Three Poems by John Ashbery

i. “I See Said the Blind Man, as He Put Down His Hammer and Saw”

There is some charm in that old
music

He’d fall for when the night wind
released it:

Pleasant to be away; the stones
fall back;

The hill of gloom in place over the
roar

Of the kitchens but with
remembrance like a bright patch

Of red in a bunch of laundry. But
will the car

Ever pull away and spunky at all
times he’d

Got the mission between the ladder

And the slices of bread someone had squirted astrology over

Until it took the form of a man, obtuse, out of pocket

Perhaps, probably standing there.