Nicholas Galinaitis

“This was our ambition: to be small and clear and free.
Alas, the summer’s energy wanes quickly,
A moment and it is gone. And no longer
May we make the necessary arrangements, simple as they are.
Our star was brighter perhaps when it had water in it.”
― John Ashbery

“As a general rule, a reputation is built on manner as much as on achievement.”
― Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent

“The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes”
― John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

“The evening light was like honey in the trees
When you left me and walked to the end of the street
Where the sunset abruptly ended.
The wedding-cake drawbridge lowered itself
To the fragile forget-me-not flower.
You climbed aboard.

Burnt horizons suddenly paved with golden stones,
Dreams I had, including suicide,
Puff out the hot-air balloon now.
It is bursting, it is about to burst”
― John Ashbery