(After John Ashbery)

by Annisa Tangreen

A note to readers: This poem is part of a journal of imitations done in the spring of 2011 for a class on contemporary American poetry given by Professor Tenney Nathanson at the University of Arizona.  This particular poem is an imitation of the style of John Ashbery, a 20th century American poet.  The other poems in the series consist of an imitation of Frank O’Hara (Egypt), Charles Bernstein (Thorny Crowns of Optimism), and Leslie Scalapino (Choices). 

The rough dog birdbath superficial eye cactus grill
ground under your cigarette       butts
fallen…   push…
leaves you empty.  Sunday
those slippers were there
eavesdropping nonversations…  the droning
it’s gotta be done
fur hat jutting indifferent over steelies
click of going round
glutenous death        grease spot on the pavement
rips open…
pants on the ground with rabid dogs and the
Crunch crunch crunch
of gravel, and birds
most calloused conductors training
it was extremely rude of you not to wait
the jiggle of too many
and sour sweat                bomb shelters
muk a luks asscheeking the seminal youth
seminaries
on bicycles           binoculars
we can and if you haven’t… Please show
the rigid honeyseeking pricks
in fast cars               all the time and fuck
off and…  smell the and grease up the counters clean
you don’t do it because you’re lazy       What?
No…  I do that all the time
pedagogical pedometers           and then
hissing mystery lectures, random snatches
and high heels
over – just don’t ever call me again, she said
dried toads under Volvo hubcaps
poignant vernal heliotropes
charlatan churls brooming the ice
and seawater…   do not
worry they are
coming