The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2

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The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 2 Page 74

by A. R. Ammons


  the host appear, we’ll playact the master here.

  1974

  For Emily Wilson

  Such a long time as the wave idling gathers

  lofts and presses forward into the curvature

  of the height before one realizes that the

  tension completes itself with a fall through air,

  5disorganization the prelude to the meandering

  of another gather and hurl, the necessary:

  what can one make to absorb the astonishment:

  you should have seen me the merchant at market

  this morning: the people ogled me with severe

  10goggles: maids, buying in manners and measures

  beyond themselves, stared into my goods and

  then grew horror-eyed: wives still as distant

  from day as a carrot from dinner took the

  misconnection sagely, a usual patience:

  15peashells, I said, long silky peashells: cobs,

  I said, long cobs: husks and shucks, I said:

  one concerned person pointed out that my whole

  economy was wrong; yes, I said, but I have

  nothing else to sell: and I said to her, won’t

  20you appreciate the silky beds where seeds

  have lain: she had not come to that: and

  how about this residence all the grains have

  left: won’t you buy it and think about it:

  not for dinner, she said: rinds, I cried,

  25rinds and peelings: there was some interest

  in those, as for a marmalade, but no one willing,

  finally, to do the preparations: absurd, one

  _________

  woman shouted, and then I grew serious: can you

  do with that: but she was off before we fully

  30met: you should have seen me the merchant at

  market this morning: will bankruptcy make a

  go of it: will the leavings be left only: the

  wave turns over and does not rise again, that wave.

  1974

  Making Fields

  My father said the meat came off the insides of his father’s hands,

  said his father working the tar kilns would of a freezing morning

  burn his hands raw on the hauling chains,

  the chains sticky with cold, I don’t know what job my father said

  5my grandfather was doing, I saw a tar kiln once, though, it was

  a burial, fat-lightered slabs laid together in a deep coffin,

  buried over, set afire at one end for a muffled burn,

  black drops of tar oozing out into a catch basin, I was too young,

  maybe I never really saw one but heard of it

  10also my grandfather (who gave my older sister an apple one day when

  she was three, she remembers) got drunk occasionally and, one time,

  in Whiteville (then known as Vinland) North Carolina, one

  time my grandfather poured a pint down his ox’s throat and the fool

  ox spun the wheels off the cart leaping and farting the

  15whole four miles home, my grandfather, they say, meanwhile,

  standing in the front of the cart and hooting and yelling round

  the curves

  they say my grandfather was all man, he raised thirteen children on

  a small farm he dug out of the woods, he laid out ditches and fencerows,

  20he had peacocks, guinea chickens, turkeys, geese, cows, hogs

  (the hogs and cows free-ranged, the fields fenced in)

  when my father lay quiet with his stroke, I came to sit by him, but

  he knew, having sat by his father, too, and stopped eating: dying

  fathers despise the solicitude of their sons, death

  25more rigorous than the wandering eyes of caring, but my father,

  they say, was like his father, he could call leatherbritches

  half a hour away walking home, and my mother could get a tater

  and a piece of meat ready for him by the time she could see him:

  the land is not deep down but across, as into time; the runs, the

  30ditch banks, the underbrush, the open fields with a persimmon tree

  or wild cherry call, they call me.

  1976

  High Heaven

  Our neighbors once buried a mule too

  shallow out in a big field next to us,

  and the dogs dug it up and the grave

  hole, opened, became fringed with buzzards,

  5the long, strangly necks good for

  plunging into and dragging out or for

  gulping long guts down: I never thought

  the cluster of events remarkable for

  being an appearance: the odor seemed

  10not to depend on whether it seemed to

  be there or not: in time, distributions

  and cargoes settled, the scene dried up,

  and sand or a new plowing did away with

  the hump and the hole in the ground, but

  15long afterwards I seemed to smell the punctured

  bloat of that old disappearing mule.

  c. 1975–1990

  MotionShape

  The wonder isn’t that a poem, looked into,

  stalled, comes undone, its glue

  cracking dry or mortised, its parts mis-referring

  to parts, its semantic gibberish:

  5the wonder is that the poem assembles

  the rubble of spent use, the splinters of

  defining, and picking up speed, whirls

  detritus into show-whorls of

  shape and effect: the still-spinning,

  10the held figures write spells through air and

  across the ground: motion assimilates meaning:

  looked into, the poem parts from itself, from us.

  1993

  Woman

  I laid out my finest spool cloth, silkier

  than algae, my rubies bleeding light,

  crunched up high in encroaching ice, misty

  gold strings, spangling sapphires,

  5and you said, Is this what you were

  talking about, knotty silk,

  stones clacking like plastic, emeralds

  webby? This is the best

  I can do, I said: so I gathered up my

  10goods and just because they were mine

  blood came back into the rubies and the

  emeralds cleared silky-sea deep.

  c. 1980–2000

  Red Edges

  Miscalculation gives calculation another turn

  into surprise: so goes it: for example, when

  I was a young man, I tended strange textures

  but finding myself way off, I turned back over

  5a long industry to you but you turned away from

  me as just another one of you and preferred my

  early weaving wild: what is best, to be

  undefined in a wide definition or to stand out,

  a startlement of etched coloration: or take

  10a newspaper given to misprints and errors of

  fact: readers generously correct the misprint

  and overlook the errors of fact, reading on

  eagerly in their own blazed trail: but if the

  newspaper shapes up and gains a reputation for

  15errorlessness, readers on finding fault will

  be cast into confused illumination: what’s a

  newspaper to do: do the best it can short of

  very well, you ask: waste little money on

  proofers: some grades slight, some steep, in

  20some the way bends straight up (in dreams) till

  one clings to the ridge only to look over into

  a breathlessly deep valley: with variables

  _________

  old men can walk slowly and uphill get into

  beneficial breathing, recuperating downhill,

  25and people, onset diabetic, can in hal
f an hour

  break a sweat slow paced which as anybody knows

  releases insulin, an upgrade in body heat the

  best stimulant: old men plunge their remnant

  bit of time like a cork into the ocean but

  30catch no silvery hours, not even minnows

  of minutes: but the cork, that is hope where

  there is no hope, oh, yes, when will the next

  whale be along and swallow a terminus away:

  my dentist has built me enough bridges to

  35grid the Mississippi—and fund the next

  election: and I’m proud to say I can chew a

  banana and sup soup and, following a thirty

  minute soak—slurp shredded wheat: and my

  teeth look great: they are solidly enough

  40anchored that I don’t have to click them

  into place, and when I talk they

  don’t rustle up blubbering speech: someday

  though as a part of losing everything I will

  lose them and one good thing is my gums will

  45ridge razor sharp and I’ll do even better with

  the bananas but look a little squooshier myself

  in the jaws: I saw this old woman sluice down

  hunks of chicken like she had a full set: you

  _________

  can’t imagine how improvement goes on mixing

  50with disaster right on up until the last minute

  whose improvement, by the way, may be a sufficient

  overdose: don’t be discouraged, I say: in

  mal tiempo, buena cara: (thought I was dumb,

  didn’t you): I declare my back has been hurting

  55me something awful the last few days, specially

  on that drive to Teaneck: didn’t hurt a bit

  that night but the next day I’m sidelined by a

  traffic jam in Bloomfield, it was hurting like

  hell when I got out at the gas station to fill

  60the tank: it’s no use to ask directions at a

  gas station in town—what old language is

  going to come hurtling out of it: not that

  the fillers don’t sometimes know the way, they just

  don’t know the way to tell you the way: you

  65might as well do what Emerson did (said do) &

  rely on yourself: when we got to the ocean in

  Ocean City we had Kohr Bros frozen custard on

  the boardwalk and you can bet we were glad we

  oozed through all those traffic jams: if I had

  70to do it over, I would bypass Teaneck and head

  straight for Kohr Bros. . . . you can just bet

  your bottom on that, dollar, I mean: what’s

  missing in my life: what isn’t: oh, yeah,

  it’s true, I have everything: I’m glad I do:

  _________

  75but running down the center of things is this

  streak of nothingness like a sewer pipe: sir,

  is there not even a rat running up and down

  your tube eating and screwing and raising rats:

  are there no fleas, no interesting diseases:

  80pestilences, plagues: (there no longer occur

  to me big ideas that unify the world, the big

  unifier nearby not even small differences can

  evade): so this guy at the complimentary breakfast

  was enjoying a commercial (kids pounding

  85things) when he turned around and said he was

  from the Bronx, and I said, well what are you

  doing down here (Somers Point) and he said he

  came down the Garden State Parkway to do a

  little shopping where the sales tax was lower:

  90what baloney, I bet you: he was here for the

  casinos: anyway, he had on a nice jacket and

  it was a brilliant day—god, I loved it:

  Days Inn was never better: clean, plenty of

  fresh coffee all day, popcorn, cereals, etc.

  95gee whillikers, getting out is so much fun,

  traffic jams along the Schuylkill, ruins in

  the love, little pockets of hell, neat

  challenges, salt, savory.

  1997

  Core Sample

  slender means as

  with caterpillar

  silk

  or

  5fence wire wield

  weights and

  volumes

  oh, look, a thread

  a thread is here

  10it is

  working down

  into yarns—no, no

  it is rising

  up, a rising, a

  15wheat

  shaft, it is head

  ing up, say,

  lyric with

  light, a narrative

  20of the wagging

  world—

  seriously, tho,

  no, this thread,

  given me by

  25fans also friends

  is called a “38

  mm BOND ROLL, for

  use on

  plain paper

  30calculators”: I

  think it

  my skinniest

  evisceration: in

  a poem

  35such as this how

  great it would be

  (as it wd in li

  fe) to go back &

  change things,

  40correct, augment,

  undo, efface: a

  briery past, tho,

  can add scratch to

  your future, in

  45case bungee jumps

  won’t

  fill your void:

  of course, you’re

  afraid

  50to die but the

  pain at the end

  can make you glad

  you can: it’s

  hard to consider

  55that now that

  you’re feeling

  good, but just

  let the inroading

  screams start and

  60visions of paradi

  se elsewhere

  enfoliate your

  dreams: you’ll

  want to go: (I

  65should mix up some

  stuff like paint

  on the side and

  then enter it into

  the piece: who

  70would know: am I

  being watched:

  if I’m watching,

  I’m being watched

  so can I make a

  75deal or shd I put

  the paint straight

  on:)

  the gook-innards

  of the pipes

  80dried hard while

  we’ve been (4 mos)

  away, so the

  minute

  we ground things

  85down the drain the

  drain stopped up,

  slush sticking

  fast on stiff

  sludge: we had

  90to call

  the brain drain,

  no the Drain

  Brain ($80) to

  clear a way thru:

  95this is my little

  sizzling stick to

  try to rustle up

  some stir in my

  creativity, so as

  100to get moving

  again: I’m

  stiffer than dry

  grease: I’m a

  hardened

  105piece of scuzz:

  I’m a drained

  drainpipe coated

  inside with

  amberized spicules

  110& needle pricks:

  I don’t give a

  damn about anything

  maybe it’s the

  Zoloft, sweet

  115goodness: poetry

  is like a poor

  pitiful donkey’s

  backbone bearing

  on either side

  120soggy bags of
/>   human muck: no

  wonder the asses

  balk: nothing

  improves with

  125cleansing lightness

  a poor old

  naked-boned

  winded donkey:

  this poor thing,

  130verse,

  hauls stuff away:

  – – – – – – – – –

  I’m afraid to cum

  here to the roll:

  135I’m afraid I won’t

  do well, I’ll

  sound like the

  corn rows whereas

  I’m a weed: I’ll

  140seem to aspire to

  big ears or,

  earlier, spangled

  tassels, or long

  damp silk: I’m

  145just something so

  close to the

  hedgerow or ditch

  the plow couldn’t

  get to me: I’m

  150like hardweed,

  flowerless,

  small-nutted, not

  unfavored but

  disfavored,

  155despised, shut out,

  cut down (by the

  remorseless mower)

 

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