch: he

  (or she) rushes forward in her own perfection

  30till a port in some exigency (storm, I mean)

  releases her to a free moment of disgust.

  (1997)

  Lineage

  Poets “say things”: they shape stuff up and

  make it “sound like something”: it is shaping’s

  concision they’re after, an airy framework

  passing can pause in: though the framing and

  5passing are as if one: take pussy pussy, now:

  that’s p - uh - puh - sy poo-sy, puhsey poosy:

  you know: pointing up separates out, limits

  into identity: so, it’s not poosy poosy, as

  in calling your cat, or as in calling out at

  10night incoherently poosy poosy: no, it says

  that the poosy is puhsy, though there may be

  no such thing in the world but perfectly clean

  sweet pussy: it is something we come into the

  world through the back door of, a place dreams

  15and dreamers are made on, so tenderly secret,

  so terrifying, gaunt, where I began, in fire,

  _________

  which fled into windy air and lengthily slowed

  and cooled into rain’s fallen waters, running,

  and then I became swamp or rockbottom ground:

  20what an old story, told only after the telling:

  here now are the ceaseless maggots, the squirm

  of disintegration, the obscene, vulgar, coarse,

  the what-the-hell, beyond which, however, lies

  the fire and dust, the refinements of

  25rebeginning: alas, that it could have been no

  different until one sees it could have been.

  (1997)

  Now Then

  You can have your bathroom window open an inch

  and if the door is nearly closed, it can slam

  it shut: the wind can: whereas, if the door

  is standing open (as perhaps it shouldn’t be)

  5(not if you’re doing anything, you know, cool)

  a hurricane would do little more than tremble

  the door (however much it rattled the window);

  may not, contrariwise, the physics be in the

  metaphysics: which is to say that major effects

  10can come of slender spacings, while something

  too wide open cannot be bothered by anything:

  broadly, therefore, welcome the world, and if

  _________

  you must have them keep your splinterings and

  partitions solidly shut away from transmission[:]

  15you are, in other words, everyone, except for

  your little exception box to which you may

  repair for repair or prayer when the wide

  scene loses hold on its outlines: the more to

  be said the closer you get to nothing: you

  20peep out at dawn and say of the whole thing,

  look at that, when, later, looking at the

  vibration in the microinscriptive, you may

  need to call up libraries of language for

  poise: it could not be truly said of the

  25yellowjackets that they are out in the drizzle

  today without their jackets, even though it is

  true that they are not without their jackets:

  if god is in each of us, I wonder if he is

  in each of the gorillas, if only in his

  30gorilla-aspect, a facet the gorillas can see

  themselves and be seen by, just as, I suppose,

  when we look, we see our own natures, native

  and, like ligatures, sewn together: the

  yellowjackets that usually streak straight into

  35the stone socket of the stone wall they nest

  in, today buzz broadly about that wet entrance

  before diving in: the yellowjacket god is these

  motions, and when naked yellowjackets

  _________

  dip and streak and hunt the clover blooms,

  40don’t think they don’t feel at home, right with

  their god: for it is true far and wide that

  nothing is so true as what breaks into being

  this minute from colossal petrifications of

  past time and huge issuances into time-to-be:

  45don’t mess with me, or the yellowjackets: we

  are in a high place which may or may not explode

  but if it explodes nothing will be lost, every

  little tiny atom will still be spinning for

  the lord: we may go, and scientists may suck

  50the yellowjackets out of their hole to extract

  the sting-venom: have no fear: weep but move

  on: if the god is not in residence, he is in

  motion, and it is hard to tell which is which:

  coco rico, the rooster crows: it is day again.

  (1997)

  Shit Face

  What due’s death’s due: is death fifty/fifty

  with life, or is there one thing only, life,

&n
bsp; life merely ends: what difference, you say,

  does it make: why, I suppose it makes a

  5difference: should you spend half your life

  buddying-up with death or should you altogether

  _________

  ignore it, since it is nothing, and think life,

  life, life! and companion not at all with dark

  consequence, a distant cousin: be not

  10reproachful if you find no scissors in me

  cutting cleanly through this: I am too

  concerned with whether I am one blade and

  unable to gnaw or whether I command opposing

  blades whose opposition draws a straight

  15slice: why, by the way, is direction in

  opposition, while mere ineffectuality gapes

  in singleness: single women who will not

  chunk it up, why mere air will not slam it

  down: I’m sure there’s more to this than

  20meets the eye: with bursts of gamma rays

  from unlocatable sources flashing around us,

  I wonder how much of the universe’s center

  the new leaf on the philodendron can capture:

  it is, after all, quite an emergence, timed

  25on December 19, just right for the lengthening

  light, do you suppose: or did that watering

  about a month ago, a long overdue soak, set

  it off: I do not specialize in the causes of

  anything, acceptance over explanation anytime[:]

  30causes are the results of something else whose

  results cause something else: still, I don’t

  think it just goes round and round, though it

  _________

  goes round and round: I think there are some

  little threads in there that feed in or peel

  35out, along with embroilment and hurling along

  the central axis: but I don’t believe for a

  sec that a butterfly sinking down to suck salt from

  a riverside causes a cyclone at sea: buildups

  would be just fine if other buildups weren’t

  40cutting them down, you bet your sweet bippy:

  where is any action going to find a wide avenue

  of gathering energy in: not the Champs thing:

  not Park or Fifth: certainly, no winding

  riverbed or former long lake dinosaurs got

  45washed away with when it cracked open ever so

  many thousand years gone by: still, it is

  largely true that eating too much fat fattens

  people: anxiety, on the other hand, drains

  you lean: fat and happy (or not so happy) or

  50scrawny and miserable (or quite light on your

  feet): life, though, is terribly sad because

  it apparently leads to death: unless, of

  course, you need to get there, I hope you don’t,

  but you should hear the doctors laugh and

  55cringe at my medical theories about what

  causes what: actually, I think, or they think

  _________

  I think, or they just think that my theory

  includes some psychology, like paranoia, say,

  and hypochondria: well. . . .

  Surprising Elements

  The Ammons women (nine of them, my father’s

  sisters) were jovial women: well, I guess you

  could say that: for them, the distance between

  fun tears and tears was a flash of seconds:

  5Aunt Mitt used to say of some old scraggly man

  that he was hopper-behind—hopper behinded?

  she meant he was all shoulders (or belly) and

  no backseat, just some draggy pants with nothing

  back there to fill them out, a hopper, do you

  10reckon: I doubt she meant he was a hopper,

  always looking to hop on something, if you get

  my inclination: I think she meant something

  to fill up, as in picking green beans in the

  field and carrying them in a hopper: Aunt Mitt

  15died in the front bedroom: the parlor was on

  the other side of this long hall: I stood in

  line out on Aunt Mitt’s porch when I was sixteen

  to receive with others her coffin to put in the

  hearse: I was a pallbearer: I was sixteen:

  20what I saw didn’t sink in: I was thinking

  _________

  something else: though I saw (and recall)

  everything very clearly: the room she died in

  exists nowhere now probably but in my head:

  well, there may be one of her seven surviving:

  25it was a long time ago: I wish I knew: Aunt

  Lottie was such an eager woman, so full of

  life and laughter: what became of her will

  make a short story long. . . .

  Out From Under

  Sometimes movies produce events to go with what

  must be instead of letting what must be arise

  from events: the first is contrived and

  feebly illustrative, while the latter creates

  5the inevitability of what must come: all this

  is known to everyone: I only look for another

  set of words to say it: even if not well: a

  try: can you imagine how wonderful it is not

  to be on the track of a final draft but living

  10in an instantaneous veracity: but Johnson, I

  think, said that easy writing makes hard

  reading: oh, I wish I could have sat around

  and belched a little with him, the immensity

  of his philosophical centeredness occupied

  15with trivia and cold leg of lamb: even

  if Moses had not clum up the mountain and

  _________

  gotten scorched in the fire service, it would

  be a good idea not to steal, lie, or mess with

  your neighbor’s wife: you could get killed or

  20hanged, where there’s a distinction: you

  really don’t need a stone memento to sanction

  what open dynamics clearly affirm: it is

  better to honor your parents: you don’t have

  to agree with them: honoring is a peaceful

  25and informed transition: dishonor almost

  certainly flares up unpleasantly privately

  but also fractures the public order: so how

  long do I have to go on about this. . . .

  (1998)

  The Whole Situation

  Don’t stop or the past will catch up with you:

  all the dumb things you said (for fun) will

  overtake you and huddle around you pointing

  serious fingers: redemption lies ahead if

  5only in a new relation to the past: for what

  can redeem the past—a newer way of looking

  at it in the future: for how can what is done

  be undone: pay attention to something else:

  forget about it: misremember it: ask for

  10forgiveness: do something else good: devise

  _________

  distractions: keep busy: be up and about and

  the ghostly leavings of events will lay down,

  as with riverbeds, bottoms over bottoms, or

  grow, as with coral seas, one thing on top of

  15another: up and about, you will find that

  quick motions in the scenes and quick changes

  of scene give a sense of fluidity to the hard

  rock of fixation: take a pill: change the

  mood and everything changes: thank the Lord

  20for change which often so much worsens the