Ashbery Erasure Poems



Not worth dying for


I placed an ad
of the sight of women sewing in darkness
at table one
there are acres of us looking lewd
but respectful
like money in the bank

screw the mirrors
in each of us

dogs came after the dead called

the new intensity is landscaped
for lovemaking and lies



Otherwise


Who would believe we cry
little girls pretending
to understand

they talk like adults

my poem was a lacquered thing
inflicted on those
trying to drum up business

recklessly one's family
made one forcing oneself
exactly what is required here

let's pass the others
knowing just out of the
way a finger told your story better



Lucky hits


One doesn't excuse or batter
the pupils

I came straight after love and left
shame routed the street
I was a good peasant

so let me bang toward a cock
and its one eye rolling

I don't know what makes
the maker sacred

paste that squeezes our seed

we were not meant to be some problem gone dead



Buy something


And so never has
already happened.

You can turn off that pet now.

Girls I know were
Boy handed.

one  side   they   sin

my idea of myself does exist
like this thin man

I told the kids the air was nice

cheese for everybody

the knife sat on the lock, a figure
to include
in our bones the big child hits



THE ARCHIPELAGO


sisters land
an arson of feeling

so daffodils as nasturtiums come along as a rule

She said, Really, the mind is a waste

but like a sitting arthritic
the pain
is a building we swallow

word like a branch to all the other words,
low behind our basket,

undo me!

the islands are shrieking

snug in my unzipped fly