Commotion of the Birds by John Ashbery

Author:John Ashbery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

DEPRAVED INDIFFERENCE

it was just a typical mid-sized town

in the middle of nowhere

JAMES TATE,

“Burn Down the Town, No Survivors”

Customize the event, picking at soul scabs,

turning your face optimistically toward the window.

There must be a long biography coming out soon,

leggings to be worn, and so it is that earth

gets turned over, and we all go back into our little houses

for a while, and the land is generous.

At least,

that’s the way it would have turned out, if God

or I had any say in the matter. As it fell out,

our leaders met in the azalea patch

in an election year. Outsiders were welcomed in

with wine and cookies, and we all settled down

to the business of the day. Repealing the Stamp Act

was big on everybody’s agenda, stamps being

eternally optimistic, as though indebted to someone.

That’s my definition, anyway. Or do we have to be,

or does it matter? Meanwhile the Repair Act languishes.

Welcome to the family tree. I am sick and tired

at my earliest convenience. This was supposed to make it easier,

remember? Hopefully his owner wires back and,

thick as the dust on our reports, finds it totally

unacceptable, yet not entirely unknown, queering

the pitch for kids that used to hang around.

Mr Pom from Camp Cute swept by,

but he could foretell the cloying sound of water

in water, haruspicate, start a restaurant. The broken land

was free to be contaminated, again.

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