Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Homage to John Ashbery

Several years ago, after reading John Ashbery's "Some Trees," I wrote the following poem, which is a direct imitation. The subject matter is mine, as is the negativity, but the form is more or less Ashbery's, with emphasis on enjambment and near rhymes.

To -------
The bee bumps against the glass again
And again, as though her brain
Takes direction from a satellite
That maps the shades beyond it --
Low light that skims the concrete stubble.
Her frustration becomes terrible,
A rattling like venetian blinds
Set in motion by the wind.
She wants only to rejoin the hive
Out there, somewhere, where you live
With my name a blister on your lips.
I raise the sash, and she escapes,
Off to add her fanning to the colony.
We share the impulse, she
And I, except no window blocks
My will, and I am never coming back.
  

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