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This poem is taken from PN Review 70, Volume 16 Number 2, November - December 1989.

Two Poems John Ashbery

Deep in My Heart, Dear

The aching distress. The story that nothing is left and
all the jumbled messages poured on
of something somebody said wasn't high enough
of something somebody said wasn't "sufficiently"
    attuned to
wide littorals. They are landscapes,
I noted with some surprise
They ought to be part of the proceedings / Let them
    in somebody /
In his feeder he is just a blare /
noted that the distant pretext was still far enough
    away
It would catch itself in one of these ways

Delusion

of sparkling song
dun grocery sit-in
...


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