Chinese Whispers: Poems Read online

  Chinese Whispers

  Poems

  John Ashbery

  This book is dedicated to

  Ed Barrett, Olivier Brossard, Mark Ford,

  Kenneth Koch, Ann Lauterbach, John Yau

  and to my editor of thirty years, Elisabeth Sifton

  Contents

  Publisher’s Note

  A Nice Presentation

  The Variorum Edition

  The Sleeping Animals

  Disclaimer

  Disagreeable Glimpses

  Theme Park Days

  In Whatever Mode

  From the Diary of a Mole

  Too Much Sleep Is Bad

  The Big Idea

  Why Not Sneeze?

  A Sweet Place

  View of Delft

  Postilion of Autumn

  This Deuced Cleverness

  Unpolished Segment

  Mordred

  The Lightning Conductor

  I Asked Mr. Dithers Whether It Was Time Yet He Said No to Wait

  Haven’t Heard Anything

  Chinese Whispers

  In the Time of Pussy Willows

  The American

  The Seventies

  All That Now

  Truth Gleams

  Little Sick Poem

  A Man Clamored

  Local Legend

  Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland

  Ornery Fish

  Portrait with a Goat

  The Decals in the Hallway

  Echolalia Rag

  The Evening of Greuze

  As Umbrellas Follow Rain

  Under Cellophane

  Reminiscences of Norma

  Obsidian House

  Oh Evenings

  Intricate Fasting

  Alone, I

  Winter Daydreams

  Runway

  Random Jottings of an Old Man

  Her Cardboard Lover

  Moon, Moon

  Syllabus

  On His Reluctance to Take Down the Christmas Ornaments

  The Business of Falling Asleep

  Hints and Fragments

  If You Ask Me

  The Haves

  Like Air, Almost

  The Blessed Way Out

  Sight to Behold

  Prisoner’s Base

  The Business of Falling Asleep (2)

  Real Time

  Heavenly Days

  Sir Gammer Vans

  About the Author

  Publisher’s Note

  Long before they were ever written down, poems were organized in lines. Since the invention of the printing press, readers have become increasingly conscious of looking at poems, rather than hearing them, but the function of the poetic line remains primarily sonic. Whether a poem is written in meter or in free verse, the lines introduce some kind of pattern into the ongoing syntax of the poem’s sentences; the lines make us experience those sentences differently. Reading a prose poem, we feel the strategic absence of line.

  But precisely because we’ve become so used to looking at poems, the function of line can be hard to describe. As James Longenbach writes in The Art of the Poetic Line, “Line has no identity except in relation to other elements in the poem, especially the syntax of the poem’s sentences. It is not an abstract concept, and its qualities cannot be described generally or schematically. It cannot be associated reliably with the way we speak or breathe. Nor can its function be understood merely from its visual appearance on the page.” Printed books altered our relationship to poetry by allowing us to see the lines more readily. What new challenges do electronic reading devices pose?

  In a printed book, the width of the page and the size of the type are fixed. Usually, because the page is wide enough and the type small enough, a line of poetry fits comfortably on the page: What you see is what you’re supposed to hear as a unit of sound. Sometimes, however, a long line may exceed the width of the page; the line continues, indented just below the beginning of the line. Readers of printed books have become accustomed to this convention, even if it may on some occasions seem ambiguous—particularly when some of the lines of a poem are already indented from the left-hand margin of the page.

  But unlike a printed book, which is stable, an ebook is a shape-shifter. Electronic type may be reflowed across a galaxy of applications and interfaces, across a variety of screens, from phone to tablet to computer. And because the reader of an ebook is empowered to change the size of the type, a poem’s original lineation may seem to be altered in many different ways. As the size of the type increases, the likelihood of any given line running over increases.

  Our typesetting standard for poetry is designed to register that when a line of poetry exceeds the width of the screen, the resulting run-over line should be indented, as it might be in a printed book. Take a look at John Ashbery’s “Disclaimer” as it appears in two different type sizes.

  Each of these versions of the poem has the same number of lines: the number that Ashbery intended. But if you look at the second, third, and fifth lines of the second stanza in the right-hand version of “Disclaimer,” you’ll see the automatic indent; in the fifth line, for instance, the word ahead drops down and is indented. The automatic indent not only makes poems easier to read electronically; it also helps to retain the rhythmic shape of the line—the unit of sound—as the poet intended it. And to preserve the integrity of the line, words are never broken or hyphenated when the line must run over. Reading “Disclaimer” on the screen, you can be sure that the phrase “you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn ahead” is a complete line, while the phrase “you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn” is not.

  Open Road has adopted an electronic typesetting standard for poetry that ensures the clearest possible marking of both line breaks and stanza breaks, while at the same time handling the built-in function for resizing and reflowing text that all ereading devices possess. The first step is the appropriate semantic markup of the text, in which the formal elements distinguishing a poem, including lines, stanzas, and degrees of indentation, are tagged. Next, a style sheet that reads these tags must be designed, so that the formal elements of the poems are always displayed consistently. For instance, the style sheet reads the tags marking lines that the author himself has indented; should that indented line exceed the character capacity of a screen, the run-over part of the line will be indented further, and all such runovers will look the same. This combination of appropriate coding choices and style sheets makes it easy to display poems with complex indentations, no matter if the lines are metered or free, end-stopped or enjambed.

  Ultimately, there may be no way to account for every single variation in the way in which the lines of a poem are disposed visually on an electronic reading device, just as rare variations may challenge the conventions of the printed page, but with rigorous quality assessment and scrupulous proofreading, nearly every poem can be set electronically in accordance with its author’s intention. And in some regards, electronic typesetting increases our capacity to transcribe a poem accurately: In a printed book, there may be no way to distinguish a stanza break from a page break, but with an ereader, one has only to resize the text in question to discover if a break at the bottom of a page is intentional or accidental.

  Our goal in bringing out poetry in fully reflowable digital editions is to honor the sanctity of line and stanza as meticulously as possible—to allow readers to feel assured that the way the lines appear on the screen is an accurate embodiment of the way the author wants the lines to sound. Ever since poems began to be written down, the manner in which they ought to be written down has seemed equivocal; ambiguities have always resulted. By taking advantage of the technologies available in our time, our goal is to
deliver the most satisfying reading experience possible.

  A NICE PRESENTATION

  I have a friendly disposition but am forgetful, though I tend to forget only important things. Several mornings ago I was lying in my bed listening to a sound of leisurely hammering coming from a nearby building. For some reason it made me think of spring which it is. Listening I heard also a man and woman talking together. I couldn’t hear very well but it seemed they were discussing the work that was being done. This made me smile, they sounded like good and dear people and I was slipping back into dreams when the phone rang. No one was there.

  Some of these are perhaps people having to do with anything in the world. I wish to go away, on a dark night, to leave people and the rain behind but am too caught up in my own selfish thoughts and desires for this. For it to happen I would have to be asleep and already started on my voyage of self-discovery around the world. One is certain then to meet many people and to hear many strange things being said. I like this in a way but wish it would stop as the unexpectedness of it conflicts with my desire to revolve in a constant, deliberate motion. To drink tea from a samovar. To use chopsticks in the land of the Asiatics. To be stung by the sun’s bees and have it not matter.

  Most things don’t matter but an old woman of my acquaintance is always predicting doom and gloom and her prophecies matter though they may never be fulfilled. That’s one reason I don’t worry too much but I like to tell her she is right but also wrong because what she says won’t happen. Yet how can I or anyone know this? For the seasons do come round in leisurely fashion and one takes a pinch of something from each, according to one’s desires and what it leaves behind. Not long ago I was in a quandary about this but now it’s too late. The evening comes on and the aspens leaven its stars. It’s all about this observatory a shout fills.

  THE VARIORUM EDITION

  In collapsed mode the fish seem to ply downriver.

  Evening settles in

  with as many errors as usual. Too bad

  they didn’t ask my advice—I’d have told ’em

  once more how the residuals taper off

  into climate change.

  Beer and pretzels is the one luxury here.

  Tented figures walk the escarpment

  behind which a luxury hotel is planned

  for comic suicides in the next decade.

  If all of us were one

  again, how right life as usual would chime!

  We can’t keep combing out the old process

  and have it rhyme,

  neither can we rest at the table under the shade-

  tree an anonymous donor provided.

  We can only go on extracting fishhooks

  from meanings that were intended to be casual.

  Night settles briskly as with feather duster

  and rag under arm, determined to be not too civilized.

  It seems the sky left us

  hanging, long ago, and now wants us undetermined,

  untried sheep nosing out of mist.

  Be thankful for all you haven’t been, and could be

  in a warier situation. For desk values. The shoehorn.

  Our lives ebbing always toward the center,

  the unframed portrait.

  THE SLEEPING ANIMALS

  I forget it. I’ve even

  forgotten that I forgot

  it. So go on with your

  story, but make it

  quick this time.

  As if any admission were a cure ...

  You can thank me for that,

  in fact you can thank me double for that.

  We’re both riding in the same direction,

  and really, how much policing is necessary

  to punish people after dark?

  Night, the sleeping animals—

  it all gets carted away,

  sooner or later. The fife and drum

  rebegin. It’s here that narrative,

  in our sense, implodes.

  The shabby tale that was left

  in the hangar starts to look better, gold

  highlights in the corners of the eyes.

  But for this to happen we have to trust

  the narrator. We must stay vigilant.

  The tale is multicolored, and jerks

  back and forth like the tail of a kite.

  If he was so smart, how come we’re not dumber?

  How come I can see into the epicenter,

  brilliant little ball of cold? Still,

  when it’s over, it’s, like, over.

  The colonel returned to his senses.

  DISCLAIMER

  Quiet around here. The neighbors,

  in wider arcs, getting to know each other.

  The fresh falling away.

  A sweetness wells out of the dark about now.

  The explorer angles his telescope

  at frigid violets on a settee.

  A curate is near.

  Frogs and envelopes join in the fun:

  That was some joust! they say. Today we learned two things

  too many: how to whimper, and the secret stasis of land.

  Always, coming home

  you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn ahead.

  The real time of water gives you little wiggling room,

  but it’s all right, because it’s all over.

  Some dream accosted me on the turnpike. I felt straitlaced

  for a moment, then remembered your threnody,

  a cassation of bathtubs and violas d’amore.

  It brought me to passion. I was able to turn back

  with a clean slate, noting possible drifts

  of meaning that disappeared as soon as

  illuminated, then reemerged as from a fit of pique.

  DISAGREEABLE GLIMPSES

  After my fall from the sixteenth floor my bones were lovingly assembled. They were transparent. I was carried into the gorgeous dollhouse and placed on a fainting couch upholstered with brilliant poppies. My ship had come in, so to speak.

  There were others, lovers, sitting and speaking nearby. “Are you the Countess of C?” I demanded. She smiled and returned her gaze to the other. Someone brought in a tray of cakes which were distributed to the guests according to a fixed plan. “Here, this one’s for you. Take it.” I looked and saw only a small cat rolling in the snow of the darkened gutter. “If this is mine, then I don’t want it.” Abruptly the chords of a string quartet finished. I was on a shallow porch. The village movie palaces were letting out. I thought I saw a cousin from years back. Before I could call out she turned, sallow. I saw that this was not the person. Conversations continued streaming in the erstwhile twilight, I betook myself to the tollbooth. The pumpkin-yellow sun lit all this up, climbing slowly from ankles to handlebar.

  He had shaved his head some seven years ago. The lovers were bored then. They no longer meandered by the brook’s side, telling and retelling ancient secrets, as though this time of life were an anomaly, a handicap that had been foreseen. “In truth these labels don’t go far. It was I who made a career in singing, but it could just as well have been somewhere else.”

  Indeed? The dust was sweeping itself up, making sport of the broom. The solar disk was clogged with the bristles of impending resolution. Which direction did he say to take? I’m confused now, a little. It was my understanding we would in joining hands be chastised, that the boss man would be sympathetic, the sly apprentice unresonant as a squatter’s tree house. See though, it wasn’t me that dictated ...

  that dictated the orbits of the plants, the viburnum at the door. And just as I had called to you, the image decomposed. Restlessness of fish in a deodorant ad. By golly, Uncle Ted will soon be here. Until it happens you can catch your breath, looking about the walls of the familiar nest. But his flight was delayed for five hours. Now someone was interested. The travel mishaps of others are truly absorbing. He read from a large timetable and the helium balloon rose straight up out of the city, entered t
he region of others’ indifference and their benighted cares. Can’t that child be made to stop practicing?

  In another life we were in a cottage made of thin boards, above a small lake. The embroidered hems of waves annoyed the shoreline. There were no boats, only trees and boathouses.

  It’s good to step off that steel carousel. The woods were made for musicianly echoes, though not all at once. Too many echoes are like no echo, or a single tall one. Please return dishes to main room after using. Try a little subtlety in self-defense; it’ll help, you’ll find out.

  The boards of the cottage grew apart and we walked out into the sand under the sea. It was time for the sun to exhort the mute apathy of sitters, hangers-on. Ballast of the universal dredging operation. The device was called candy. We had seen it all before but would never let on, not until the postman came right up to the door, borne on the noble flood. Racked by jetsam, we cry out for flotsam, anything to stanch the hole in the big ad.

  We all came to be here quite naturally. You see we are the lamplighters of our criminal past, trailing red across the sidewalks and divided highways. Yes, she said, you most certainly can come here now and be assured of staying, of starving, forever if we wish, though we shall not observe the dark’s convolutions much longer (sob). Utterly you are the under one, we are all neighbors if you wish, but don’t under any circumstances go crawling to the barrel organ for sympathy, you would only blow a fuse and where’s the force in that? I know your seriousness is long gone, facing pink horizons in other hemispheres. We’d all blow up if it didn’t. Meanwhile it’s nice to have a chair. A chair is a good thing to be. We should all know that.

  The last trail unspools beyond Ohio.

  THEME PARK DAYS

  Dickhead, they called him, for his name was Dong, Tram Van Dong. Carefully he slid open the small judas in his chest and withdrew a heart-shaped disk. It appeared to be cut from thicknesses of newspaper crudely stapled together. There was handwriting on one side, “spirit writing,” he indicated with a motion of his head. Yet it all seemed for naught, ancient stock-market quotations or chalked messages on hoardings of the last century, with plus and minus signs featured prominently. “O vos omnes,” he breathed, “blown together like milkweed on the hither shore of this embattled plain, will your feet soon mean to you what once they did? I think not. Meanwhile the tempest brays, favor is curried, the taffetas of autumn slide toward us over the frosted parquet, and this loquat heart is yours for the dividing. Sailboat of the Luxembourg! Vibrations of crisp mornings ripple ever closer, the joiner joins, the ostler ostles, the seducer seduces, nor stirs far from his crimson hammock. Delphic squibs caparison the bleak afternoon and the critics love it, eat it up, can’t get enough of it. ‘More pap! More pap!’ Have a care, though, lest what I tell you here trespass beyond the booth of our conniving. Yet it will spread, as surely as an epidemic becomes the element we have chosen to live in: our old infectious experiment.”