Status Updates From The Collected Poems

“…In the punctual centre of all circles white
Stands truly. The circles nearest to it share
​
Its color, but less as they recede, impinged
By difference and then by definition
As a tone defines itself and separates
​
And the circles quicken and crystal colors come
And flare and Bloom with his vast accumulation
Stands and regards and repeats the primitive lines.”

kind of unmethodically reading poems, noncommittally lol, bc Stevens does intimidate me. It kind of blows me away how at times Stevens sounds nearly identical to Ashbery:

Do you remember how the rocket went on
And on, at night, exploding finally
In an ovation of resplendent forms—

Ovation on ovation of large blue men
In pantaloons of fire and of women hatched,
Like molten citizens of the vacuum?…