Girls on the Run

by John Ashbery

  or under this.

  We must add up as many to the total

  as is possible. To the passing fine day

  were added the rudiments of music.

  I too a cruel one I gave some

  of my substance to the wind

  and then it returned it I came ashore.

  I am overly satisfied with the present-day facility.

  Are you Pam’s nursery arrangement.

  No four of them insisted count the dogs. Count the dogs!

  Count the dogs as furniture

  as otherwise there will be no chairs.

  No warrant out for his arrest I see no

  other way I came down the stairs in darkness

  to what is here.

  In darkness we live sensibly perhaps satisfied with too much.

  But when daylight wanes we take aim

  at a larger quadrant. There are people in the store.

  There is a sale of fine foods and beaded hair products.

  So notice this gun lest you withdraw altogether from chiming.

  He was infinitely dark and creepy

  but at a point leaving for the sun state it is hard not to get off

  not to leave this train that takes us with it as long as we want it to go.

  I was looking at a book he created, glued and spliced.

  Next the decorations are kablooey, old potted bricks.

  He took a couple of puffs.

  Plastic star removal continues.

  Our reporter took an immigration ride, the dented land seemed there. By all

  accounts something was “obtuse.”

  We must have spent half on vegetables the fertilizer crop was good.

  Old Mr. Jenkins liked to play around with himself in that way.

  The place has to

  be there I had to recognize it.

  Do you like clams Emily no not raw steamed.

  Those look softer. I still like ’em.

  Instead of letting it be area in all those big air bubbles—

  rubber.

  They were so … impatient.

  After I jiggled it back and forth the finish started coming off in my hand.

  Oh it’s a song something to sing.

  In my head we sang under

  the vanilla tree

  where breasts are stacked loosely.

  Why should American tourists interrogate the town hall.

  The justices file in file their brief their file

  soon it is time to go to bed for dinner.

  The obelisk hobbled over. “Do you know which way

  to the basilica?” he marveled.

  Such tall spruces and so many of them!

  I had foreseen everything but this

  in this place of spruces whether they be right

  or not they have a right to be here

  I guess or I try not to think it.

  It is a nursery ditty grave or gay.

  It seems to say

  how much longer will my spruces be on tap?

  How many more years of availability?

  Wisely the spruces contented themselves with rustling.

  It was just like a kitchen with the blue gas burning

  in a special flame for all to see.

  So all grew. The tainted fir-trees

  fell over and were loam. All were.

  We can see enough on this side to convince us of the merit of that other.

  But if a tank wishes to convince us we cannot contradict that.

  So all grew, more and more, into the bower of empowerment,

  and all were pursued by what happened this time

  so as not to be puzzled by what happened next on the long pier

  of time reaching to the vanishing point.

  Some were cold, some were near, some were clear.

  Some were like lighthouses out of which startled gulls flew

  to change something in the colored environment of sky

  before retracing their steps to the dome.

  Some of them were having kittens that night;

  it changed something for everybody

  and not enough to come out on top, oh well

  the seer said my pastry is here.

  I shall dispose of myself as I will

  and I shall not come back

  and no one will notice not ever not even the dimpled sun

  as it coasts majestically by these geese

  that come up short. In good time

  I shall return for I have other things to do other fish to fry

  he said but in the meantime it will look as though I’m not coming back

  or returning. The woods resounded with campers’ cries,

  they are bringing something back, back to the deck

  with them. “You see I should never have gone away,”

  the seer remarked, now I can not ever

  as long as accounts not be settled and the ride over the corn is over.

  It seemed as though shale were about to break off the Old Man of the Mountain.

  The holidays mystify me I cannot grow

  as long as that path undulates in front of me,

  and that crow ululates devaluating me

  within the radius of this embroidery frame for ever and ever,

  where “pie are square” and nobody knows how many.

  Ssh, you are loud.

  The seer teeters on the bench near the pool.

  It is all just about over.

  A fine man with coal nostrils

  he was just about ready for this fix

  when April surprised us with mistrials.

  The man gone again, triumphant

  in his absence

  and with some remainder of light, of permanency

  sliding toward day. I feel

  that this is a letter being delivered to me, haply at dusk before night’s purple

  wrinkles have shifted the scenery, perhaps dolorously into death and the storm-

  tinged future of lying and social regret. Don’t stand, I might see you there,

  she said. Helpless but doomed,

  he countered good-humoredly. And these are our intuitions!

  XI

  First the cellos rebelled. Then a broader breaking-out erupted

  nearer to home. All the girls were paralyzed (for a minute)

  but Jenny Wren came to release them from the spell

  Tom Cat had caused. They ran away, glad for that day.

  Until Bruin came home and lay with his big amazing paws

  on the hooked rug and it was time to go again. Goodbye,

  Bruin said. I’ll see you in the piece of country next door

  which is exactly what happened, behind the tattered gate.

  Then it was almost time to go fishing again. Here they paused,

  wondering whether any of them had seen the big flash in the sky.

  They decided to go no further. The tree dropped its seeds

  into the birdbath. Alas the long wall, for all under this spell

  will be ungrown some day, and are still here

  to kiss the stair. Never mind, they said,

  we’ll all be here to cheer you on, and then they didn’t mind.

  Some had come unconvinced about the importance

  of this daydream in which they were all entombed. Hark, one said, it smells like ice

  or night here. Another agreed. They looked down on the procession

  of sad children imagining they’d been forgotten about, and one stood in strength

  on a tire rim and blew a whistle to the others. Zounds, it’s our escape

  one said. Here in the city repugnant with dust, Pliable’s house was on fire

  and nobody knew to stop it. I’ll wager it was arson, Kitty said,

  and others fervently agreed. He was coming back with a big sack

  on his back, filled with plunder, perhaps, but there was no time to think of roses.

  They had all walked for the day. Tonight’s

&nbs
p; question mark loomed in the agate sky, pointing them toward dewdrops

  and madness. Are you listening, one of them said,

  or just insane. Look, this pulley works,

  we’ll unscrew the pears from the plate, and put them back again,

  and no one will ever know the difference. So they set to work, with a right good will,

  saw and hammer in hand, and little by little the thing took shape.

  It was the exact replica of a house

  Tim had seen in his travels. Be it blue,

  or red, I’ll have it, Pliable said. Yes but you must go out

  into the wind, one said, it’s not that easy to see. I’ll

  wager I see it, he said. In fact she had achieved her level.

  Ten million visitors are anticipated

  next season, and as for the future, who knows

  what it holds? They let down the bar

  and each traveler was safely enclosed for the night.

  It couldn’t have been that anyone was coming to have it

  or Bill the barrel would have known. For which everyone

  was thankful, and induced into sleep, but

  with a terrifying roar the house exploded again.

  Now let me sink into my minutest crevices

  if ever I give up a latchkey again! Yet girls and boys rolled

  on together, the end was not in sight,

  nor was it a division yet. Thanks, the cowboy yells are most gratifying.

  But all wondered if it wasn’t divided

  from itself, and if more sleep hadn’t built up on the other side.

  XII

  Other Dreams.

  Judy the upetulant watered her flowers

  from a sprinkling can, and the rose hurtled into bloom.

  My message is it’s all right to go on, it said.

  Sure enough daisies and yellowbirds paired off in the peace of the moment,

  which is to be lasting, but someone unearthed the old saw

  on the gravel beach. “We can’t use this.” No but we’ll go over the top

  and down into the wrinkle on the other side, you’ll see.

  So they did what was natural and becoming, and all were satisfied

  and rewarded. And some

  shall be excused, and others have to go and wait on the border for it,

  if we can believe the poets who wrote all this down many decades ago.

  And we should come nearer, it’s warmer,

  if we want to, only on that other side

  which seems so far away from us, but alas is too near

  almost to count. With that the hedgerow winked

  good-humoredly, and they stand, they stand

  unimpressed but interested perhaps

  even today, and that’s the gist of it.

  Dream lover, won’t you come to me?

  Dream lover, won’t you be my darling?

  It’s not too late or too early.

  Dream lover, won’t you kiss me and hold me?

  Dream lover, won’t you miss me and mold me?

  See, it was better that the chickens gulped concrete

  commas to be able to rinse backwards.

  Otherwise the driveling idiots would be maligned

  and come to feel transparent.

  Dream lover, are you apparent?

  I only wish the awful bushel of shins would go away.

  My accountant says it’s time to harvest the burrs

  where the asphalt beaches tame shrieks and the byword is love.

  Yet, more and more blobs are in favor of love.

  The tax district can’t annul it.

  The ivy wants to get strenuous.

  The old ladies in the tower dream and curse

  whoever put them out to pasture with geraniums.

  It is too my house.

  And they tracked the Canadian trappers far into the mist,

  it was gone over with a horsehair comb, brisk

  in the seasoned twilight, from which other squall

  daffodils and the girls depended. See, it’s me.

  Briefly the dolls rested on the sink.

  If the contest was over, nowhere

  had not been told so. Time’s evening relish,

  hole of the great world, came to ice over

  in morning-glory privies where no starlight is,

  no autograph sessions, no costume contest.

  New creatures fly past, out of the starting gate forever. The pink boomerang returns

  to home base, flutters, settles in the dust.

  Our therapist has been with us for five years.

  Some pretty desolate pairing

  has gone on in the interval; none of us are satisfied

  with that just yet. He scooted down the wind

  just in time for us. Omigosh, that means he’s here.

  Yes, a majestic crash is heading our way.

  You and the girls must learn to prize it

  while the water buffalo behaves and all is asunder

  on the grass, between the chairs, under the apple blossoms.

  And what does this have to do with me?

  You’d better water your garden again under the circumstances,

  look at them till they come down the street,

  forming a parade, taut, hangdog. We can run away

  at some point? The blue is

  materializing and no one will ever know the outcome any more.

  No, I mean no one will ever know the outcome,

  the sails they took to get here, over fields, marshes,

  the salt hay slipping, the season reviving

  its forecasts. The sea air is like sludge.

  We’ll go out and rest in snowbanks while the nightingale titters

  and crumbs fall down an airshaft, disappearing forever from view.

  If they had heifers on Mars, bub, this would be

  all it is like and it would be peaceful in time for mom to go home,

  but as it is, we’ll have to settle for Siena. As you

  can see, the hands of the oversize clock are at 5:30;

  the plastrons will be here soon. I forgot

  they were coming. I have a handkerchief in this sandwich. Oh, give me

  that. The goddam house is haunted,

  and you’re goofy too. I was only practicing my wail

  thought the witch. This really is unfortunate.

  Same goes for all the centuries we wafted over to get here,

  only to be left in the lurch, far from the nearest poltroon garage,

  on a deck dipping roguishly into the foam of the sound.

  We should all plan to go back there together

  into the room, and count who’s there first. By

  golly I think she’s right. Yes, and you would too,

  if a cannonball was your uncle. Yipes,

  the general said.

  XIII

  And some were vortices

  of blue, and yellow.

  These, wherever the waves grazed, laughingly,

  were slower. Then good General Metuchen said, It

  has come to my attention some of you are not letting your streamers out.

  Please, bear in mind, streamers must be released and parties accompany them,

  such is my desire. O,

  sir, the landgrave said, we cannot do it. Why? Well, we just can’t,

  that’s all. Then I command you to do it. So the plains re-echoed

  with indecision that day, and it was a day like the first.

  I dream too much, Metuchen swirled, and in the gasps in his doublet

  many live fish pirouetted and stank.

  Now it was Phoebe’s turn to complain: “Whoever thinks he

  can outwit the sun is in for a rude awakening. For her parents

  are always turning up in the strangest places,

  such as the top of a bluff or at a pencil fair,

  when fountain pens are the color of crayons dipped in the watercolor that was used in the
landscape.

  We acknowledge it and go on living. This

  pen is for you because you’re about twenty-four.”

  Glory how the running of the teams was acknowledged

  that day! For they forgot to drain the swamp,

  but in doing so created new, higher ground

  for kids to live on.

  And there was talk of acknowledging it since yesterday:

  “It positively shimmers.”

  Yet how ephemeral are the repercussions, this valley of branches,

  when we come to take our place in the parade,

  piddling in the foreground, “some in rags,

  some in jags, and some in velvet gown,” as the saying is,

  like that little old Rhode Island lady no one has talked to since last November.

  I break the silence, it shatters my lips, fronds

  come all over me, I am besotted

  at least twice this year. Who will lock up their numbers, who’ll know

  exactly how much we were valued at? Shucks,

  the most contented among us are aware of that;

  you other buggers can go now. Even with dense night

  pouring over us? For how did you expect us to get out

  once we got in, or was it a secret for those in authority

  to bottle up within us? You did the right thing,

  that’s for sure. Now it’s time to surrender, or be riven asunder, garroted, eviscerated

  by the actual time of the explosion. They had some nerve

  telling us to come over at such and such an hour. I’m sure they’ll be sorry

  once they’ve been told about it.

  Yes, for this is the season of flares, Farmer Jones will sew a patch on it

  until we’re delivered. O is it like onions then?

  Can it be invisible? But the skunks were swaggering among us but this time

  it was all a fever, a coming apart at the hinges

  glowworms had appeared at, several summers back, before the big naked

  cloud pushed rudely into the foreground, and they all sank into apathy,

  puzzled by this latest evidence of villainy in the ranks.

  How strange it all seems lost! How white it then was! Page torn from a notebook …

  for the end that doesn’t come any more.

  We so enjoyed having salt to sprinkle on the meat,

  until it seemed none of us could be a worker or welfare recipient.

  Cashing in on the laughs in the alley,

  Melinda strums a thighbone guitar, the rest are off in the distance.

  Daytime drowsiness, dizziness, headache, nausea, stomach upset, vomiting, diarrhea, lightheadedness, muscle

  aches and dry mouth may occur