John Ashbery: The Picture of Little J. A. in a Prospect of Flowers


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"In a far recess of summer / Monks are playing soccer."  Monks Playing Soccer, Xiahe, China: photo by Kitetraveller, 6 October 2006



.......He was spoilt from childhood
.......by the future, which he mastered
.......rather early and apparently
.......without great difficulty.

.......BORIS PASTERNAK
              
...............I
Darkness falls like a wet sponge
And Dick gives Genevieve a swift punch
In the pajamas. “Aroint thee, witch.”
Her tongue from previous ecstasy
Releases thoughts like little hats.

“He clap’d me first during the eclipse.
Afterwards I noted his manner
Much altered. But he sending
At that time certain handsome jewels
I durst not seem to take offence.”

In a far recess of summer
Monks are playing soccer.





"Her tongue from previous ecstasy / Releases thoughts like little hats." 4000 floating hats exhibition, Spiral Garden of Tokyo: photo by Nendo Agency, via just a bunch of dreamers, 4 July 2011


...............II
So far is goodness a mere memory
Or naming of recent scenes of badness
That even these lives, children,
You may pass through to be blessed,
So fair does each invent his virtue.

And coming from a white world, music
Will sparkle at the lips of many who are
Beloved. Then these, as dirty handmaidens
To some transparent witch, will dream
Of a white hero’s subtle wooing,
And time shall force a gift on each.

That beggar to whom you gave no cent
Striped the night with his strange descant. 



File:Phlox borealis 1.jpg

"My head among the blazing phlox..."  Phlox borealis: photo by Ghislain118 (AD), 16 January 2009


................III
Yet I cannot escape the picture
Of my small self in that bank of flowers:
My head among the blazing phlox
Seemed a pale and gigantic fungus.
I had a hard stare, accepting

Everything, taking nothing,
As though the rolled-up future might stink
As loud as stood the sick moment
The shutter clicked. Though I was wrong,
Still, as the loveliest feelings

Must soon find words, and these, yes,
Displace them, so I am not wrong
In calling this comic version of myself
The true one. For as change is horror,
Virtue is really stubbornness

And only in the light of lost words
Can we imagine our rewards.



File:Field mushroom at Staunton on Wye - geograph.org.uk - 604849.jpg

"...Seemed a pale and gigantic fungus". The common edible field mushroom (Agaricus campestris) in a meadow to the north of Staunton on Wye: photo by Philip Halling, 3 November 2007

John Ashbery: The Picture of Little J. A. in a Prospect of Flowers, from Some Trees (1956)

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