back to John Ashbery

“Theme” by John Ashbery 🇺🇸 (28 Jul 1927 – 3 Sep 2017)
If I were a piano shawl
a porch on someone’s house
flooding the suave timbre.
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Then forty, he,
a unique monsieur
and yet he never wanted to look into it.
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“Have you forgotten your little Kiki?”
Smoke from the horses’ nostrils
wreathed the pump by the well.
​
The stink of snow
was everywhere. Too bad it looks
so good.
​
O beautiful and true
thou that glitterest
, in storms,
​
starting to discuss gardening. I don’t
want to throw cold water
on this.
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That music has changed my life
a lot, since I made the
mistake of learning it.
​
Another passionless day. The peach
forms a stain
at the end of the line.
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Learn to lock love enjoy:
“The dream I dreamed
was not denied me;
​
hence my love is mad—
a castle’s satin walls
folded in blood.”
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The deputy returned
the pea shooter. I have learned
to plait wasps
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into a bronze necropolis.
The ticket and the water
only endure, as one can
​
in the right circumstances,
mon cher Tommy. I think the theme
created itself somewhere
​
around here and cannot find itself.