"I recalled that it is generally believed among the Ethiopians that monkeys deliberately do not speak..."

-Jorge Luis Borges

"I met a psychic who told me my position in the universe

but could not find the candy she hid from her grandkids."

-Mary Ruefle

"The confusing signals , the impurity of the signal, gives you verisimilitude.  As when you attend a funeral and notice, against your will, that it's being poorly done."

-Donald Barthelme

regarding stumbled upon Ashbery quote

Just came across this Ashbery quote:

"For me, poetry is very much the time it takes to unroll, the way music does. It's not a static, contemptible thing like a painting or a piece of sculpture."

I like how he compares a poem to a measure of time. When it's done happening, the poem is over. But (a question for anyone out there) what makes a poem less "contemptible" than a painting or piece of sculpture? Is there no unrolling of time when viewing a painting or sculpture?

WHISKEY GROVE

Many small oxygen-deprived junipers.

A hawk very much pausing on a thermal.

Stumps to show where trees had been.

River water slapping rocks.

A particular rock that's been slapped ten thousand times.

The breeze in the trees.

An ant dragging a dried pine needle backwards.

Sagebrush throughout the hills.

The brush like a haircut upon the hillside.

A bend in the river known as "ox bow."

A kind of light that casts no shadows. 

Two rocks like potatoes.

A twist of pipesmoke breaking up.

A wall of green willows.

A tree that holds the bank up.

A fly that staggers over twigs and must be dying. 

THINGS I'VE DONE OR WILL DO

I saw you, maroon-fleeced and watching

the wind's impact on the telephone wires.

I cut the baguette.

Never argue. You know what you need to work on.

You think about it all the time.

Even the plainness of the floor reminds you.

I lift you by the ankles, roll you back

on your futon saying, "If you will have me."

To give you only a curtsy would

--actually a curtsy is fine. Is enough.

I convey this with a nod.

And a volley of fireworks erupts

in my mental pants.

If only you knew.