Collected Poems: (1944-1949) - Hardcover

Padgett, Ron

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566893429 ISBN 13: 9781566893428

Publisher: Coffee House Press, 2013

Synopsis

Gathering the work of more than fifty years, Ron Padgett's Collected Poems is the record of one of the most dynamic careers in twentieth-century American poetry. Padgett's poems reverberate with his reading and friendships, from Andrew Marvell to Woody Guthrie and Kenneth Koch. Wry, insightful, and direct, they offer readers the rewards of his endless curiosity and generous spirit.

From "Glow":

When I wake up earlier than you and youare turned to face me, faceon the pillow and hair spread around, I take a chance and stare at you, amazed in love and afraidthat you might open your eyes and havethe daylights scared out of you. But maybe with the daylights goneyou'd see how much my chest and headimplode for you, their voices trappedinside like unborn children fearingthey will never see the light of day. The opening in the wall now dimly glowsits rainy blue and gray. I tie my shoesand go downstairs to put the coffee on.

Ron Padgett grew up in Oklahoma and has lived mostly in New York City since he went there in 1960 to attend Columbia, with stays in Paris, South Carolina, and Vermont. Although a memoirist and translator, most of his writing since 1957 has been poetry. He is a happy grandfather.

About this title

About the Author

Ron Padgett grew up in Oklahoma and has lived mostly in New York City since he went there in 1960 to attend Columbia, with stays in Paris, South Carolina, and Vermont. Although a memoirist and translator, most of his writing since 1957 has been poetry. He is a happy grandfather.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

COLLECTED POEMS

By RON PADGETT

COFFEE HOUSE PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Ron Padgett
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-56689-342-8

Contents

IN ADVANCE OF THE BROKEN ARM (1964)........................................
from GREAT BALLS OF FIRE (1969)............................................
TOUJOURS L'AMOUR (1976)....................................................
from TULSA KID (1979)......................................................
TRIANGLES IN THE AFTERNOON (1979)..........................................
THE BIG SOMETHING (1990)...................................................
from NEW & SELECTED POEMS (1995)...........................................
YOU NEVER KNOW (2002)......................................................
from POEMS I GUESS I WROTE (2001)..........................................
HOW TO BE PERFECT (2007)...................................................
HOW LONG (2011)............................................................
POEM AND OTHER POEMS: UNCOLLECTED (1960-2004)..............................
Author's Notes.............................................................
785
Index of Titles............................................................
787
Index of First Lines.......................................................
799

CHAPTER 1

IN ADVANCEOF THE BROKEN ARM

    Wind

    Now it is over and everyone knew it
    The bad grass surrendered in unison and with much emotion
    The long-awaited became despised
    Everyone got tired and concluded that phase

    Reports followed, causing intrusions
    In the old-timers. Others go off for refreshment
    The distrustful student prefers German popular songs,
    A language which he does not understand

    But now there is the tremendous reassurance of being
    At the dinner table and tense, a stalwart melody
    Tromping to its fluorescent conclusion.
    This you find unimaginable, that rent should be suddenly so high
    Up there in the cupola, the gauze
    The tiny excitement of the generator
    The note you read without even looking at it
    Going back where you lose your hands you bask
    Whitewash vistas a voice that finally remembers
    Hedges that were once formidable
    You watch and are horrified to be a part of it

    The booth puts you out for miles this speedometer
    The "fertile lowlands" you chalk it up in orange
    And again a brush applies the proper lascivious colors
    The postcard making it "right" instead of wrong


    Rome

    The people begin to get on to you
    But with a deft wrist you erase their heads.
    The next scene goes on to include you:
    There you are, kicking
    Some kindly nun in the shins! Then the brush,
    Its carefully chosen colors, paste and you shine
    Forth from the page with your face.

    Now you and I look at you during the meal;
    The spoon was inserted in the bowl of soup
    Before everything
    Gets naturalistic again and a tree
    Grows quietly beside you. Then "shorts,
    The unnoticed removal of newsreels and lots of auto accidents.
    This made us very popular.

    Then the people began to get on to "you" again,
    But as always, the Dwarf rushes in with his foil
    And fends them away, keeping you safe.
    I cannot be the dwarf, for I am many dwarfs,
    Chopping and sawing at wood in this forest you grow around me
    And whistling a tune to the words of "Signal Failure."


    To a Berry

    I came to you as two friends
    But you escaped down the secret stairway
    Known only to yourself and a few members
    Of the family. Strange report, now, of the Queen
    Alone in his chamber, scratching her head.
    I thought I ought to. But no, you wanted table napkins,
    Men telling lies in boats, pastilles and other
    Things that generally looked up. "Ha ha!"
    Said Richard, laughing over the death of his beloved.

    Those who say that they served me
    Most loyally did; to them this lemonade.
    But now what? Goatherds flocking
    The suburb with airs, while a lady most white
    And fair inspects the small hole in her stockyard.
    Alas! The wax museum be the whistle!

    Clap clap. Ugh. Two cigarettes
    In a finger, erasing discussion. Better the wet rain
    And dire pneumonia than all this vase fame! Out, out
    The empire thumbs, and all through California
    Trees fell in a demonstration of heraldic boredom!
    On the cold beach three clams
    Refuse to mention it, which saw them. There now,

    Everything is in the air except the air itself!
    Hmmm. Time to set the French horns on edge,
    Discouraging the zeros which now swoop down
    To strafe us. If only I hadn't eaten so much.
    Well, all's well in a world of corduroy.
    The king slapped his forehead in disgust. Checking the sun,
    Our flak spun up again, only to burst
    With joy in the clear blue flaming zeps.

    Distracted by the funeral procession, the twin
    Bumped into himself. "Gosh, I'm sorry,
    But I just can't give out information of that nature."
    Following a glass of goat's milk, the guest of honor
    Was just led to the next course of the peach-colored cottage;
    But a hand tiptoed through the rose gardens
    And, seizing the brush, begins to paint out the entire
    Scene with brilliant white.


    The Ems Dispatch

    Opening up a mud duck
    The sin of the hearth had made him handsome
    Don't ever give me what continues to be the tan arm of the hero
    As identical, these sums and the chance to disappear
    By including the chamois
    Though that's a fine mess, I wist
    Titles, etc. 2. Two Veins, followed, pursued, sought after
    But the curse now
    Laid you down in the patient tent
    Where there are men, there are no men
    Just what I wanted (lie) perfect (lie)
    I cared for the boy's drawing of the horse to get going
    Then the lovely shin quest
    Into the untracked signal gun, flowers, birthdays, sonnets
    Put the hot, sweet breath of your breath against mine enemy
    Come with me the nurse ferocity
    Streets streets and less equal streets
    The sails being torn to pieces in the upstairs part
    But in a few moments
    Without themes space or the invisible table message
    Under the legs "far" into the night our hut
    Its flaming gates
    And the invitation to commit bibliography
    The proffered hand
    Guessed we're on to each other
    The lice looked up in astonishment
    Didn't explain the available cardboard murder
    Going on into the mail covered with rust and the box
    The great shoe prediction sigh clock
    No doubt about it the neighbor thought it over
    The extra put on its countenance and clicked on off
    Let my dog sleep
    On the altar of girlhood
    But polish around it, observing the priority of the bump
    The close call packed away and sniffing at the edge


    The Blind Dog of Venice

    The tartar sauce lesson was misunderstood
    By those who didn't even want to miss it.
    Just in the nick of time the knob came forth with Kleenex,
    The cow licked its way into our foreheads.
    We responded with great tonsils, though we were soon
    To forget that the angel of logic
    Is not logic, and that the power of a personal
    Hair is more aware than unusual.
    This was the choir boy's dead.
    Everyone moved up a row.

    Later you beat me to a pulp magazine
    Which I desired most fiercely, in thus wise
    To far errands o'er the earth.
    In the domino stand we committed the sin of homework
    To drift up against the door and dream
    Of a dog who would dream of a circle which draws a dream around        us.
    Then your long, leather smile consoled me
    As far as the potbellied stove, in which had been placed
    Our name, address, and age.
    The delivery boy turned away from the door in despair,
    His a fruitful mission!

    What could we have been left out of?
    Did it fall among the positive dominos? A vicious
    Song leaped out of the frying pan.
    The result is more high and low Latin, these letters
    I am getting to and from you through our new past, since now
    The mist is getting bigger
    Over the sarsaparilla-colored pond and the searchlights
    Which are getting cut down through the trees
    Reveal the gentleman lawn reclining in a gesture of crassness.


    Somnambulism

    I come out of you in big
    deep goshes "Hi, toe!"
    you know that story told you and told on
    you sang out
    of sheer right (left) mine was the middle one
    between the other two someone was there I
    then the hammer let us out
    you cried play cry and I can can
    you? how to avoid the grimacing yoyo metaphor

    then
    the alpine refreshment of pine drinks up you
    didn't urge I urged everyone urged but you
    collecting the hammer and all
    night cigarettes kept flying out of your pockets
    you came into focus from "I may I might I my my me"

    then I took your place
    in bed it was worn a little
    bug sank down on my arm
    holding the shadow of a dot! quivers foots
    hills they diminished with spraying beads broke
    on your head they buffed
    you up and asked yourself to fall together
    did but "didn't" they was plumb put

    zing! out

    now geared up for the encore
    you enlarged drinking cocoa plopped down
    "a real card or you that began saying "I sound.

    the last in angel, mountain and Franz Lizst ..."


    One Cent

    Out of the bright upholstery of a face
    A breath death breath at me that's going on?
    Whoa! Strung up
    Something on every side
    Of an effort portent
    A swine some grit a Tibetan ox
    Fingering a trigger light
    Breeze in a heavy wind
    Where mine entrance to its outside is
    Sunny and cold today, high in the twenties,
    Fair tonight with twenty-one pieces of snow. Then
    One igloo dawned on me hard. Ouch!
    There were twelve of them men there
    Eight ash trays and five puffs of smoke!

    But now who uncovers a sign
    In a white tornado friend
    Just yodels the abbreviation of a state of going on
    In California, though when the future poems
    Of Keats write better
    In your wrong, real, and solitary pants come on
    And go right away to smithereens, back
    In a jiffy to the miniature lady friend.


    White Coffee

    None biggest quiet
    Bone over bones a tether
    Now we are back to front cockily
    The seconds pile up against the trees
    Drove us into the northern part it was hot
    Our toes were hollow then religious then warm fizzle
    Sunk back the hand of the handball
    Certain tight exploding jets
    No more fearful loud
    A sheriff was asking us to stop rotating again

    Now these are not ours but are
    Some effigy bruise flip inching to the cap
    The crowd soon to begin booing in delight but
    A steamer gauge held them back they were hot they urged

    You gave them a mundane nickel I
    Backstage everything was glowing and pulsing
    The water tap "facts" an accumulation of gravity

    Stop that the blackboard, anti-
    More all
    You supplicated for a mere water pretense
    The southern clime was not fond of you nor you
    So a dash
    A colon a vertibra and an explosion of pills kept going
    Until the middle part could be colored in

    But who there of those we knew could
    They had opera, chevrons, earned keep and hard
    Noodles
    There was no room on the outside only
    A humble mint

    But ferns though sloppy would suffice
    You were always disappearing into heaven or slunk
    Get up rumple
    Of serious danger
    On account of the flat white bull's eye
    "A feeling good with no shaft or foot infection"

    You did not tell me you were in Mexico
    With me
    We cut off our arms with you in them
    You raved consecutively up the host
    His sneakers in sight of the striped pole

    We only looked black because we were
    Of the family of the good teeth
    Learning the lesson of the oat and the bump
    Nothing was continuing like that might have
    Out of those zzzzzing piazzas
    The heinous sleeper hold

    Please come back head heart and the rainy day
    I have been saving until the end


    The Life of M.

    The true test of a man is a bunt. So kiss me!
    O please come back to me! Then go away ...
    I only like you for a long time.
    And then: "The gaucho is coming!"

    The old room back in you
    Or a complicated object by a pond
    Weren't exactly "piled up"
    But a tall short masculine kept starting to go

    There's nothing in this box
    Or the one in it but what's there?
    Brown old arithmetic, a stopwatch,
    A wrist and some h....n.
    Put them back. They are good for you.

    No! They aren't! For they still love
    Though the toe has been
    But off the bumper crop of fumes.
    Besides, the gaucho is almost here.


    Via Air

    Headlights are following a car whose headlights are turned off
    Lies a mile long like collisions
    That never daunt the Singing Killer

    These old roads have been run over before
    They ran all over the road
    It was wet
    My slippers plunging into the dark
    Something was running by the running board
    Symbol.
    With a gasp you expired through the desert
    I poured nickels and dimes out the window
    And you burst into a new kind of wrong tick

    Further ahead was a hill through which
    There were the lights of the town we could see
    Behind us a sudden storm of envelopes dictators
    Special regimens and indications of hives
    A several numb skull handed us an ordinary finger
    Which popped
    Into a series of whinneys on our parts

    But your chair was sleekest
    That never went
    But to creeks and severe rustic manipulations
    Spy-glasses and a chalk drawing of a ravine in it
    To gather us back
    To the continuing rip of the destination
    That was not ours yours


    The Left Half of 1816

    Out of the other thermos jug its fifteen-foot-high letters
    Air masses were moving to the north
    Some lips said there was much ventilation
    Then a series of oinks and growls
    Made by beautiful young girls
    It never sounded like anything

    The spade experience was simulated
    By dogs and gophers
    Out on the west coast it's already on the move
    My left arm feels it
    The exact thrill of arriving on a dot
    Which is being photographed
    There was a specific flash of lightning in my pants
    The old-fashioned birds asked to see it

    Let's warm up the simian pianola
    The female birds spoke of honey shacks
    Our hair stood up for its own chore of enthusiasm
    Then the enthusiasm went camping
    It was wonderful

    I spoke seven languages of the contact winds
    My name is Freddy
    Please disregard the kiss emblem I enjoy

    The desk is gone and the harpy
    Especially if you're young and "all the time"
    Got pulled together

    Some pans went down causing on the softball's brother
    Sparks were coming from my toes
    (Fauntleroy business)
    About then a series of stupid joys came out of a mouth

    But I don't even like Hawaiians
    Though rectitude (in secret) knocks me out
    Having no slow desire to inflict the golden mental joke
    Said the freaks of history

(Continues...)

Excerpted from COLLECTED POEMS by RON PADGETT. Copyright © 2013 Ron Padgett. Excerpted by permission of COFFEE HOUSE PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566893429
• ISBN 13: 9781566893428
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 840