<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><h1 class="title otitle_15718170 item vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 10px 0px 25px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 55px; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><a class="nocolor fn" href="https://allpoetry.com/poem/15718170-Hard-Times-by-John-Ashbery" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; color: inherit !important;"><font size="4" class="">Hard Times</font></a></h1><div class="preview open poem_body" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial;"><div class="tr_15718170" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div class="orig_15718170" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Trust me. The world is run on a shoestring.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">They have no time to return the calls in hell<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">And pay dearly for those wasted minutes. Somewhere<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">In the future it will filter down through all the proceedings<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">But by then it will be too late, the festive ambience<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Will linger on but it won't matter. More or less<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Succinctly they will tell you what we've all known for years:<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">That the power of this climate is only to conserve itself.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Whatever twists around it is decoration and can never<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Be looked at as something isolated, apart. Get it? And<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">He flashed a mouthful of aluminum teeth there in the darkness<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">To tell however it gets down, that it does, at last.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Once they made the great trip to California<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">And came out of it flushed. And now every day<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Will have to dispel the notion of being like all the others.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">In time, it gets to stand with the wind, but by then the night is closed off.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></div><div class="orig_15718170" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br class=""></div><div class="orig_15718170" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- John Ashbery</div></div></div></body></html>