John Ashbery: “The Skaters”

III-C

		Burning, sealing its way into my consciousness.
		Smooth out the sad sand flowers, pick up where you left off
		But leave me immersed in dreams of sexual imagery:
		Now that the homecoming geese unfurl in waves on the west wind
		And cock covers hen, the farmhouse dog slavers over his bitch, and horse and mare go screwing through the meadow!
		A pure scream of things arises from these various sights and smells
		As steam arises from a wet shingle, and I am happy once again
		Walking among these phenomena that seem familiar to me from my earliest childhood.

	We put everything in order.
	A museum of thought was the result.

		The page ended just at the burnt edge,
		The reader's puckered lips. He is looking for "milk"
		In the directory, but this volume ends with the "MI"'s.
		Another time will do as well, at school last year
		Or elsewhere, in praise of bushes or wandering.

	And someone I have never seen
	Is thinking of me right now.

		Perhaps she, in her way
		By the day's "last rays", reads my letter.
		I promised and never sent.
		On flat landscapes the projections occur.

	And one wishes to escape civilization.
	A world of alien diseases is best,
	Tyrant fruits, and big-voiced birds
	Bespeaking the awe of peace in orange groves
	By seaweed fires.

		At home the bespectacled
		Reader of newsprint shuns the baroque kiosk.
		Dirt darkness and destruction abound
		In the so-called modern "paradise"--he thinks
		As the trolley draws closer--a sheaf of newsprint
		Perpendicular to the thorax--is the one you draw close to
		And say goodbye to, and wait for and return to
		And hunger for inspiration from, in leafy enchantment
		Of urban dusk. But somehow the mirth of everything rolls us along
		Laughing and tired, and commenting on our journey
		Before it happens, and leaves us at the end.