Unpublished poems and fragments from the first typescript:

Houlgate



Description    

One typescript page, letter format.

Two corrections in different inks: black and blue ball-point pen; the latter used to add a date: “6/21/61”

Ashbery: “The Skaters,” first typescript, “Houlgate”

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Houlgate


Actively examining the dispersal end,
Water, the way nothing should do
Exclaimed light the mocked aphasia-butt
Toward, seeping vertical--
There is a practical side to experience.dele
Hay that rings open ridges.
Sneeze that you never were.dele
Shy street leading there, to hold,
The octave--unbelieved curse--of shine,
To hold. You temporarily
I am perfectly responsible for the crimes
I have committed.
It has no need to advertise itself
And there is little doubt it may never touch,
Though it may outlive, death, and perform alone
Anxiously like seaweed.




6/21/61dele