An Unknown Poet Addresses A Complaint To John Ashbery, Recently Deceased Poem by Dennis Ryan

Wednesday afternoon, January 23,2019 at 4: 05 p.m.; Thursday morning, January 24,2019 at 10: 49 a.m.; Friday morning, February 15 at 10: 40 a.m.

'To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I...'
- John Ashbery, 'Some Trees'

Okay, the world is largely incomprehensible;
agreed; is larger than you and me; agreed;

but you wasted a lot of time, yours
and mine, living in Paris off a parental

allowance to accommodate this idea
and there are only so many allowances

made for this kind of poetry. Obscurity.
Later was far different: the way you wielded

words in 'Self Portrait In A Convex Mirror'
where meaning is everything—you dipped

your arms up to the elbows, farther up:
the soul trapped in its place, unable to move,

a brief moment of attention. Desist.
Allow me to draw out the implications.

You make more of content... 'content'
you repeat in French—its provenance

comes home and we are happy? No?
No more tennis court oaths. Forbear.