A Worldly Country

by Ashbery, John

• ISBN13: 9780061173837
• ISBN10: 0061173835
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-17
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Thrill of a Romance It's different when you have hiccups. Everything is-so many glad hands competing for your attention, a scarf, a puff of soot, or just a blast of silence from a radio. What is it? That's for you to learn to your dismay when, at the end of a long queue in the cafeteria, tray in hand, they tell you the gate closed down after the Second World War. Syracuse was declared capital of a nation in malaise, but the directorate had other, hidden goals. To proclaim logic a casualty of truth was one. Everyone's solitude (and resulting promiscuity) perfumed the byways of villages we had thought civilized. I saw you waiting for a streetcar and pressed forward. Alas, you were only a child in armor. Now when ribald toasts sail round a table too fair laid out, why the consequences are only dust, disease and old age. Pleasant memories are just that. So I channel whatever into my contingency, a vein of mercury that keeps breaking out, higher up, more on time every time. Dirndls spotted with obsolete flowers, worn in the city again, promote open discussion.

Table of Contents

A Worldly Country	p. 1
To Be Affronted	p. 2
Streakiness	p. 4
Feverfew	p. 5
Opposition to a Memorial	p. 6
For Now	p. 8
Image Problem	p. 9
Litanies	p. 10
Like a Photograph	p. 11
A Kind of Chill	p. 12
One Evening, a Train	p. 13
Mottled Tuesday	p. 15
Old-Style Plentiful	p. 16
Well-Scrubbed Interior	p. 17
Cliffhanger	p. 18
The Ecstasy	p. 19
Filigrane	p. 21
Ukase	p. 22
Casuistry	p. 23
Andante Favori	p. 24
The Handshake, the Cough, the Kiss	p. 25
Yes, "Senor" Fluffy	p. 31
The Inchcape Rock	p. 32
Lacrimae Rerun	p. 33
A Perfect Hat	p. 34
So, Yes	p. 35
Of the "East" River's Charm	p. 36
La Bonne Chanson	p. 39
Feast or Famine	p. 40
Imperfect Sympathies	p. 41
The Black Prince	p. 42
Forwarded	p. 43
They Are Still Rather Lovely	p. 44
Thrill of a Romance	p. 46
A Litmus Tale	p. 47
The Binomial Theorem	p. 48
Hungry Again	p. 50
Promenade	p. 51
The Recipe	p. 52
A Small Table in the Street	p. 54
It, or Something	p. 55
One of His Nature Poems	p. 56
And Other Stories	p. 57
The Gallant Needful	p. 58
America the Lovely	p. 59
Anticipated Stranger	p. 60
Phantoum	p. 61
The Loneliness	p. 64
On Seeing an Old Copy of Vogue on a Chair	p. 65
A November	p. 66
Sleeper Wedding	p. 67
Pavane pour Helen Twelvetrees	p. 68
Are You Ticklish?	p. 70
Asides on the Theorbo	p. 71
Autumn Tea Leaves	p. 72
Objection Sustained	p. 73
So Long, Santa	p. 74
Singalong	p. 76
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

A Worldly Country
New Poems

A Worldly Country

Not the smoothness, not the insane clocks on the square,
the scent of manure in the municipal parterre,
not the fabrics, the sullen mockery of Tweety Bird,
not the fresh troops that needed freshening up. If it occurred
in real time, it was OK, and if it was time in a novel
that was OK too. From palace and hovel
the great parade flooded avenue and byway
and turnip fields became just another highway.
Leftover bonbons were thrown to the chickens
and geese, who squawked like the very dickens.
There was no peace in the bathroom, none in the china closet
or the banks, where no one came to make a deposit.
In short all hell broke loose that wide afternoon.
By evening all was calm again. A crescent moon
hung in the sky like a parrot on its perch.
Departing guests smiled and called, "See you in church!"
For night, as usual, knew what it was doing,
providing sleep to offset the great ungluing
that tomorrow again would surely bring.
As I gazed at the quiet rubble, one thing
puzzled me: What had happened, and why?
One minute we were up to our necks in rebelliousness,
and the next, peace had subdued the ranks of hellishness.

So often it happens that the time we turn around in
soon becomes the shoal our pathetic skiff will run aground in.
And just as waves are anchored to the bottom of the sea
we must reach the shallows before God cuts us free.

A Worldly Country
New Poems. Copyright © by John Ashbery. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from A Worldly Country: New Poems by John Ashbery
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.