David Dodd Lee

​The Freedom of the House
(an Ashbery erasure poem)
​

We have survived
                          again.
     This,
from the beginning,
                            may be
a condition
             of happiness,
             that pleasure
always fades

                            I rejoice in                                     
     the seriousness
                            of what lies ahead,
split open,
               unholy disguise

             There is lightning on the horizon
and that is good
                       Experience, meanwhile,
cannot say
                where it has been



​

Absent Agenda
(an Ashbery erasure poem)


To be old
isn't a bad idea   One is
     king
                    wetting
     the sky,
                shaking

Crying?
         I know it's none of my business, but

         dreams are
         good, a planet
         tiled with
                     fabric,
         feathery to the touch

         as though autumn had fallen off
an animal,
                 one as distinctive
         as some grand occasion
                                      or event
         no one recognizes anymore



​
​

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David Dodd Lee is the author of nine books of poems, including 2014's Animailities (Four Way) and a book of Ashbery erasure poems. He has completed a second manuscript entitled And Others, Vaguer Presences. He is a visual artist and lives in Northern Indiana, on the banks of the St. Joseph River.