Hotel Lautréamont Read online

  Hotel Lautréamont

  Poems

  John Ashbery

  FOR PIERRE

  Contents

  Publisher’s Note

  Light Turnouts

  And Forgetting

  The Large Studio

  The Garden of False Civility

  Autumn Telegram

  Notes from the Air

  Still Life with Stranger

  Hotel Lautréamont

  On the Empress’s Mind

  The Phantom Agents

  From Estuaries, from Casinos

  Cop and Sweater

  Musica Reservata

  Susan

  The King

  The Whole Is Admirably Composed

  By Forced Marches

  Autumn on the Thruway

  The Little Black Dress

  Part of the Superstition

  The Art of Speeding

  American Bar

  From Palookaville

  Another Example

  Avant de Quitter Ces Lieux

  The White Shirt

  Baked Alaska

  Private Syntax

  Not Now but in Forty-five Minutes

  In Another Time

  Withered Compliments

  The Wind Talking

  Joy

  Irresolutions on a Theme of La Rochefoucauld

  A Call for Papers

  Love’s Old Sweet Song

  Wild Boys of the Road

  Le Mensonge de Nina Petrovna

  Of Linnets and Dull Time

  Korean Soap Opera

  A Driftwood Altar

  Poem at the New Year

  Central Air

  The Youth’s Magic Horn

  Brute Image

  Of Dreams and Dreaming

  Seasonal

  Kamarinskaya

  Elephant Visitors

  The Great Bridge Game of Life

  The Departed Lustre

  Villanelle

  A Sedentary Existence

  Erebus

  The Old Complex

  Where We Went for Lunch

  As Oft It Chanceth

  Retablo

  A Mourning Forbidding Valediction

  I Found Their Advice

  French Opera

  A Stifled Notation

  Haunted Stanzas

  Livelong Days

  Quartet

  [untitled]

  Oeuvres Complètes

  Just Wednesday

  In My Way / On My Way

  No Good at Names

  Film Noir

  In Vain, Therefore

  The Beer Drinkers

  That You Tell

  A Hole in Your Sock

  And Socializing

  Revisionist Horn Concerto

  The Woman the Lion Was Supposed to Defend

  Harbor Activities

  It Must Be Sophisticated

  Alborada

  How to Continue

  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 inte
ntional 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.

  LIGHT TURNOUTS

  Dear ghost, what shelter

  in the noonday crowd? I’m going to write

  an hour, then read

  what someone else has written.

  You’ve no mansion for this to happen in.

  But your adventures are like safe houses,

  your knowing where to stop an adventure

  of another order, like seizing the weather.

  We too are embroiled in this scene of happening,

  and when we speak the same phrase together:

  “We used to have one of those,”

  it matters like a shot in the dark.

  One of us stays behind.

  One of us advances on the bridge

  as on a carpet. Life—it’s marvelous—

  follows and falls behind.

  AND FORGETTING

  When I last saw you, in a hurry to get back and stuff,

  we wore tape measures and the kids could go to the movies.

  I loomed in that background. The old man looked strangely at the sea.

  Always feet come knocking at the door

  and when it isn’t that, it’s something or other

  melancholy. There is always someone who will find you disgusting.

  I love to tear you away from most interests

  with besotted relish, and we

  talked to each other. Worked before, it’ll

  work this time.

  Look for the strange number at number seven. You see

  I need a reason to go down to the sea in ships

  again. How does one do that? The old man

  came back from looking at it his replies were facile.

  Rubber snake or not, my most valued fuchsia

  sputtered in the aquarium, at once all shoulders

  began to support me. We were travelling in an inn.

  You were going to make what design an apple?

  Then the hotel people liked us so,

  it could have been before a storm, I lie back

  and let the wind come to me, and it does, something

  I wouldn’t have thought of. We can take our meals

  beside the lake balustrade. Something either does or

  will not win the evidence hidden in this case.

  The plovers are all over—make that “lovers,” after all

  they got their degrees in law and medicine, no one will persist

  in chasing them in back lots, the sanded way

  I came through here once.

  These days the old man often coincides with me; his remarks

  have something playful and witty about them, though they do not

  hold together. And I, I too have something to keep from him:

  something no one must know about.

  I’m sure they’ll think we’re ready now.

  We aren’t, you know. An icebox grew there once.

  Hand me the chatter and I’ll fill the plates with cookies,

  for they can, they must, be passed.

  THE LARGE STUDIO

  It’s one thing to get them to admit it,

  quite another to get soap in your eye.

  As long as I can remember I have been cared for,

  stricken, like that. No one seems to scold.

  I have had so many identity crises

  in the last fifty years you wouldn’t believe it.

  Suffice it to say I am well,

  if you like peacock’s feathers on pianos

  and cars racing their motors,

  waiting for dates who never get done with doing their hair.

  There have been so many velocipedes, millipedes,

  and other words that I’m token senseless.

  Just bring me one more drop of the elixir:

  that’s all I ask.

  But when you saw how many colors things come in

  it was going to be a long rest of the day.

  “Enjoy your afternoon,” he said, and it was roses

  that you never get enough of and they make you sick.

  It was kind of a cable

  from which depended seven-branched candelabra

  and feathers on the pine trunks

  in that witch wood where nobody was supposed to stay—

  say, do you think I could? Smell the roses?

  Live like it was time?

  Lo, it is time.

  He raised the horn to his lips.

  Such an abundance of—do you mind if I stay,

  stay overnight? For the plot of a morrow

  is needed to sort out the pegs in, meanwhile enough of me

  lasts to give us the old semblance of a staring, naked truth,

  with drinks, that we wanted, right?

  And because a gray dustman slips by

  unnoticed, a thousand cathartic things begin to happen.

  Only we know nothing of these. Nothing can take their place.

  Today I squeezed a few more drops of color

  hoping to blot you out, your face I mean, and then this

  extraordinarily tall caller asked if this was something I usually did.

  Do I work against the plait often?

  And sure, his boots were the right size. I replaced

  my little brush and with it the thought of your coming

  to absent me after dust and bougainvillea had chimed.

  The answer was a nut.

  And then there are so many harridans all over

  the wall one is encouraged not toward a strict accounting

  of all that is taking place, and we have washed, we are nice

  for now. And the bowsprit (a word

  I have never understood) comes undone, comes all over me, washes

  my pure identity from me—help! In the meantime your friend has tunnelled

  even as far as us, and it gets to be cold and damp

  because the days are no longer making sense, are coming unlocked

  in the tin aviary where we pinned them, and no one

  right now has any good to say about what temperature

  clashes with what other kind statistic we were all against

  when it came out but who remembers that now?

  Who was even engaged when we first thought of that?

  I’ll bite your toes, see you in the morning.

  Place the canopy on that old chest

  allowing for a few grunts and drizzles, please,

  and not another word of what you spoke to your father.

  THE GARDEN OF FALSE CIVILITY

  Where are you? Where you are is the one thing I love,

  yet it always escapes me, like the lilacs in their leaves,

  too busy for just one answer, one rejoinder.

  The last time I see you is the first

  commencing of our time to be together, as the light of the days

  remains the same even as they grow shorter,

  stepping into the harness of winter.

  Between watching the paint dry and the grass grow

  I have nothing too tragic in tow.

  I have this melting elixir for you, front row

  tickets for the concert to which all go.

  I ought to

  chasten my style, burnish my skin, to get that glow

  that is all-important, so that some

  may hear what I am saying as others disappear

  in the confusion of unintelligible recorded announcements.

  A great many things
were taking place that day,

  besides, it was not the taxpayers

  who came up to me, who were important,

  but other guests of the hotel

  some might describe as dog-eared,

  apoplectic. Measly is a good word to describe

  the running between the incoming and the outgoing tide

  as who in what narrow channels shall ever

  afterwards remember the keen sightings of those times,

  the reward and the pleasure.

  Soon it was sliding out to sea

  most naturally, as the place to be.

  They never cared, nor came round again.

  But in the tent in the big loss

  it was all right too. Besides, we’re not

  serious, I should have added.

  AUTUMN TELEGRAM

  Seen on a bench this morning: a man in a gray coat

  and apple-green tie. He couldn’t have been over fifty,

  his mild eyes said, and yet there was something of the ruthlessness

  of extreme old age about his bearing; I don’t know what.

  In the corner a policeman; next, sheaves of wheat

  laid carefully like dolls on the denuded sward,

  prompting me to wish of dreaming you again. After the station

  we never made significant contact again. But it’s all right,

  isn’t it, I mean the telling had to be it. There was such fire

  in the way you put your finger against your nostril

  as in some buried sagas erupts out at one sometimes: the power

  that is under the earth, no I mean in it. And if all the

  disappointed tourists hadn’t got up and gone away, we would still

  be in each other’s reserve, aching, and that would be the same,

  wouldn’t it, as far as the illustrations and the index were concerned?

  As it is I frequently get off before the stop that is mine

  not out of modesty but a failure to keep the lines of communication

  open within myself. And then, unexpectedly, I am shown a dog

  and asked to summarize its position in a few short, angular adverbs

  and tell them this is what they do, why we can’t count

  on anything unexpected. The waterfall is all around us,

  we have been living in it, yet to find the hush material

  is just what these daily exercises force on us. I mean