4.22.11

In Tennessee - all parts, I believe - love is a funny thing

Its the only state I've ever lived in

It doesn't at all make me want to sing

but it sometimes makes me wish I could

And it truly is funny, not at all like peculiar funny, though it certainly is,

I believe, but like funny, truly

Don't think I've never been out of Tennessee

It's funny for whatever reason you want it to be

And that will be the difference (it won't)

Between you and me.  But in Tennessee

There are so many different kinds - but they can be so similar

In both feeling and thought, yet so terribly different,

In both feeling and thought, but probably more in feeling than thought.

Everyone knows this, children through and through,

but they don't find it funny as we do, and we do. If you go to Tennessee

"Looking for Love," I'm sure you'll find it, whether you know it or not.

If you don't, then it probably doesn't matter anymore. You

Should remember childhood, if not even yours,

and you should try, just once more.

Its not Tennessee, its not you and me,

its nothing between us three. Its not even about love, Tennessee

But thats probably what makes it funny.

Guilt

You are human built
a fallible, fleshy machine
with thoughts and dreams
and pitiful guilt.


Like shallow, hollow trees
we human built
with time we wilt
and crumble by breeze.


You are human built
with onion peelings
of unnecessary feelings
and plentiful, pitiful guilt.

Hotel Poem

The hotel I live in
isn't open anymore.
I don't know what
I should do.


I'm not afraid,
I just don't like
you. I'm sorry.


The exception to
the rule is a sad
song, and it
happens everyday.


Your eyes still shine.
It reminds me
of childhood.


The heart of the
country is a myth;
or,
it's you and me.


Imagine taking
your mask off,
and smiling.


I love you, but
more for who
you ought to be,
you see.


Why didn't I think:
What in the
world?


It's getting to the
point where things
get sad, and I don't
want that.


But I've learned
to keep going,
and smile.


Live through this
and you can't go
back.
It's closed.


You cannot live
there much
longer.


Beauty is ageless,
that is the main
reason why it
doesn't exist.


This
should be a good one.
Try as you might.


Let me just
sleep,
and dream,
one more night.


Let me begin
where I have
failed to end.


Wait for me,
She said to him.
He didn't, or
so it's told.

It's Not What it Looks Like

This is my house,
I don't always live here.
You understand.

This is my house,
it's not my home.
You understand.

She judged me,
when she asked me
"Don't judge."

I wouldn't judge
if I weren't so human.
It's just a house.

We all have houses,
not all a home.
You understand.

I like to stay home,
but
I get around.

Your vanity
was like
chocolate.

My pride
like alcohol.

Our greed - it was
like love.
You understand.

My love is like
a woman.

Yours
is like fiction.

Let's just
go home.

Two by John Ashbery

The Problem of Anxiety

Fifty years have passed
since I started living in those dark towns
I was telling you about.
Well, not much has changed. I still can't figure out
how to get from the post office to the swings in the park.
Apple trees blossom in the cold, not from conviction,
and my hair is the color of dandelion fluff.


Suppose this poem were about you-would you
put in the things I have carefully left out:
descriptions of pain, and sex, and how shiftily
people behave toward each other? Naw, that's
all in some book it seems. For you
I've saved the descriptions of chicken sandwiches,
and the glass eye that stares at me in amazement
from the bronze mantle, and will never be appeased.




Today's Academicians


Again, what forces the critic to bury his
agenda in interleaving textualities and so
bring the past face-to-face with his present
isn't naughty, but it is both silly and wrong.
The past will have to get by on sheer pluck
or charm, entirely consistent with its ten-
dency to nullify and romanticize things. The
way a pain begins. The flying squirrels of
this particular rain forest mope in flight;
the audience has already done what it can for
them; and the pure light of their endeavor
bespeaks the modesty of the program: "mere?"
anarchy. That the men with spotted suits
and ties get down to it is one more nail in
their coffin. These portly curmudgeons dig-
nify no endeavor and are also about as "right"
as the weather ever gets. All in my time.
More meteor magic. Seems like.


-both from Ashbery's Notes from the Air.

bug.spray

Bug.spray is so over-categorized.

The bugs are alive,

and with poison are sprayed.

They shan't survive,

not matter what you paid.

that future

Yes, but it changes nothing,
that which you spoke of.
Changed, though indeed
we may be - 
and I've heard what some
dare say,
evolved -
still, we are unchanged,
and cannot be changed as they say
by our own power.
We still are
who we've always been,
and should have no hope
in this future direction,
except for the constant direction
of the future itself.
All despair aside,
it sure does make things
easier. Easier,
but not better.

please

inspire me
poetically
please.


don't be confined
just let your mind
ease.


someone has to
let it be you
please.

Bob Dylan at Princeton, November 2000

by Paul Muldoon


We cluster at one end, one end of Dillon Gym.
"You know what, honey? We call that a Homonym."


We cluster at one end, one end of Dillon Gym.
"If it's fruit you're after, you go out on a limb."


That last time in Princeton, that ornery degree,
those seventeen-year locusts hanging off the tress.


That last time in Princeton, that ornery degree,
his absolute refusal to bend the knee.


His last time Princeton, he wouldn't wear a hood.
Now he's dressed up as some sort of cowboy dude.


His last time Princeton, he wouldn't wear a hood.
"You know what, honey? We call that disquietude.


It's that self-same impulse that has him rearrange
both 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' and 'Things Have Changed'


so that everything seems to fall within his range
as the locusts lock in on grain silo and grange."

The White Man

The White Man-
The White Man-
Jesus was White,
says the White Man.
livin' in
a colored man's world!
Not now, says the White Man-
now, it's White Man's world!
Oh!
I hope He comes soon!
He'll like it
So!
So much more
than before-
says the White Man.