Selected Poems

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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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