Monday, July 28, 2025

John Ashbery, who would have been 98 today, had this to say about understanding poetry: I don’t quite understand about understanding poetry. I experience poems with pleasure: whether I understand them or not I’m not quite sure. I don’t want to read something I already know or which is going to slide down easily: there has to be some crunch, a certain amount of resilience.

John Ashbery by Allen Ginsberg


Friday, July 11, 2025

Screen Dump 823

Voices bounce off buildings slated to be razed
punctuating thought bubbles
in the latest episode of your theatrics
about the one that got away
pieced together and understood, yes? . . .
The tape rewound back to the backyard
and the stairs leading to the basement
where words accompanied costumes
in arrays that spun us into constellations
of engagement . . . We were young . . .
The age-old drama
with you waving your magic wand
because if they can I can, yes? . . .
when all this and more were dished out
on paper plates with plastic utensils
that the resident hoarder insisted on keeping . . .
his life aclutter . . .
You have since applied for a sabbatical
to study abroad the waywardisms
of the porcelain-skinned . . .
a Proustian moment as indifferent as the runoff
riding a scattering of crumpled-up
brown paper bags . . . the instant Doppler
technology out to lunch . . . crossing a creek
on moss-covered stones, slipping into the current
with words resurrecting the events that shaped
the moments reopening the cold case . . .

Tim Walker