Monday, May 6, 2013

QUICK QUESTION ~









Words To That Effect
 


The drive down was smooth

but after we arrived things started to go haywire,

first one thing and then another. The days

scudded past like tumbleweed, slow then fast,

then slow again. The sky was sweet and plain.

You remember how still it was then,

a season putting its arms into a coat and staying unwrapped

for a long, a little time.



It was during the week we talked about deforestation.

How sad that everything has to change,

yet what a relief, too! Otherwise we'd only have

looking forward to look forward to.

The moment would be a bud

that never filled, only persevered

in a static trance, before it came to be no more.



We'd walked a little way in our shoes.

I was sure you'd remember how it had been

the other time, before the messenger came to your door

and seemed to want to peer in and size up the place.

So each evening became a forbidden morning

of thunder and curdled milk, though the invoices

got forwarded and birds settled on the periphery.







 

Northeast Building




I tell myself I'm a minimalist.

Not that it matters to the big guns

who train their sights on us,

who also know about tomorrow and their brothers,

and  had a pretty good run. It would be that time

in the future, that was predicted. The wearing of boater hats

had become fairly commonplace, like going to the park.

Children ran errands while adults went to the movies.

There were more sights along the strand than at first

imagined. Nobody ever heard of an alternative

to these dingy, then bright vignettes.

We slept well and fell into an uneasy dialogue,

like the United States and Canada. Then mild everything.



The runner is already here,

has been for some time, awaiting instructions.

If it was my turn I'd go, but since that is

out of the question, I'll merely keep my counsel,

looking for some converted to preach to.

The other thing, your happiness program, fits in

with the recent trend for self-expression. All in good time.

Why is parting, then, permitted?




______________________________


JOHN ASHBERY
Quick Question
(Ecco 2012)









photo : guy maddin