Rogue Elephant poem – A. R. Ammons poems | Poetry Monster

The reason to be autonomous is to stand there,
a cleared instrument, ready to act, to search

the moral realm and actual conditions for what
needs to be done and to do it: fine, the

best, if it works out, but if, like a gun, it
comes in handy to the wrong choice, why then

you see the danger in the effective: better
then an autonomy that stands and looks about,

negotiating nothing, the supreme indifferences:
is anything to be gained where as much is lost:

and if for every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction has the loss been researched

equally with the gain: you can see how the
milling actions of millions could come to a

buzzard-like glide as from a coincidental,
warm bottom of water stuck between chilled

peaks: it is not so easy to say, OK, go on
out and act: who, doing what, to what or

whom: just a minute: should the bunker be
bombed (if it stores gas): should all the

rattlers die just because they rattle: if I
hear the young gentleman vomiter roaring down

the hall in the men’s room, should I go and
inquire of him, reducing him to my care: no

wonder the great sayers (who say nothing) sit
about in inaccessible states of mind: no

wonder still wisdom and catatonia appear to
exchange places occasionally: but if anything

were easy, our easy choices soon would carry
away our ignorance with the world-better

let the mixed-up mix and let the surface shine
with all the possibilities, each in itself.

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

External links

Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus

Talking Writing Monster’s Page –

Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh

Poems in English 

• To A Young Writer by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• Time And The Garden by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• The Slow Pacific Swell by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• The Moralists by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• The Journey by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• The Fable by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• The Empty Hills by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• Sir Gawaine And The Green Knight by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• One Ran Before by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• Night Of Battle by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• Much In Little by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• Moonrise by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• John Sutter by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• God Of Roads by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• At The San Francisco Airport by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• An October Nocturne by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• Alone by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• A Song In Passing by Yvor Winters by Yvor Winters
• The Tavern by Willa Cather by Poetry In English

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

Doska or the Board – write anything

Search engines:

Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)

Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.

Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees

Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

Parallel Translations of Poetry

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works