The Complete Poems of A R Ammons, Volume 1 Read online

  to pay

  my last respects to earth

  farewell earth

  5ocean farewell

  lean eucalyptus with nude gray skin

  farewell

  Hill rain

  pouring from a rockpierced cloud

  10hill rain from the wounds of mist

  farewell

  See the mountainpeaks gather

  clouds from the sky

  shake new bright flakes from the mist

  15farewell

  Hedgerows hung with web and dew

  that disappear at a touch

  like snail eyes

  farewell

  20To a bird only this

  farewell

  and he hopped away to peck dew

  from a ground web

  spider running out of her tunnel to see

  25to whom I said

  farewell

  and she sat still on her heavy webs

  I closed up all the natural throats of earth

  and cut my ties with every natural heart

  30and saying farewell

  stepped out into the great open

  1951

  I Went Out to the Sun

  I went out to the sun

  where it burned over a desert willow

  and getting under the shade of the willow

  I said

  5It’s very hot in this country

  The sun said nothing so I said

  The moon has been talking about you

  and he said

  Well what is it this time

  10She says it’s her own light

  He threw his flames out so far

  they almost scorched the top of the willow

  Well I said of course I don’t know

  The sun went on and the willow was glad

  15I found an arroyo and dug for water

  which I got muddy and then clear

  so I drank a lot

  and washed the salt from my eyes

  and taking off my shirt

  20hung it on the willow to dry and said

  This land where whirlwinds

  walking at noon in tall columns of dust

  take stately turns about the desert

  is a very dry land

  25So I went to sleep under the willow tree

  When the moon came up it was cold

  and reaching to the willow for my shirt

  I said to the moon

  You make it a pretty night

  30so she smiled

  A night-lizard rattled stems behind me

  and the moon said

  I see over the mountain

  the sun is angry

  35Not able to see him I called and said

  Why are you angry with the moon

  since all at last must be lost

  to the great vacuity

  1951 (1954)

  At Dawn in 1098

  At dawn in 1098

  the Turks went out from the gates

  of Antioch

  and gathered their dead

  5from the banks of the river

  the cool ones

  they gathered in

  Bathing in the morning river

  I said Oh

  10to the reapers

  and stepping out gave

  my white form to morning

  She blushed openly

  so twisting I danced

  15along the banks of the river

  and morning rushed up over the hills

  to see my wild form

  whirling on the banks of the river

  Saying O morning

  20I went away to the hills

  With cloaks

  and ornaments

  arrows and coins of gold

  the Turks buried their dead

  25and sealed the tombs with tears

  But the Christians rising from the fields

  broke open the cool tombs

  and cut off heads

  for a tally

  30Taking morning in my arms

  I said Oh

  and descended the eastern hills

  and all that day

  it was night in Antioch

  1951

  The Whaleboat Struck

  The whaleboat struck

  and we came ashore

  to the painted faces

  O primitives I said

  5and the arrow sang to my throat

  Leaving myself on the shore

  I went away

  and when a heavy wind caught me I said

  My body lies south

  10given over to vultures and flies

  and wrung my hands

  so the wind went on

  Another day a wind came saying

  Bones

  15lovely and white

  lie on the southern sand

  the ocean has washed bright

  I said

  O bones in the sun

  20and went south

  The flies were gone

  The vultures no longer searched

  the ends of my hingeless bones

  for a trace of lean or gristle

  25Breathing the clean air

  I picked up a rib

  to draw figures in the sand

  till there is no roar in the ocean

  no green in the sea

  30till the northwind flings no waves

  across the open sea

  I running in and out with the waves

  I singing old Devonshire airs

  1951 (1954)

  Turning a Moment to Say So Long

  Turning a moment to say so long

  to the spoken

  and seen

  I stepped into

  5the implicit pausing sometimes

  on the way to listen to unsaid things

  At a boundary of mind

  Oh I said brushing up

  against the unseen

  10and whirling on my heel

  said

  I have overheard too much

  Peeling off my being I plunged into

  the well

  15The fingers of the water splashed

  to grasp me up

  but finding only

  a few shafts

  of light

  20too quick to grasp

  became hysterical

  jumped up and down

  and wept copiously

  So I said I’m sorry dear well but

  25went on deeper

  finding patched innertubes beer cans

  and black roothairs along the way

  but went on deeper

  till darkness snuffed the shafts of light

  30against the well’s side

  night kissing

  the last bubbles from my lips

  1951

  Turning

  Turning from the waterhole I said Oh

  to the lioness whose wrinkled forehead

  showed signs of wonder

  O beautiful relaxed animal I said

  5The tall grass shivered up and down

  and said

  What a looseness is in her body how

  limp are the wet teats of her belly

  The grass sang a song I had never

  10heard before to the red sun

  so I said cool evening with a wind

  in the rushes

  The lioness dropped loosely to the ground

  and I said O tired lioness

  15you love the evening

  She came to my chest and we fell into

  the waterhole

  to which

  since the grass had stopped singing and

  20was watching the sun sink

  I said

  water is like love in tranquillity

  my soul has wings of light and

  never have I seen

  25more beauty

  than is in this evening

  Her paw touched my lips as if

  she loved me passionate and loud

  so I said

&nb
sp; 30Loose lioness

  and her lips took the words from my throat

  her warm tongue flicking the living flutter

  of my being

  So I fumbled about in the darkness for my wings

  35and the grass looked all around at the evening

  1951

  Dying in a Mirthful Place

  Dying in a mirthful place

  I looked around at the dim lights

  the hips and laughing throats

  and the motions of the dance

  5and the wine the lovely wine

  and turning to death said

  I thought you knew propriety

  Death was embarrassed and stuttered

  so I watched the lips

  10and hurried away to a hill in Arizona

  where in the soil was such a noiseless

  mirth and death

  that I lay down and placed my head

  by a great boulder

  15The next morning I was dead

  excepting a few peripheral cells

  and the buzzards

  waiting for a savoring age to come

  sat over me in mournful conversations

  20that sounded excellent to my eternal ear

  1952

  When Rahman Rides

  When Rahman rides a dead haste in a dusty wind

  I wait for him and look for him coming over the desert

  blustering through the tough unwaving leaves

  and trembling behind a tall saguaro say

  5O Rahman

  and he says

  what what

  It’s like this

  what what

  10so when I saw you coming I thought perhaps

  There was the rush of dust and then farther on

  a spiral whirlwinding

  as if he had stopped too late and drawing up his wings

  looked back at the saguaro’s lifted arms

  15Unspiralling

  he swept on across the desert

  leaving me the ocotillo in a bloomless month

  1952

  With Ropes of Hemp

  With ropes of hemp

  I lashed my body to the great oak

  saying odes for the fiber of the oakbark

  and the oakwood saying supplications

  5to the root mesh

  deep and reticular in the full earth

  through the night saying these

  and early into the wild unusual dawn

  chanting hysterical though quiet

  10watching the ropes ravel

  and the body go raw

  while eternity

  greater than the ravelings of a rope

  waited with me patient in my experiment

  15Oh I said listening to the raucous

  words of the nightclouds

  how shadowy is the soul

  how fleet with the wildness of wings

  Under the grip of my bonds

  20I say Oh and melt beyond the ruthless coil

  but return again saying odes in the night

  where I stand splintered to the oak

  gathering the dissentient ghosts of my spirit

  into the oakheart

  25I in the night standing saying oaksongs

  entertaining my soul to me

  1952

  My Dice Are Crystal

  My dice are crystal inlaid with gold

  and possess

  spatial symmetry

  about their centers and

  5mechanical symmetry and

  are of uniform density

  and all surfaces have equal

  coefficients of friction for

  my dice are not loaded

  10Thy will be done

  whether dog or Aphrodite

  Cleaning off a place on the ground

  I patted it

  flat and

  15sat back on my legs

  rattling the bones

  Apparitionally god sat poker-faced

  silent on the other side

  When the ballooning

  20silence burst I cast

  and coming to rest

  the dice spoke their hard directive

  and melting

  left gold bits on the soil

  Having Been Interstellar

  Having been interstellar

  and in the treble clef

  by great expense of

  climbing mountains

  5lighting crucible fires

  in the catacombs

  among the hunted

  and the trapped in tiers

  seeking the distillate

  10answering direct

  the draft of earthless air

  he turned in himself

  helplessly as in sleep

  and went out into the growth of rains

  15and when the rains

  taking him

  had gone away in spring

  no one knew

  that he had ever flown

  20he was no less

  no more known

  to stones he left a stone

  Coming to Sumer

  Coming to Sumer and the tamarisks on the river

  I Ezra with unsettling love

  rifled the mud and wattle huts

  for recent mournings

  5with gold leaves

  and lapis lazuli beads

  in the neat braids loosening from the skull

  Looking through the wattles to the sun

  I said

  10It has rained some here in this place

  unless snow falls heavily in the hills

  to do this

  The floor was smooth with silt

  and river weeds hanging gray

  15on the bent reeds spoke saying

  Everything is even here as you can see

  Firing the huts

  I abandoned the unprofitable poor

  unequal even in the bone

  20to disrespect

  and casual with certainty

  watched an eagle wing as I went

  to king and priest

  I Assume the World Is Curious About Me

  I assume the world is curious about me

  the sound

  and volume of hell

  where brittle grace polished as glass

  5glazed in fire glints

  and pliant humility

  furls coiling into itself

  like an ashen abnegation

  for sin

  10you will want to see it

  even without god is a hot consumption

  I assume that when I die

  going over and under without care

  leaves will wilt and lose all windy interest

  15some ration of stars will fall

  for my memorial

  A simple thrust brings vomit

  but a reduction

  and retained separation has love in it

  20and love burns on itself

  while hate

  is a cold expulsion and devastation

  I assume many will crowd around me

  to praise my unwillingness to simplify

  25then turning

  assist in raising me to my outstanding tree

  someday unhang my sinews from the nails

  let down the gray locust from the pine

  I Struck a Diminished Seventh

  I struck a diminished seventh

  and sat down

  to wait

  for the universal word

  5Come word

  I said

  azalea word

  gel precipitate

  while I

  10the primitive spindle

  binding the poles of earth and air

  give you

  with river ease

  a superior appreciation

  15equalling winged belief

  It had almost come

  I perishing for deity stood up

  drying my feet

  when the minor challenge was ignored

  20and de
ath came over sieving me

  Gilgamesh Was Very Lascivious

  Gilgamesh was very lascivious

  and took the virgins as they ripened

  from the men that wanted them

  To the men Gilgamesh gave wall building

  5brick burning and gleaning of straw

  for a physical expression

  yielding more protection

  for the virgins the men wanted

  than long hours in jogging beds

  10with the walls crumbling before

  who knew what predators

  seeking wine

  virgins

  long fields of wheat

  15and spearshafts wrapped in gold

  Because he sought the mate

  of his physical divinity

  Gilgamesh

  let many usurp the missing one

  20and went

  singly in his tragic excellence

  At his going by

  the men in mud and sweat

  saw virgins yielding to his eyes

  25and turned to work with dreams

  no virgin would ever give to them

  Climbing the wall

  and walking up and down upon it

  I said

  30Fools fools

  but they kneaded slowly

  the muscles of their glassy backs

  worms working in the sun

  When I Set Fire to the Reed Patch

  When I set fire to the reed patch

  that autumn evening

  the wind whipped volleys of shot

  from the bursting joints

  5and armies bristling defensive interest

  rushed up over the fringing hills

  and stared into the fire

  I laughed my self to death

  and they

  10legs afire

  eyelashes singed

  swept in flooding up the lovely

  expressions of popping light

  and hissing thorns of flame

  15Clashing midfire