ASHBERY
I missed your last reading
in order to approximate
real time for the audience. You
know, I needed to think
more about the you’s,
my you’s. Nothing lovelier
than paper, right? If only
I had had wheels, though
imagine a wary mountain
queer worrying in Princeton!
Going awry’s why I have
known division intimately.
Poetry separates further. Shall I
return to the valley of Canada
geese & black sheep, Ashbery?
I would have asked you if
you wore Gore-Tex and what
happens when one doesn’t
cross the aisle anymore? I
trust that I must entertain
the notion of forward.
+++
TOO BRIGHT FOR LANDSCAPES
The legends egressed, left us
unattended. How much of
the world doesn’t want me?
Who, without toying, will
hold my head in his lap?
This position of intimate
implications, but my mouth
doesn’t concern you. I’m not
a jack-in-the-box or a feather
in your cap. Somewhere
an assault is happening.
I am not unlike you, a holding
cell for ancestral passages
and glyphs. They’re sequestered
in marrow and in the mind.
I trust that mine wouldn’t
approve because I am also
in the lap of a meadow
with my mouth wide open.
TYPO
30
|