Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page b also by kenneth koch poetry Sun Out (2002) A Possible World (2002) New Addresses (2000) Straits (1998) One Train (1994) On the Great Atlantic Railway: Selected Poems (1950–1988) Seasons on Earth (1987) On the Edge (1986) Selected Poems: 1950–1982 (1985) Days and Nights (1982) The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 (1979) The Duplications (1977) The Art of Love (1975) The Pleasures of Peace (1969) When the Sun Tries to Go On (1969) Thank You and Other Poems (1962) Permanently (1961) Ko, or A Season on Earth (1960) Poems (1953) fiction Collected Fiction (2005) Hotel Lambosa (1993) The Red Robins (1975) Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page c theater The Gold Standard: A Book of Plays (1996) One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays (1988) The Red Robins (1979) A Change of Hearts (1973) Bertha and Other Plays (1966) nonfiction Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry (1998) The Art of Poetry (1996) Sleeping on the Wing: An Anthology of Modern Poetry with Essays on Reading and Writing (with Kate Farrell, 1981) I Never Told Anybody: Teaching Poetry Writing in a Nursing Home (1977) Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?: Teaching Great Poetry to Children (1975) Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry (1970) other Some South American Poets (2005) The Art of the Possible: Comics, Mainly without Pictures (2004) Making It Up (with Allen Ginsberg and Ron Padgett, 1994) Interlocking Lives (with Alex Katz, 1970) Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page d Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page i The COLLECTED POEMS of KENNETH KOCH Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page ii Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page iii The COLLECTED POEMS of KENNETH KOCH alfred a knopf new york 2005 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page iv this is a borzoi book published by alfred a knopf Copyright © 2005 by The Kenneth Koch Literary Estate All rights reserved Published in the United States by Alfred A Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto www.randomhouse.com/knopf/poetry The poems in this collection previously appeared in the following volumes: Thank You and Other Poems, Grove Press, 1962; The Pleasures of Peace, Grove Press, 1969; The Art of Love, Vintage Books, 1975; The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951, Random House, Inc., 1979; Days and Nights, Random House, Inc., 1982; One Train, Alfred A Knopf, 1994; Straits, Alfred A Knopf, 1998; New Addresses, Alfred A Knopf, 2000; A Possible World, Alfred A Knopf, 2002; Sun Out, Alfred A Knopf, 2002 Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Koch, Kenneth, 1925–2002 [Poems] Collected poems / by Kenneth Koch.—1st ed p cm isbn 1-4000-4499-5 I Title ps3521.o27a17 2005 811'.54—dc22 2004063827 Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page v contents A Note on the Text xv sun out: selected poems 1952–54 (2000) A Note on Sun Out Sun Out The Chase—First Day Highway Barns, the Children of the Road No Biography Ellie Campaigns after a Candidate’s Defeat Rapping Along 11 Poem 12 Pericles 13 The Dead Body 17 Asunder 19 When They Packed Up, We Went 21 Atlantis Was Original 24 Where Am I Kenneth? 25 Without Kinship 27 Everyone Is Endymion 30 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page vi Gypsy Yo-yo 31 In the Ashes of June 32 Is Nothing Reserved for New Year, Newlyweds on Arbor Day? 33 Limits 35 Ohio 37 No Job at Sarah Lawrence 38 Poem 40 Sunshine on January 15 41 The Kinkaid Subway 42 Guinevere, or The Death of the Kangaroo 43 The Cat’s Breakfast 51 Your Fun Is a Snob 52 The Merry Stones 53 The Days to Solve 58 En l’An Trentiesme de Mon Eage 60 The Man 63 Notes 69 thank you and other poems (1962) vi On the Great Atlantic Rainway 73 Summery Weather 74 The Brassiere Factory 75 The Bricks 76 January Nineteenth 77 Desire for Spring 79 To You 80 Aus Einer Kindheit 81 Spring 83 In Love with You 85 Poem 87 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page vii Farm’s Thoughts 89 Geography 93 The Circus 97 The History of Jazz 102 Collected Poems 105 Pregnancy 110 The Artist 113 Fresh Air 122 Thanksgiving 129 Permanently 131 Down at the Docks 132 You Were Wearing 133 Locks 134 Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams 135 Thank You 136 Lunch 138 Taking a Walk with You 143 The Railway Stationery 147 The Islands 150 The Departure from Hydra 156 the pleasures of peace (1969) Sleeping with Women 165 Irresistible 170 West Wind 173 We Sailed the Indian Ocean for a Dime 174 The Young Park 175 Poem 178 Three Short Poems 179 Dostoevski’s The Gambler 180 vii Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp Mountain 665 Movement 722 My Olivetti Speaks 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 750 534 New Guide, A 445 No Biography No Job at Sarah Lawrence No One Else 484 38 Ohio 37 On Aesthetics 488 On Beauty 265 On the Acropolis 673 On the Great Atlantic Rainway 73 One Train May Hide Another 441 Our Hearts 301 Paradiso 718 Passing Time in Skansen 443 Pericles 13 Permanently 131 Pleasures of Peace, The 228 Poem (And so unless) 87 Poem (Roof in me, tone-deaf flail!) 40 Poem (“Sweethearts from abroad,” the madrigal) 12 Poem (The thing) 178 Poem of the Forty-Eight States, A 183 Poems by Ships at Sea 476 Possible World 687 Pregnancy 110 Primus Inter Pares 723 Problem of Anxiety, The 321 Promenade of the Ghostly Subtitles, The 554 Proverb 682 750 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 751 Railway Stationery, The 147 Rapping Along 11 Reflections on Morocco 335 Relations 726 Review, A 663 Roma non basta una vita 709 Scales, The 188 Schoolroom in Haiti, A 667 Seasons, The 555 Seine 205 Simplicity of the Unknown Past, The Sleeping with Women 165 Some General Instructions 248 Some South American Poets 194 Songs from the Plays 573 Spring 83 Straits 512 Study of Time 529 Summery Weather 74 Sun Out Sunshine on January 15 41 306 Taking a Walk with You 143 Talking to Patrizia 479 Thank You 136 Thanksgiving 129 Thor Not Taken 721 Three Short Poems 179 Time Zone, A 459 To a Bug 701 To Angelic Circumstances 632 To Breath 655 To Buddhism 666 To Carelessness 599 To Competitiveness 646 To Consciousness 616 To Destiny 651 To Driving 610 751 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 752 To Duration 642 To Experience 633 To Fame 636 To Friendship 620 To High Spirits 645 To Insults 644 To Jewishness 611 To Jewishness, Paris, Ambition, Trees, My Heart, and Destiny To Kidding Around 598 To Knowledge, My Skeleton, and an Aesthetic Concept 624 To Life 592 To Life, Breath, and Experience 635 To Living in the City 603 To Marijuana 627 To Marina 358 To My Father’s Business 594 To My Fifties 637 To My Heart As I Go Along 638 To My Heart at the Close of Day 641 To My Old Addresses 628 To My Twenties 605 To Old Age 656 To One Thing after Another 648 To Orgasms 621 To Piano Lessons 596 To Psychoanalysis 607 To Scrimping 643 To Sleep 630 To Some Abstract Paintings 652 To Some Buckets 600 To Stammering 597 To Testosterone 609 To the French Language 619 To the Island of Hydra 626 To the Italian Language 623 To the Ohio 593 To the Past 650 To the Roman Forum 631 To the Unknown 647 To Tiredness 625 To Various Persons Talked to All at Once 653 To Walking, the French Language, Testosterone, Politics, and Duration 629 752 617 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 To World War Two 601 To “Yes” 591 To You 80 Topiary Couple 670 True Story of the Mule, The Twenty Poems 395 Ulla 553 Unfinished, The 1:21 PM Page 753 552 719 Variations at Home and Abroad 704 Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams Ville de Nice, La 669 Vous Êtes Plus Beaux que Vous ne Pensiez 522 135 We Sailed the Indian Ocean for a Dime 174 West Wind 173 When They Packed Up, We Went 21 Where Am I Kenneth? 25 With Janice 390 Without Kinship 27 World, The 387 You Were Wearing 133 Young Park, The 175 Your Fun Is a Snob 52 Zones 677 753 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 754 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 755 index of first lines A beautiful young woman with eyes like a leopard’s 719 A light from the ceiling is swinging outside on Forty-second Street traffic is zinging 459 A serious impediment to all endeavors 321 A serious moment for the water is when it boils 330 After my daughter Katherine was born 631 Ah you remember 483 Ah, well, I abandon you, cherrywood smokestack, 113 Air-front days 51 All hearts should beat when Cho Fu’s orchestra plays “Love” 301 All one can say with certainty about anything that has you is “It moves! 592 Amaryllis, is this paved highway a Amnesty store by the facing machine 52 And so unless 87 And the chorus 35 Ann sat at the piano singing scales— 188 Another ribald tale of the good times at Madame Lipsky’s 228 Are energetic mornings 371 As I was walking home just now, from seeing 156 As you were contained in 611 At dusk you come to bat 641 At the Poem Society a black-haired man stands up to say 122 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 756 Bananas, piers, limericks Barking dogs in the snow! Good weather is coming! 727 Bearing cargo, heavy cargo over the plain 476 Beauty is sometimes personified 265 Birds don’t sing, they explain Only human beings sing 534 Botticelli lived 522 Bring back the beds 574 Calcium days, days when we feed our bones! 79 Can any of you exist without the others, 635 Can you imagine the body being 220 Caruso: a voice 165 Competitiveness you went down to Testosterone Village last night 646 Dancing away from your cars by the frond of the sea I live; 63 Dear miles of love, the Solomon barefoot machine is quinting! dial aster, dial aster! 170 Desdemona had her choice of numerous Moors 720 Do not bake bread in an oven that is not made of stone 248 Dostoevski’s The Gambler 180 Down at the docks 132 Early on you introduced me to young women in bars En ma Provence le blé est toujours vert 191 Enjoying everyone 552 Entwine this shower like a wave, cool elbows! 192 For the two night of my tea nights 30 God bless you, angelic circumstances 632 Great comrade woman of existence, brava sleep! Greatness on a day 11 Hands picked 175 Hay, passion stilled the 89 Hear the beautiful tinny voices of the trumpets 756 630 181 601 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 757 Help! Get out of here! Go walking! 628 “Hi, you ant!” 37 Hounded by Central Islip till the end 205 Houses not fail to sing in a ghostly way among themselves 77 How calmly and gently you approach me in Thailand 666 How lucky that I ran into you 605 How strange it was to hear the furniture being moved around in the apartment upstairs! 245 I am waking off in the wooded arms apartments 32 I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer 135 I could never have had anything 484 “I don’t know how to kiss.” 310 I followed the young woman—Ulla, was that her name? 553 I found you in the old temple and in breasts and shoulders 642 I had a dream about a polar bear 683 I have a bird in my head and a pig in my stomach 247 I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut 80 I needed to find you and, once having found you, to keep you 619 I remember when I wrote The Circus 241 I set forth one misted white day of June 73 I should say something to you 637 I stop and go, Pericles 13 I took the Lexington Avenue subway 607 I used to, to some degree, live by you When 644 I was asleep when you waked up the buffalo 105 I was learning from you how to develop 652 I was surprised! 603 I went dancing in Stockholm at a public dancing place 443 I will never forget 623 I won’t come with you, she said, to your demonstration 678 I’m sorry you feel lonely 638 If followed to Matador If my entrance is winter, 17 In a poem, one line may hide another line, 441 In a room on West Tenth Street in June 307 In every microsecond of the present, you’re here 650 In Haiti, Port-au-Prince, a man walked up and down the school hallways carrying a bull whip 667 In the blue hubbub of the same-through-wealth sky 93 In the country of the middle 466 757 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 758 In the Fifties Western Europe was the place 531 In the morning the only thing moving was the garbage on the water 328 Insect on high 701 Inside the pomegranate is the blue sky 110 Is nothing new sacred? The book, the sky, 511 Is the basketball coach a homosexual lemon manufacturer? It is suspected by O’Ryan in his submarine 81 Is the governor falling 75 It came to me that all this time 400 It doesn’t seem as though we could die up here, does it? 673 It is easy to be cruel in love: one merely has not to love 512 It is small and white 27 It takes a lot of a person’s life 704 It was not known that ships at sea wrote poetry 476 It was the time of the promenade of the ghostly subtitles 554 It’s the ocean of western steel 173 Julie, there was the time 726 Kate, to Mario You seem so happy How can that be, when you’ve told me how depressed you are? 709 Kidding around you are terrible sometimes 598 Lay down and be slumbering A cabinet is kind The 53 Leo bends over his desk 594 Les morts vont vite, the dead go fast, the next day absent! 682 Let’s take a walk 83 Look at this Champagne factory 445 Look at this lovely river maid, who bears the name of Io— 453 My misunderstandings: for years I thought “muso bello” meant “Bell Muse,” I thought it was a kind of 143 Nail Kenneth down 25 Nothing’s moving I don’t see anybody 665 Now pizza units open up, and froth 555 Now that you all have gathered here to talk with me, 758 617 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 759 O candy Frigidaires, eagles, and paint boxes 21 O corpse of March! in my ranch 42 O harbor for the rich and poor 669 O Kentucky! my parents were driving 183 O red-hot cupboards and burning pavements, alas it’s summer my cheeks fall into somewhere and alas for the Rainbow Club 60 O solids! 43 O what a physical effect it has on me 85 O woebegone snowflakes, a million cold tablets, alas! merry hat, merry commonplace, take place Nan marriage is show business 38 Oh let my mirror pay the bunny-tax, Oh thank you for giving me the chance 136 One bird deserves another One white and orange tabletop 529 One day the Nouns were clustered in the street 131 One earring’s smile 74 Opponent disarm firearm 41 Out in the middle of the ocean 668 Out the window, the cow out the window 306 Patrizia doesn’t want to 479 Peach Peach Peach 689 Perhaps at the end of the mountains that isn’t a woman Puberty was the Norman Conquest 620 Pure finality of bedding— 663 Roof in me, tone-deaf flail! 551 40 Sic transit ego 387 So many convolutions and not enough simplicity! 358 Solitude, Presentation, Solitude, 316 Sweeping past the florist’s came the baby and the girl 389 “Sweethearts from abroad,” the madrigal 12 The arms of those armchairs resemble the legs 545 The boiling water, Father, and princely teacher 194 The boxes 412 The bricks in a wall 76 The concept is a country without adequate means of locomotion other 335 759 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 760 The diary is open at two o’clock 395 The face of the gypsy watching the bird gun firing into the colony of seals; but it was filled with blanks; 221 The green step was near the two girls, five-year-olds, in white rather stiff 422 The lanternslides grinding out B-flat minor 138 The leaves of blue came drifting down 102 The leaves were already on the trees, the fruit blossoms 390 The Malays, who are in the majority, are Muslims 680 The railway stationery lay upon 147 The rocketship was waiting I had to get on it 707 The rosy future 33 The sun is high, the seaside air is sharp, 659 The thing 178 The trees on the left side of the garden 670 There are ban-dares of “lame” low 31 There are empty cars of an absolute beauty 58 There is no way not be excited 718 There is one wonderful moment 627 There is that in me—you come Sunday morning to entertain my life 655 These locks on doors have brought me happiness: 134 This “dys-synchrony” one feels 728 Those were the days 444 Though we don’t know anything about you, 647 To be known outside one’s city and one’s nation 636 To be the first ones there 723 To win the love of women one should first discover 276 To write a poem, perfect physical condition 254 Too fanned by so tomorrow’s ink knot’s weak purple 24 Triplets 150 Unroll this enrollment 179 View, I had you once in Madagascar and once or twice in Nepal Waiting to fill you, buckets, 600 Walking 671 We didn’t pay much attention to you at the barn, We like the reticent muscle of these days 485 760 616 648 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 761 We sailed the Indian Ocean for a dime 174 We who have ten years to live, approximately, 541 We will have to go away, said the girls in the circus 97 We’re sitting around, as usual 624 What’s sweeter than at the end of a summer’s day 129 When I sat 626 When you have enough time 677 Where did you come from, lamentable quality? 597 Where were you when they handed out teeth? 19 Wherever you went, there were woods, 610 While stealing samples from the grocery store Who was my teacher at Harvard Did not wear overcoat 664 Why did I take my life in my hands to see a few fish 722 You 488 You always attached yourself to my arm when I went out shopping 643 You are always the member of a team 591 You are my Sweetheart 214 You could be to be a rock 651 You didn’t me any good 596 You have helped hold me together 653 You have many good qualities, Ingrid said, 721 You have taken the vodka 645 You out with me till I was eleven years old 633 You hurried through my twenties as if there were nowhere to look 656 You just went by 708 You led me to sling my rifle 599 You separated my hometown from Kentucky 593 You took me by surprise 625 You took me to the Spanish Steps 609 You were wearing your Edgar Allan Poe printed cotton blouse 133 You who are so often with me when I am moving 629 You’ve never really settled down 621 761 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 762 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 763 a note about the author Kenneth Koch published many volumes of poetry, most recently Sun Out and A Possible World His short plays, many of them produced off- and off-off-Broadway, are collected in The Gold Standard: A Book of Plays and One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays He also wrote several books about poetry, including Wishes, Lies, and Dreams; Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?; and Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry He was the winner of the Bollingen Prize (1995) and the Bobbitt Library of Congress Poetry Prize (1996), a finalist for the National Book Award (2000), and winner of the first annual Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award (2001) Kenneth Koch lived in New York City with his wife, Karen, and taught at Columbia University He died in July 2002 Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page 764 a note on the type This book was set in Janson, a typeface long thought to have been made by the Dutchman Anton Janson, who was a practicing typefounder in Leipzig during the years 1668–1687 However, it has been conclusively demonstrated that these types are actually the work of Nicholas Kis (1650–1702), a Hungarian, who most probably learned his trade from the master Dutch typefounder Dirk Voskens The type is an excellent example of the influential and sturdy Dutch types that prevailed in England up to the time William Caslon (1692– 1766) developed his own incomparable designs from them Composed by Stratford Publishing Services, Brattleboro, Vermont Printed and bound by Berryville Graphics, Berryville, Virginia Designed by Soonyoung Kwon ... Edge—will be gathered in the forthcoming Collected Long Poems Together, The Collected Poems and The Collected Long Poems will serve as the definitive editions of Kenneth Koch’s major poetic work Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp... Random House, Inc Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Koch, Kenneth, 1925–2002 [Poems] Collected poems / by Kenneth Koch.—1st ed p cm isbn 1-4000-4499-5 I Title ps3521.o27a17 2005... PM Page i The COLLECTED POEMS of KENNETH KOCH Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page ii Koch_1400044995_3p_all_r1.qxp 8/4/05 1:21 PM Page iii The COLLECTED POEMS of KENNETH KOCH alfred