John Ashbery [Ashbery - As We Know

Yet whereto, with damaged wing Assay thempyrean? Scalloped horizon Of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land? O land Of recently boiling water, witches Misgivings, ships Pulling away from piers, Already slipping deep into the norm Of blue worsted seas? Yet that is just what I did. There are always those who think you ought to Turn back from dull autumn sunsets like whey in the breeze that escorts Us up inclined planes whose appearance, dull too At first, is experienced As if bathed in magic, when its density, A flash of lightning, seen in passing and very faintly, Stuns the apprehending faculties With the perfection of its desire Like the scream of the rising moon. It is best to abide with minstrels, then, To play at least one game Seriously. The old-timers will Let you take over the old lease. One of them will be in you. If there were concerts on the water there We could turn back.

Tar floated upriver In the teeth of the gulls outlandish manifestations; The banks pocked with flowers whose names I used to know, Before poetic license took over and abolished everything. People shade their eyes and wave From the strand: to us or someone behind us? Just as everything seemed about to go wrong The music began; later on, the missing Refreshments would be found and served, The road turn caramel just as the first stars Were putting in a timid appearance, like snowdrops. And somehow you found the strength To be carried irresistibly away from all this. But in the scrapbooks and postcard albums Of the land, you are remembered, Although you do not figure there, And because a train once passed near where You spent a night, a tall, translucent Monument like a spike has been erected to your memory, Only do not go there. One can live In the land like a spy without ever Trespassing on the mortal, forgotten frontier. In the psalms of the invisible chorus There is a germ of you that lives like a coal Amid the hostile indifference of the land That merely forgets you.

Your hand Is at the heart of its weavings and nestlings. You are its guarantee. At that moment, fatality Or some woman resembling her, angel, Goddess, whatever: the Beautiful Lady Arrives to announce the Brass Age You are being asked to believe No more in the subtle possibilities of silver, Which, like the tintinnabulation of an ethereal Silver chime, marking an unknown hour From a remote, dismal room, no longer Promises harvests, only the translucent melancholy Of the skies which follow in their wake, Pale, greenish blue, with magnificent Clouds like overloaded schooners, that dip To rise again, higher, and seem Endlessly on the move, until they round What? Is there some cape, some destination, Some port of debarkation in all this? There is only the slow but febrile motion Of sky and cloud, a toast, a promise, A new diary, until one gets too close And becomes oneself part of the meaningless Rolling and lurching, so hard to read Or hear, and never closer To the end or to the beginning: the mimesis Of death, without the finalityis There anything in this for you? Sad, browning flowers, tokens Of the winds remembering you, damp, rotting Nostalgia under a head of twigs or at the end Of some log spangled with brand-new, ice-green lichens, Dead pine-needles, worthy Objects of contemplation if you wish, but there is Less comfort but more interest in the drab Clear moment that enshrines us Now, in this place. No one Could mistake this for morning, or afternoon, Or the specious perfection of twilight, yet It is within us, and the substance Of your latest interventions. Therefore, begone! The voice Straddled the stone canyon like vapors. All right. All right.

Lets seeHow about The outlook wasnt brilliant For the Mudville nine that day? No, That kind of stuff is too old-hat. Today More than ever readers are looking for Something upbeat, to sweep them off their feet. Something candid but also sophisticated With an unusual slant. A class act That doesnt look like a class act Is more like ... It goes without saying That I enjoy You as you are, The pleasant taste of you. You are with me as the seasons Circle with us around the sun That dates back to the seventeenth century, We circling with them, United with ourselves and directly linked To them, changing as they change, Only their changes are always the same, and we, We are always a little different with each change.

But in the end our changes make us into something, Bend us into some shape maybe No one we would recognize, And it is ours, anyway, beyond understanding Or even beyond our perception: We may never perceive the thing we have become. But thats all rightwe have to be it Even as we are ourselves. Anyway, Thats the way I like you and the way Things are going to be increasingly, With the seasons a mirror of our indeterminate Activities, so that they do end In burgeoning leaves and buds and then In bare twigs against a Pater-painted Sky of gray, expecting snow ... How can we know ourselves through These excrescences of time that take Their cues elsewhere? Whom Should I refer you to, if I am not To be of you? But you Will continue in your own way, will finish Your novel, and have a life Full of happy, active surprises, curious Twists and developments of character: A charm is fixed above you And everything you do, but you Must never make too much of it, nor Take it for granted, either. Anyway, as I said, I like you this way, understood If under-appreciated, and finally My features come to rest, locked In the gold-filled chain of your expressions, The one I was always setting out to be Remember? And now it is so. Yetwhether it wasnt all just a little, Well, silly, or whether on the other hand this Wasnt a welcome sign of something Human at last, like a bird After youve been sailing on and on for days: How could we tell The serene and majestic side of nature From the other one, the mocking and swearing And smoke billowing out of the ground? Because they are so closely and explicitly Intertwined that good Oftentimes seems merely the necessary Attractive side of evil, which in turn Can be viewed as the less appealing but more Human side of good, something at least Which can be appreciated? But poetry is making things in the past; The past tense transcends and excuses these Grimy arguments which fog over as soon as You begin to contemplate them.

Poetry Has already happened. And the agony Of looking steadily at something isnt Really there at all, its something you Once read about; its narrative thrust Carries it far beyond what it thought it was All het up about; its charm, no longer A diversionary tactic, is something like Grace, in the long run, which is what poetry is. Musing on these things he turned off the Great high street which is like a too-busy Harbor full of boats knocking against each Other, a blatantly cacophonous if stirring Symphony, with all its most Staggeringly beautiful aspects jammed against The lowest motives and inspirations that ever Infected the human spirit, into a Small courtyard continued by an alley as Though a sudden hush or drop in the temperature Suddenly fell across him, like steep Building-shadows, and he wondered What it had all been leading up to. Up there Wisps of smoke raced away from grimy Chimney pots as though pursued by demons; Down here all was yellowing silence and Melancholy though not without a secret Feeling of satisfaction at having escaped The rat race, if only for a time, to plunge Into profitless meditations, as threadbare As the old mohair coat he had worn from Earliest times, and which no one Had ever seen him doff, no matter What the prevailing meteorological conditions were. These were now the fabric Of his existence, and fabric was precisely What he felt that existence to be: something old And useful, useful and useless at the same time. I was waiting for a taxi.

It seemed there were fewer Of us now, and suddenly a Whole lot fewer. I was afraid I might be the only one. Then I spotted a young man With a guitar over his leg And next to him, a young girl Seated on the pavement, sitting Merely. Not even Lost in thought she seemed, but Accepting the waiting for it Or whatever else might be in the channel Of time we were being ferried across. Her face was totally devoid of expression Yet wore a somehow kind look, so I was glad Of it in the deepening fever of the day. No sign Did she make of interest to her companion Who ever and anon did searchingly Regard her face, as though to ascertain That the signs he wished to read there Were indeed not there, that there was nothing In her aspect to cause him to change And from time to time Would stare at his guitar, as though Rapt in concentration of what it would be like To play something on it, yet No stealthy movement of his hand Was eer discerned, no fandango or urgent Serenade compelled his trusting back To arch in expectation of an air Which might have refreshed us all, given The gloom of that moment, made us think Of past scenes of cheerfulness, and remember That they could easily happen again, unless The mechanism had jammed, and we Were to be tenants forever of a time With little to hold the interest, and no Promise of relief in movement.