Four Poems

John Ashbery

A NICE PRESENTATION

I have a friendly disposition but am forgetful, though I tend to forget only important things. Several mornings ago I was lying in my bed listening to a sound of leisurely hammering coming from a nearby building. For some reason it made me think of spring which it is. Listening I heard also a man and woman talking together. I couldn’t hear very well but it seemed they were discussing the work that was being done. This made me smile, they sounded like good and dear people and I was slipping back into dreams when the phone rang. No one was there.

Some of these are perhaps people having to do with anything in the world. I wish to go away, on a dark night, to leave people and the rain behind but am too caught up in my own selfish thoughts and desires for this. For it to happen I would have to be asleep and already started on my voyage of self-discovery around the world. One is certain then to meet many people and to hear many strange things being said. I like this in a way but wish it would stop as the unexpectedness of it conflicts with my desire to revolve in a constant, deliberate motion. To drink tea from a samovar. To use chopsticks in the land of the Asiatics. To be stung by the sun’s bees and have it not matter.

Most things don’t matter but an old woman of my acquaintance is always predicting doom and gloom and her prophecies matter though they may never be fulfilled. That’s one reason I don’t worry too much but I like to tell her she is right but also wrong because what she says won’t happen. Yet how can I or anyone know this? For the seasons do come round in leisurely fashion and one takes a pinch of something from each, according to one’s desires and what it leaves behind. Not long ago I was in a quandary about this but now it’s too late. The evening comes on and the aspens leaven its stars. It’s all about this observatory a shout fills.

AS UMBRELLAS FOLLOW RAIN

Too bad he never tried it—

he might have liked it.

She saw us make eye contact.

And that was that for that day.

Too bad he too, when I

am

meaning if I came along it’d

already be too late.

Some of the swans are swarming.

The spring has gone under—it wasn’t

supposed to be like this.

Now they watch him and cringe.

Who are they? Who is he?

We decided to fly Chinese.

The food wasn’t that good.

And oh Erwin did I tell you

that man—the one—I didn’t

know if I was supposed to or not.

He crawled back listlessly,

holding a bunch of divas.

It’s hard work getting these out,

but so’s any thing you’re entitled to do:

Classes to attend.

The morning of school.

Evening almost over,

they bend the security rules.

It’s time for another fog bomb.

Lookit the way they all roost.

Poor souls clashed together

until almost the root’s roof

separates us from our beginning.

We slew many giants in our day,

burned many libraries.

Roundabouts, swings,

it was all one piece of luck to us.

Now we’re washed up it’s almost cold

not bad enough to put up a stand.

Out of that longing we built a paean.

Now everyone who crosses this bridge is wiser.

It doesn’t tilt much.

Look, the shore is arriving laterally.

Some people literally think they know a lot,

gets ’em in trouble, we must rake out

cafés looking for rats and exploded babies.

There was one too many last week.

I don’t know if you’re coding.

The cop pulled us over

in a shawl. Why do you want to go around me

when there are other circulars

to be had for the looking?

I never thought about being grounded forever.

This is Mademoiselle. Take your hat off.

There’s no need, I was here last Thursday.

All the best creatures are thwarted

for their pains. He removed my chains deftly,

processed my passport with gunk.

Now two times five geese fly across

the crescent moon, it is time to get down to

facts, in the tiny park.

There were priests posing as nuns,

quinces and stuff.

Tilt me a little more to the sun,

I want to see it one last time. There,

that’s just fine. I’ve seen it.

You can roll me inside. On the wings of what perturbation?

He came for the julep.

He was gone in an instant.

We cry too much over

drowned dogs.

He came in last week too.

Said he knew you or somebody else.

It’s the pain just of replying

that makes so many of them take up different lines.

Too many goods—we are spoiled indeed.

Had we learned to subsist on less

the changing of the world might be different,

earth come to greet us. I say, the chairs have grown back.

The couple sat in the dish drainer

pondering an uncertain future.

The kitchen had never looked bleaker

except for two chinchillas near the stove, a beaker

of mulled claret, shaving soap smelling

so fresh and new, like smoke, almost.

He says leave it here,

that he comes here.

OK harness the DeSoto,

we’ll have other plans

for newness, for a renewing, kind of—

picnics in the individual cells

so no one falls asleep for it, dreams

she is a viola, instrument of care, of sorts.

You should have seen him when we got back.

He was absolutely wild. Hadn’t wanted us to go

to the picture show. But in a way it was all over,

we were back, the harm had been done.

Gradually he came to realize this

over a period of many years, spanning

two world wars and a major depression.

After that it was time to get up and go,

but who had the get up and go? A child’s

party, painted paper hats, bowlfuls of lemonade,

no more at the lemonade stand, it sold out.

That was cheerful. A man came right up behind you,

he had two tickets to the door.

We need starve no more

but religion is elastic too—

might want some at some future date—

if so you’ll find it here.

We have to hurry in now,

hurry away, it’s the same thing

she said as rain came and stole the king.

MEET ME TONIGHT IN DREAMLAND

It was an hour ago. I walked upstairs to dreamland. Took a cab and got out and somebody else backed in. Now we weren’t actually on the Dreamland floor. That would be for later. Look, these are the proper plans, plants. They used to have a Chautauqua here, far out into the lake. Now it’s peeled. No one actually comes here. Yet there are people. You just hardly ever see them. No I wasn’t being modest. Some get out on the floor, several a year, whose purple glass sheds an eldritch glow on the trottoirs, as Whitman called them. Or spittoons. Look, we are almost a half a mile later, it must link up. The Tennessee drifter smiled sharkly. Then it was on to native board games.

Je bois trop.

In one of these, called “Skunk,” you are a weasel chasing a leveret back to its hole when Bop! the mother weasel, about ten stories tall, traps you with her apron string, patterned with poppies and rotted docks. You see, you thought every noun had to have an adjective, even “sperm,” and that’s where you made your first big mistake. Later it’s raining and we have to take a car. But the game isn’t over—there are sixteen thousand marble steps coming up, down which you glide as effortlessly as you please, as though on a bicycle, weasel in tow. It’s an exercise bike. What a time to tell me, the solar wind has sandpapered everything as smooth as quartz. Now it’s back to the finish line with you.

You’re not quite out of the woods yet. Dreamland has other pastures, other melodies to chew on. Hummingbirds mate with dragonflies beneath the broken dome of the air, and it’s three o’clock, the sun is raining mineral-colored candy. I’d like one of these. It’s yours. Now I’m glad we came. I hate drafts though and the sun is slowly moving away. I’m standing on the poopdeck wiggling colored pennants at the coal-colored iceberg that seems to be curious about us, is sliding this way and that, then turns abruptly back into the moors with their correct hills in the distance. If it was me I’d take a trip like this every day of my life.

IN THE TIME OF PUSSY WILLOWS

This is going to take some time.

Nope, it’s almost over. For today anyway.

We’ll have a beautiful story, old story

to fish for as his gasps come undone.

I never dreamed the pond of chagrin

would affect me this much. Look, I’m shaking.

No, it’s you who are doing the shaking.

Well, it all comes round to us

sooner or later. Shrinking with the devil

in the stagey sunrise he devised.

And then there will be no letters for what is truth,

to make up the words of it. It will be standing still

for all it’s worth. Then a hireling shepherd came along,

whistling, his eyes on the trees. He was a servant of two masters,

which is some excuse, though not really all that much of a one.

Anyway, he overstayed his welcome. But the last train had already left.

How does one conduct one’s life amid such circumstances,

dear snake, who want the best for us

as long as you are not hurt by it.

My goodness, I thought I’d seen a whole lot of generations,

but they are endless, one keeps following another,

treading on its train, hissing.

What a beautiful old story it could be after all

if those in the back rows would stop giggling for a minute.

By day, we have paddled and arbitraged

to get to this spot. By night, it hardly matters.

Funny we didn’t anticipate this,

but the dumbest clues get overlooked by the smartest gumshoe

and we are back in some fetishist’s vinyl paradise

with no clue as to how we got here

except the tiny diamond on your pillow—it must have been a tear

hatched from a dream, when you actually knew what you were doing.

Now, it’s all fear. Fear and wrongdoing.

The outboard motor sputters and quits, and a tremendous silence

beats down from every point in the sky. To have digested this

when we were younger, and felt a set of balls coming on …

It may be that thunder and lightning are two-dimensional,

that there was never really any place for fear,

that others get trapped, same as us, and make up

amusing stories to cover their tracks. Wait,

there’s one in the donjon wants to speak his piece. Rats,

now he’s gone too.

Yes, he near slipped and died in front of you,

and you intend to twist this into an ethos?

Go make up other stories.

Window reflected in the bubble,

how often I’ve tried to pray to you,

but your sphere would have nothing of it.

I felt almost jinxed. Then a spider led the way

back into the room.

And we knew why we’d never left. Outside was brushfires.

Here was the peace of Philemon and Baucis,

offering chunks of bread and salami to the tattered stranger,

and a beaker of wine darker than the deepest twilight,

a table spread with singularities

for the desperate and tragic among us.

Angel, come back please. Let us smell your heavenly smell again.