Quote

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.

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
Demented
Turns
Innocence
Enchantment
Experience
Season
Years
Aging
Prisoners
Life
Seasons
Oblivion
Accredited
World
Remains
Sink
Enchantments
Soon
Prisoner
Harvested
Memories
Soft
Fondest
Turn
Poison

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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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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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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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The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.
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Things can harden meaningfully in the moment of indecision
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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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I listen to music a great deal. In a way, it's trying to express things that can't be expressed in words. That's something that interests me, too. Even though I use words to express myself, I am trying to, it seems to me, get beyond that.
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Its a bit mad. Too bad, I mean, that getting to know each just for a fleeting second Must be replaced by unperfect knowledge of the featureless whole Like some pocket history of the world, so general As to constitute a sob or wail
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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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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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And the way Though discontinuous, and intermittent, sometimes Not heard of for years at a time, did, Nonetheless, move up, although, to his surprise It was inside the house, And always getting narrower.
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The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how...
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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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Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night.
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I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.
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A perfect example of the new republic's urge to drape itself with the togas of classical respectability.
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You stupefied me. We waxed, Carnivores, late and alight In the beaded winter. All was ominous, luminous.
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