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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.

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
Think
Evil
Tale
Thinking
History
Tales
Life
Inspirational
Subject
Anything
Laws
Might
Subjects
Thing
Goes
Much
Law
Good
Simple

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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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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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The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest?
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It is written in the Book of Usable Minutes That all things have their center in their dying.
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And we may be led, then, upward through more Powerful forms of poetry, past columns With peeling posters on them, to the country of indifference. Meanwhile if the swell diapasons, blooms Unhappily and too soon, the little people are nonetheless real.
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And just as there are no words for the surface, that is, No words to say what it really is, that it is not Superficial but a visible core, then there is No way out of the problem of pathos vs. experience.
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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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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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Death is a new office building filled with modern furniture, A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us.
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There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.
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Life is beautiful. He who reads that As in the window of some distant, speeding train Knows what he wants, and what will befall.
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To the poet as a basement quilt, but perhaps To some reader a latticework of regrets.
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The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how...
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Some certified nut Will try to tell you it's poetry, (It's extraordinary, it makes a great deal of sense) But watch out or he'll start with some New notion or other.
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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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Where then shall hope and fear their objects find?
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All beauty, resonance, integrity, Exist by deprivation or logic Of strange position.
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Therefore bivouac we On this great, blond highway, unimpeded by Veiled scruples, worn conundrums. Morning is Impermanent. Grab sex things, swing up Over the horizon like a boy On a fishing expedition.
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Sometimes a musical phrase would perfectly sum up The mood of a moment. One of those lovelorn sonatas For wind instruments was riding past on a solemn white horse. Everybody wondered who the new arrival was.
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We are prisoners of the world's demented sink. The soft enchantments of our years of innocence Are harvested by accredited experience Our fondest memories soon turn to poison And only oblivion remains in season.
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