John Ashbery

John Ashbery, Icarus, collage, 2010. Copyright estate of John Ashbery. Courtesy Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York.

It buttered no parsnips that it was raining

on some statues of older men. The call had gone out 
and from all across the country, papers
kept blowing in. The little crazy guy converged 
with a very interesting man who was right here 
in an antique perspective:
The appetites were enormous, the provisions limitless.
Fifteen read their papers
last year at this time, the group said.
In the case of Boston-Cleveland or Hartford-Philadelphia 
you don't get arrested for heavily kicking a sign.
But as daffodils and raindrop-preludes fall
from the symbol-laden heavens, you can be charged 
for forgetting,
for ignoring the very basement of your and others' 
ideas until they come at you like stray cats
and it isn't their fault. Remember that.

The scale descends
to a kind of landing, then descends some more.
Cooler heads prevailed
and something that the work was not resembling
gave you a distaste for discovery.
Whether I'm fooling around or not it is incumbent 
on the brothels of history to raise up their sheets
and vote with a bean for or against capital punishment.
Don't you see
it's the only way to measure 
the zebras moving to warn us,
reptiles in rep ties at the pass?
Carry on, crow.
Meanwhile sleep binds us lightly
so that we can easily slip away as the season 
approaches on tortoise feet. Around the corner
of midnight, and a thousand miles away this morning? 
What good are hygrometers, and what men need us 
more than they need air or defense?

We'll see you at the end of the month! they cried.
Small waves broke as they re-formed 
across the bay's lumpy waters
in time for this session and for the next 
one and for the one after that.