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SELECTED POEMS
ALSO BY JOHN ASHBERY
Poetry SOME TREES THE TENNIS COURT OATH RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS THE DOUBLE DREAM OF SPRING THREE POEMS THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK SELF-PORTRAIT IN A CONVEX MIRROR HOUSEBOAT DAYS AS WE KNOW SHADOW TRAIN A WAVE
Fiction A NEST OF NINNIES (with James Schuyler)
Plays THREE PLAYS
SELECTED POEMS JOHN ASHBERY
ELISABt'Tlf SIFTON BOOKS
VIKING
ELISABETH SIYrON BOOKS . VIKING
Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Limited, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada UR IB4 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Copyright © John Ashbery, 1985 All rights reserved First published in 1985 by Viking Penguin Inc. Published simultaneously in Canada Page 349 constitutes an extension of this copyright page. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Ashbery, John. Selected poems. "Elisabeth Sifton books." Includes index. I. Title. PS350l.S475M 1985 811'.54 ISBN 0-670-80917-9
85-40549
Printed in the United States of America by R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Ilarrisonburg, Virginia Set in Janson Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means· (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
CONTENTS
From SOME TREES Two Scenes
3
Popular Songs
4
The Instruction Manual
5
The Grapevine
9
A Boy
10
( ;Iazunoviana
II
The Picture of Little
J.
A. in a Prospect of Flowers
12
Sonnet
14
The Young Son
15
Frrors
16
Illustration
17
Some Trees
19
,'he Painter
20
\lId You Know
22
I It-
24
.\ I ,oog Novel
26
11\l" Pied Piper
27
II' l.ivre est sur la table
28
hOIll
'flIF; TRNNIS COURT OATH
Ihoughts of a Young Girl "Ilow Milch I.ollgn Will I Be Ahle to Inhahit the I )i\'ille Sepulcher .
31
White Roses Our Youth An Additional Poem Faust A Last World
From The New Realism
From RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS Rivers and Mountains Last Month
If the Birds Knew Into the Dusk-Charged Air The Ecclesiast The Recent Past A Blessing in Disguise Clepsydra
From The Skaters
From THE DOUBLE DREAM OF SPRING The Task Spring Day Plainness in Diversity Soonest Mended Summer
It Was Raining in the Capital
Variations, Calypso and Fugue on a Theme of Ella Wheeler Wilcox
94
Song
100
I >ccoy
101
h,r John Clare 1';lrcrgon
103 105 107
S"me Words
109
l'l,e Bungalows
114
Ihe Chateau Hardware
117
';ortcs Vergilianac
118
1-;lIm
hOlll
Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape
THREE POEMS
Ihe System
110111
123
SELF-PORTRAIT IN A CONVEX MIRROR
\ '; ()ne Put Drunk into the Packet-Boat
163
Worsening Situation
165
h
,rl ics Flick
\', Vou Came from the Holy Land
166 167
-;. Iwherazadc
169
Calop
172
1;1;111(1
Ilop
(I'
My Thumb
180
I\li\nl h.-clings
182
,I',i'-'-/lfll/Jildcr
184
Oleum Misericordiae
1
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
1
From HOUSEBOAT DAYS Street Musicians
2
The Other Tradition
2
Variant
2
Wooden Buildings
2
Pyrography
2
The Gazing Grain
2
Unctuous Platitudes
2
The Couple in the Next Room
2
Business Personals
2
Crazy Weather
2
On the Towpath
2
Bird's-Eye View of the Tool and Die Co.
2
Wet Casements
2
Saying It to Keep It from Happening
2
Daffy Duck in Hollywood
2
Houseboat Days
2
The Lament upon the Waters
2
And Vt Pictura Poesis Is Her Name
2
What Is Poetry
2
And Others, Vaguer Presences
2
The Wrong Kind of Insurance
2
Friends
2
'I'he ke-(:rcam Wars
2
Blue Sonata
243
Syringa
245
hom Fantasia on "The Nut-Brown Maid"
248
1'1"111 AS WE KNOW hom Litany
253
~;ilhouette
257
(\ 1:111 Y Wagons Ago
258
.\-; We Know
259
( II hcrwise
260
I· II ,wcring Death
261
I hUllted Landscape
262
l\ Iv
265
Erotic Double
I, :.ill Rising out of the Sea 1,111' \ III
266 267
Echo
I I'd Love You to Be in It
268
1.'1 ll'slry
269
\ I ,( IVC Poem
270
1 Ills (:onfiguration
271
I hnr Day
273
\ ICHlc Poem
274
II
()lhcr Cindy
275
1I
PI\lral of "Jack-in-the-Box"
277
1'111111
SII i\
now
TRA IN
II ... Pursuit of Ilappincss
281
l'III11Shill~ Ihl"
282
Myth
Paradoxes and Oxymorons
2
Another Chain Letter
2
The Ivory Tower
2
At the Inn
2
The Absence of a Noble Presence
2
Qualm
2
Here Everything Is Still Floating
2
Some Old Tires
2
Something Similar
2
Or in My Throat
2
Untilted
2
The Leasing of September
2
Unusual Precautions
2
We Hesitate
2
Frontispiece
2
The Vegetarians
2
From A WAVE At North Farm
3
The Songs We Know Best
3
Landscape (After Baudelaire)
3
Just Walking Around
3
The Ongoing Story
3
Thank You for Not Cooperating
3
More Pleasant Adventures
3
Purisl sWill Ohjcct
3
1'/ I bilw
The Lonedale Operator
314
I >arlene's Ilospital
316
Whatever It Is, Wherever You Are
319
i\ Wave
322
Illdex
345
From SOME TREES
FWO SCENES
We see us as we truly behave: From every corner comes a distinctive offering. The train comes bearing joy; The sparks it strikes illuminate the table. Destiny guides the water-pilot, and it is destiny. For long we hadn't heard so much news, such noise. The day was warm and pleasant. "We see you in your hair, Air resting around the tips of mountains."
II A fine rain anoints the canal machinery. This is perhaps a day of general honesty Without example in the world's history Though the fumes are not of a singular authority And indeed are dryas poverty. Terrific units are on an old man In the blue shadow of some paint eans As laughing cadets say, "In the evening Everything has a schedule, if you can find out what it is."
POPULAR SONGS
He continued to consult her for her beauty (The host gone to a longing grave). The story then resumed in day coaches Both bravely eyed the finer dust on the blue. That sum ("The worst ever") she stayed in the car with the cur. That was something between her legs. Alton had been getting letters from his mother About the payments-half the flood Over and what about the net rest of the year? Who cares? Anyway (you know how thirsty they were The extra worry began it-on the Blue blue mountain-she never set foot And then and there. Meanwhile the host Mourned her quiet tenure. They all stayed chatting. No one did much about cating. The tears came and stopped, came and stopped, until Becoming thc guano-lightened summer night landscape, All onc glow, one mild laugh lasting ages. Some precision, he fumed into his soup. You laugh. There is no peace in the fountain. The footmen smile and shift. The mountain Rises nightly to disappointed stands Dining in "The Gardens of the Moon." There is no way to prevent this Or the expectation of disappointment. All are aware, some carry a secret Better, of hands emulating deeds Of days untrustworthy. But these may decide. The face extended its sorrowing light Far out over them. And now silent as a group The actors prepare their first decline.
./
I'/IE INSTRUCTION MANUAL
\s I sit looking out of a window of the building I wish I did not have to write the instruction manual on the uses
of a new metal. look down into the street and sec people, each walking with an IIIner peace, \lId envy them-they arc so far away from me! r'\lol one of them has to worry about getting out this manual on schedule, \lId, as my way is, I begin to dream, resting my dbows on the desk :llId leaning out of the window a little, ( .1 dim Guadalajara! City of rose-colored flowers! , .1 V r wanted most to sec, and most did not sec, in Mexico! Itlll I fancy I sec, under the press of having to write the instruction 11I:lIlual, \"111" public sljuarc, city, with its daborate linle bandstand! I h,' band is playing Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. \ '''lind stand the flower girh, handing out rose- and lemon-colored 11•• \Vers, I .. h attractive in her rose-and-blue striped dress (Oh! such shades of ,,o';e and blue), \ ,," lIearby is the little \vhite booth where women in green serve you 1',1 (','n and yellow fruit. I I.. couples are parading; everyone is in a holiday mood. I "',1, leading the parade, is a dapper fdlow ( 1"i1wd in deep blue. On his head sits a white hat \ 0" I he wears a mustache, which has been trimmed for the occasion. I I", dear one, his wife, is young and pretty; her shawl is rose, pink, a \\ 1111 e,
I slippers arc patent leather, in the American fashion, \ lid she carries a fan, for she is modest, and does not want the crowd I " ';("(' her fan: too often. II", ('\TI"v1l1,t!v IS so bllsy with his wife or loved one
1 I.
I doubt they would notice the mustachioed man's wife. Here come the boys! They are skipping and throwing little th the sidewalk Which is made of gray tile. One of them, a little older, has a in his teeth. He is silenter than the rest, and affects not to notice the prett girls in white. But his friends notice them, and shout their jeers at the laugh Yet soon all this will cease, with the deepening of their years, And love bring each to the parade grounds for another reason. But I have lost sight of the young fellow with the toothpick. Wait-there he is-on the other side of the bandstand, Secluded from his friends, in earnest talk with a young girl Of fourteen or fifteen. J try to hear what they arc saying But it seems they are just mumbling something-shy words o love, probably. She is slightly taller than he, and looks lJuietly down into his SIncere eyes. She is wearing white. The breeze ruffles her long fine black h against her olive check. Obviously she is in love. The boy, the young boy with the to he is in love too; His eyes show it. Turning from this couple, I see there is an intermission in the concert. The paraders arc resting and sipping drinks through straws (The drinks arc dispensed from a large glass crock by a lady in dark blue), And the musicians mingle among them, in their creamy white uniforms, and talk About the weather, perhaps, or how their kids are doing at sc
I ,l~1
liS
take this opportunity to tiptoe into one of the side str
IIIT(' you lIlay Sl'l' 011(' or those white hOIlSl'S with gnTll trill) (,
Ihat are so popular here. Look-l told you! II is cool and dim inside, but the patio is sunny. \ 1\ old woman in gray sits there, fanning herself with a palm leaf fan . • •11(' welcomes us to her patio, and offers us a cooling drink. \ '" son is in Mexico City," she says. "lIe would welcome you too II he were here. But his job is with a bank there. I .... I;, here is a photograph of him." \ ".I a dark-skinned lad with pearly teeth grins out at us from the worn !.-;llher frame. \\, Ihank her for her hospitality, for it is getting late \ '" I we must catch a view of the city, before we leave, from a good 11Il~h place. I ILII church tower will do-the faded pink one, there against the fierce 1.111(' of the sky. Slowly we enter. I I.. ";Il'Ctaker, an old man dressed in brown and gray, asks us how long have been in the city, and how wc likc it herc. I I., .bllghter is scrubbing the steps-she nods to LIS as we pass into th \\ I
I •• \\
cr.
have reached the top, and the whole network of the city before us. I I .. I" is the rich quarter, with its houses of pink and white, and its • I ""d,ling, leafy terraces. I I" ,,' I.S the poorer quarter, its homes a deep blue. I I" Ie is the market, where men arc selling hats and swatting flies \".1 dUTl' is the public library, painted several shades of pale green and " .. '11 \IT
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