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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.

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
White
Mood
Arrival
Moments
Instruments
Arrivals
Past
Musical
Solemn
Music
Musician
Wondered
Sometimes
Horse
Phrase
Would
Wind
Riding
Everybody
Phrases
Lovelorn
Moment
Perfectly
Sonatas

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In the increasingly convincing darkness The words become palpable, like a fruit That is too beautiful to eat.
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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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Poetry comes to me out of thin air or out of my unconscious mind. It's sort of the way dreams come to us and the way that we get knowledge from them, through television, old movies, which I watch a lot of. Lines of dialogue suddenly seem to be part of a poem.
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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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The ellipse is as aimless as that, Stretching invisibly into the future so as to reappear In our present. Its flexing is its account, Return to the point of no return.
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Expecting rain, the profile of a day Wears its soul like a hat.
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Imagine a painter crucified by his subject!
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The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.
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