Consider the weight of the word therefore in "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" and here, in "Uptick," from his 2009 book Planisphere:
We were sitting there, and
I made a joke about how
it doesn’t dovetail: time,
one minute running out
faster than the one in front
it catches up to.
That way, I said,
there can be no waste.
Waste is virtually eliminated.
To come back for a few hours to
the present subject, a painting,
looking like it was seen,
half turning around, slightly apprehensive,
but it has to pay attention
to what’s up ahead: a vision.
Therefore poetry dissolves in
brilliant moisture and reads us
to us.
A faint notion. Too many words,
but precious.
— John Ashbery
Courtesy of the Flow Chart Foundation and a tip of the fedora to Jeffrey Lependorf, executive director. Click here to visit the foundation's website and check out the invaluable "Ashbery Resource Center" and ingenious "Ashbery's Created Spaces." — DL