Far Harbor

—after John Ashbery

On the out the dickens we didn’t try your recipe

to hold up the touted soufflé and make amends,

all but the gas oven standing its ground.

The ball park closes its eye to the sky and players

pray and swing their ballasts to packed applause.

A happy couple drifts closer, all the borrowed notes

and time being with you and that is enough.

The body shifts in all this, gradually the world turns

around on it, so we are bystanders standing up

to towering spiders and bury our things with us

in the crawl space where the narrative give way

to panic, the calm voice of reason then reassuring

despite the atonal motifs and turn of slashed signatures

the fingering on scales confines us to our favorite keys.

(Nov. 14, 2014)

Northeast Building

—after John Ashbery

Things are rough, I know, I said taking you out

had no strings attached, but it’s not often I see you

and wasn’t it you who whispered a smile

is a precious thing to waste?

So here the modus operandi greets us in a row

as you say it should, though not your cup of tea nor mine,

a punishment, like Greyhound (for lack of trains)

all part of your rollover-to-live-to-see-another-day plan

gone on umpteen years. I guess it might seem better

as the world closes in, stiffens, and at least

you dropped in from the sixth

and I borrowed your light nine to sink a birdie.

Who said I raised my voice? Sheesh, it wasn’t even your turn

just a penny opera, no mute scream could

breakdown the onslaught of Mack the Knife.

All in good fun even you say

like daffy-go-Bucky all top-down, robes flowing open

quite the monsieur de la maison, newspaper ruffled

and plop, a robin dives outside and audiences pirouette

on their bums to hear the upshot, pas du tout. Double sheesh.

So tell yourself we’re on the up and up

and the hologlobe spinning under our fingers will come around

to a lost island in the Pacific slowly sinking,

but no need to send in the llamas—

we’ve seen what that does. Try steering clear

of what makes you unhappy without letting it down.

See you when flights resume.

(Nov. 10, 2014)

Feel Free

 —after John Ashbery

While you tinkered with that watch that keeps on

acting up, keeps you up (and wouldn’t wake you up)

the rest of us trekked with the captain for tacos

from the back of a truck. A ribbed false sunset

flat at sea met us from the distance,

the mouth of the city breaking cloud cover

clearing around blocks of transport ships,

splotches under the radar a joke

planted in bystanders. Who’s a taker?

Heroes fold, triangles for a better day.

“Daddy, don’t dance that way” starts it.

The fullness of the world settles in, you say,

scanning places to take place beside us

thus tightening in us, overworked to

sort the mad rush, what what and no boy

wonder rushing in from the other side of the city

to free us. Since you dialed in telling us not to bother

leaves fall out of season as they will. We’re nowhere now

and, it would seem, the future—sending notice

for the tête-à-tête in Copenhagen, more sunflowers.

(Nov. 7, 2014)

Cross Island

—after John Ashbery

When the lift stopped and they sent notice you

stepped over sleeping vagrants in the stairwell on your way out.

Time held still in its museum you constructed

from hearsay, happy voices, no one in control

the beauty of democracy without the parade of life

you said and closed Shelley, turned to the tap a shoulder

rolling over in bed (before the water shortage)

like a lost Apollo mission.

     We joked about who had the gumption

to talk to her. All the blokes held back, shadows of what we sought.

A fine mess, indeed. Don’t blame the messenger but do listen long enough

as we touched down elsewhere again, sons of immigrants

fathering immigrants, “my generation” a rolling spectacle.

I’d like to button down too one day, collect trinkets

bearing a conceptual oblivion that undoes them

like a new pair of glasses too high or too low.

I’m glad you are open about drawing lines in the sand

not to disturb eternity with details of the day

and can relax that no one will take you seriously.

All that is left is a restless hope in surviving time

like a lover so young and innocent who disappears in time.

(Nov. 5, 2014)

The Allegations

—after John Ashbery

You stood on the sidelines laughing

as the colorful parade passed

and joked about fallen comrades saving us

from ourselves. I laughed, not a belly laugh

that covers a hollowness that contains us,

gives us our sense of being-there

but one inching and retreating as if not a laugh at all,

not hearty anyways, but helpful, so the balance can shore up

a balanced life. So touchy, how now

touching off upstate dancers with their gaudy truths

that would teach the townspeople before turning in

the hard plots need back-hoes more than a shovel of men

for backed-up situations, you find it pleasant among

the daffodils weed-whacked off the road as man becomes man

and the poetry is here, in the empty corridor alone with your ear.

It’s fun to see from above without looking up.

You’re from the first wave of peasants lying low,

taught to enjoy the collage of life’s peccadilloes

in torn cubist recumbence, letting others carry

on the joy of caring, ushering others down the same

corridor of self, reflecting our world as it is

without hope, amen, we made it this far. And we’re off.

(Nov. 4, 2014)