John Ashbery




Sleeper Wedding

The bells smoking beside me,
the salad of Nevada
everywhere ankle deep,
my thirst for everything overtakes me.
Why am I with this sandwich
in open country?

Why do the dogs make merry on the shore?
The Celebes celebs attend
to what is right
and gooey.

I even brushed ’em.

The blue jays wanted to build a think tank
three thousand feet in diameter,
thirty stories below the earth or above it.
The king told me I was a master
who needed to study, but
 a master all the same.
My answer was who needs kings.

And on that note
maybe we could have it a little warmer in here.