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The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes
John Ashbery
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John Ashbery
Age: 90 †
Born: 1927
Born: July 28
Died: 2017
Died: September 3
Journalist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Rochester
New York
G'on Ashberi
John Ashberry
Jonas Barry
Jon Asshuberī
John Lawrence Ashbery
John Ashbery
Demand
Gives
Takes
Away
Night
Reticent
Giving
Reserved
Much
Demands
Summer
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The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.
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The winter does what it can for its children.
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I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.
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Until, accustomed to disappointments, you can let yourself rule and be ruled by these strings or emanations that connect everything together, you haven't fully exorcised the demon of doubt that sets you in motion like a rocking horse that cannot stop rocking.
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Life is not at all what you might think it to be A simple tale where each thing has its history It's much more than its scuffle and anything goes Both evil and good, subject to the same laws.
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I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.
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Things can harden meaningfully in the moment of indecision
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The soul is not a soul, Has no secret, is small, and it fits Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.
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Just keep playing, mastering as you do the step Into disorder this one meant. Don't you see It's all we can do? Meanwhile, great fires Arise, as of haystacks aflame. The dial has been set And that's ominous, but all your graciousness in living Conspires with it, now that this is our home: A place to be from, and have people ask about.
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Reading is a pleasure, but to finish reading, to come to the blank space at the end, is also a pleasure.
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I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.
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I'm heading for a clean-named place like Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o'-lantern, will get there without help and nosy proclivities.
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Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night.
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The sun fades like the spreading Of a peacock's tail, as though twilight Might be read as a warning to those desperate For easy solutions.
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