John Ashbery: Fifteen poems

American Poetry Review, The, Jan 1995 by Ashbery, John

how that wasn't his real name, and was he hiding something?

If so, then why call himself a humorist?

We began to tire of his ravings, but (as so often happens)

it was just at that point that a salient character trait

revealed itself, or rather, manifested itself within him.

It was one of those goofy days in August

when all men (and some women) dream of chocolate sodas.

He confessed he'd had one for lunch,

then took us out to the street to show us the whir and dazzle

of living in some other city, where so much that is different goes on.

I guess he was inspired by Lahore. Said it came to him

in his dreams every night. And little by little

we felt ourselves being transported there. Not that we wanted

to be there, far from that; But we were either too timid

or unaware to urge him otherwise. Then he mentioned Timbuktu.

Said he'd actually been there, that the sidewalks were pink

and the huts made of mother-of-pearl, not mud, as is commonly

supposed. Said he'd had the best venison and apple tart

in his life there.

Well, we were accompanying him in the daze

that usually surrounded him, when we began to think about ourselves:

When was the last time we had done so? And the stranger shifted shape

again (he was now wearing a zouave's culottes), and asked us

would we want to live in Djibouti, or Providence, or Lyon, now that

we'd seen them, and we chorused (like frogs), Oh no, we

want to live in New York, not that the other places aren't as splendid

and interesting as you say. It's just that New York

feels more like home to us. It's ugly, it's dirty, the people are rude

(kind and rude), and every surface has a fine film of filth

on it that behooves slobs like us, and will in time turn to diamonds,

just like the mother-of-pearl shacks in Timbuktu. And he said,

You know I was wrong about Mark Twain. It was his real name,

and he was a humorist, a genuine American humorist for the ages.

THE BLOT PEOPLE

Something's not right. There were vibrations,

"vibes," a moment ago. A bush rubbed its bark against the sky.

The miserable thicket smelt of firecrackers

and I found everything in more or less the same order

when I got home. Still, it's hard to remember

what the order was after the first few things: a tie, a sofa

a sheet of paper artfully placed so as to point to

who might have moved it in my ripe absence:

the bruised, alien thing, but familiar

as a smile on the face of anyone.

A few coathangers jingled slightly

in the breeze from the closet. Someone was here.

Someone may triumph over the other one.

The family returns from the sea

with dogs and radios and fishing rods.

Old fishermen greet them in the ruddy glow

of lamps. The prisoner, an Uncle Joe,

returns after a great distance--so many miles,

so many hours tethered into days

that built the long log road from here to the east.

LOVE IN BOOTS

Our first assignment was to make a square,

a place for living and carping in,

where the Sphinx could panhandle and maids desist,

if they cared to.

It seems my plan was too perfect!

People ended up hating it and the lives they lived in.

Back to the bogs! But the way was cut off,