Token Resistance
John Ashbery
copyright ©2007 by John Ashbery
As one turns to one in a dream
smiling like a bell that has just
stopped tolling, hold out a book
and speaks: “All the vulgarity
smiling like a bell that has just
stopped tolling, hold out a book
and speaks: “All the vulgarity
of time, from the Stone Age
to our present, with its noodle parlors
and token resistance, is as a life
to the life that is given you. Wear it,”
to our present, with its noodle parlors
and token resistance, is as a life
to the life that is given you. Wear it,”
so must one descend from checkered heights
that are our friends, needlessly
rehearsing what we will say
as a common light bathes us,
that are our friends, needlessly
rehearsing what we will say
as a common light bathes us,
a common fiction reverberates as we pass
to the celebration. Originally
we weren’t going to leave home. But made bold
somehow by the rain we put our best foot forward.
to the celebration. Originally
we weren’t going to leave home. But made bold
somehow by the rain we put our best foot forward.
Now it’s years after that. It
isn’t possible to be young anymore.
Yet the tree treats me like a brute friend;
my own shoes have scarred the walk I’ve taken.
isn’t possible to be young anymore.
Yet the tree treats me like a brute friend;
my own shoes have scarred the walk I’ve taken.
