“In the increasingly convincing darkness The words become palpable, like a fruit That is too beautiful to eat. ” ― John Ashbery

The Abstract and Kinetic Sculpture; Stingray by Apical Reform

Happy Birthday to John Ashbery who was recognized as one of the greatest 20th-century American poets. He won nearly every major American award for poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Griffin International Award, and a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. Ashbery’s poetry challenges its readers to discard all presumptions about the aims, themes, and stylistic scaffolding of verse in favor of a literature that reflects upon the limits of language and the volatility of consciousness. In 2008, critic Langdon Hammer remarked, “No figure looms so large in American poetry over the past 50 years as John Ashbery.”

for more pls visit: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-ashbery

Blueprints and Others

BY JOHN ASHBERY

The man across the street seems happy,

or pleased. Sometimes a porter evades the grounds.

After you play a lot with the military

you are my own best customer.

I’ve done five of that.

Make my halloween. Ask me not to say it.

The old man wants to see you — now.

That’s all right, but find your own.

Do you want to stop using these?

Last winning people told me to sit on the urinal.

Do not put on others what you can put on yourself.

How to be in the city my loved one.

Men in underwear    ...    A biography field

like where we live in the mountains,

a falling. Yes I know you have.

Troves of merchandise, you know, “boomer buzz.”

Hillbilly sculptures of the outside.

(They won’t see anybody.)