Cento for John Ashbery

Hubcap Reflection. Photo Credit: Retrofresh!. cc-by-sa.

with great art to copy all that you saw in the glass
i shall create if not a note a hole
even though restless hearing raindrops at the pane
What is the late november doing

like a dozing whale on the sea bottom
we have bowed to idols with elephantine trunks
no way out of the problem of pathos vs experience
and binding with briars my joys and desires

i think of the friends
you are unlike to encounter
the distance between us long ago
rendering death and forever with each breathing

tomorrow is easy but today is uncharted
blue latitudes and levels of your eyes
have told you all and still the tale goes on
where no sea leaps upon itself

Of your round mirror which organizes everything
i think it is part of my heart but it flickers
of remembrance, whispers out of time
i swear i think there is nothing but immortality

at work, but no — he has surprised us
it is simple to ache in the bone or the rind
mere forgetfulness cannot remove it
the name of the author is the first to go

Categories Poetry

Omar Willey was born at St. Frances Cabrini Hospital in Seattle and grew up near Lucky Market on Beacon Avenue. He believes Seattle is the greatest city on Earth and came to this conclusion by travelling much of the Earth. He is a junior member of Lesser Seattle and, as an oboist, does not blow his own trumpet. Contact him at omar [at] seattlestar [dot] net

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