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Overloading the Machine

Tender

A farce, which was this hemophiliac doorbell
stopped in its tracks, that is their blessed glistening
meanness, like tumblers to a toddler

a ritual was something else
nothing, no circumlocution, no zeronones
a one pain above or a waiting design

its a range, it introduced the l to the l
and made its point, systematically
within a chart there is a folder

inside all this and unusual
an echo the ear can't wrap, won't
cling, not unavailable in not selling

not absent and not adorned
the three-legged stool, not unheard
but ill-advised, and often.

They changed for dinner. In those days // no one was in a hurry, it was real time // every time. Usually the streets were saddled with fog // at night. In the daytime it mostly blew away. // We kept on living because we knew how. // Maple seeds like paperclips skittered in the allees. // We knew not how many enthusiasts climbed the slope, // nor how long they took. It was, in the words of one, // "beholding" not to know. We eased by.

-- John Ashbery, "Tension in the Rocks"