The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1928, 6*, arms, Atlantic City, beauty, being, black, blue, candle, cheek, city, colour, communication, daisies, dress, ears, eyes, fingers, glass, green, grey, hair, hands, hips, knuckles, lips, looking, matches, mirror, mouth, movement, open, orange, others, portrait, poverty, red, reflection, ring, ruby, sea, seagull, silence, skin, sound, speech, temptation, thinking, walking, waves, white, William Carlos Williams, windows, woman, wrists, writing

                            1. THE WAITRESS

                No wit (and none needed) but
    the silence of her ways, grey eyes in
    a depth of black lashes–
    The eyes look and the look falls.

    There is no way, no way. So close
    one may feel the warmth of the cheek and yet there is
    no way.

    The benefits of poverty are a roughened skin
    of the hands, the broken
    knuckles, the stained wrists.

                Serious. Not as the others.
    All the rest are liars, all but you.
                                        Wait on us.
    Wait on us, the hair held back practically
    by a net, close behind the ears, at the sides of
    the head. But the eyes–
                            but the mouth, lightly (quickly)
    touched with rouge.

    The black dress makes the hair dark, strangely
    enough, and the white dress makes it light.
    There is a mole under the jaw, low under
    thr right ear–

                And what arms!

                                        The glassruby ring
    on the fourth finger of the left hand.

                                        –and the movements
under the scant dress as the weight of the tray
    makes the hips shift forward slightly in lifting
    and beginning to walk–

    The Nominating Committee presents the following
    resolutions, etc. etc. etc. All those
    in favor signify by saying, Aye. Contrariminded,
    No.
      Carried.
                And aye, and aye, and aye!

    And the way the bell-hop runs downstairs:
          ta tuck a
                ta tuck a
                      ta tuck a
                            ta tuck a
                                  ta tuck a
    and the gulls in the open window screaming over the slow
    break of the cold waves–

                O unlit candle with the soft white
    plume, Sunbeam Finest Safety Matches all together in
    a little box–

                And the reflections of both in
    the mirror and the reflection of the hand, writing
    writing–
                Speak to me of her!-

                –and nobody else and nothing else
    in the whole city, not an electric sign of shifting
    colors, fourfoot daisies and acanthus fronds going from
    red to orange, green to blue–forty feet across–

                                        Wait on us, wait
    on us with your momentary beauty to be enjoyed by
    none of us. Neither by you, certainly,
                                                nor by me.

 

with love from Poems, 1928

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

beauty & speech wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
being wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
black wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
blue & grey & writing wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
city & William Carlos Williams wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
communication wormhole: agreed termination without prejudice
eyes wormhole: between
glass & red wormhole: travelling / back
green & woman wormhole: on facing the Have
hair wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
hands wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
looking wormhole: waiting to be heard
mirror wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
mouth wormhole: glamour of saṃsāra
open wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
orange & others & walking wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
reflection wormhole: I
sea & seagull & waves wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
silence & sound wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
thinking wormhole: there will be ovations
white wormhole: alabaster balustrade
windows wormhole: birth in the world

 

prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1927, 7*, air, April, aspiration, bed, birds, breathing, cemetry, cherries, Christian Science, city, death, elderberry, grandmother, house, kiss, laughing, love, memory, sea, smell, speech, Spring, summer, talking, William Carlos Williams, wine

2

When I think how my grandmother flirted with me I often wonder why I have not been attracted by women of her type.   SHE was a devil if ever there was one.   When she’d move into a neighborhood she’d go out and clean it up, tonguewise.   She’d lay ’em out, male and female – and then sit back in peace to her mysterious memories and awkward aspirations toward heaven and the hold she’d have still on the world and its accessories.   She buried the keg of elderberry wine under the side of the house, and the stuff she’d eat, not to waste it, would make you shudder.   This was especially after she’d gone nearly blind and had taken up Christian Science so that you couldn’t trust her.   Boy, them was the days.   And the rags she used to wipe the dishes on when she’d have the family up to a meal in her shack on the shore over the Fourth.   Baby, I can still see Pop wiping his knife on the edge of the tablecloth – or something, before he’d use it.   But talk was her best weapon, she could lay you an argument like a steel fence and you might try to get through it for a day or a week or till doomsday and there she’d be still back of it laughing at you.   The only fault she confessed to was a lack of self-assertion.   She was right too.   She liked no society, no gadding – except on some wild pretext, such as a fascination with the bicycle at sixty.   She fell flat with the handle in one eye, but she did it, bloomers and all.   Yet she–   The city stifled her, she could not wait for the spring.   School or no school (they suffered for it later) out she would yank the two grandkids and off she’s track it for the shore, April to snowfall there she’d make her stand.   Nobody could budge her, not even old man Nolan who had his wife eating out of his hand, big and burly as she was.   He never got the best of Emily.   That was it, she had it.   She wanted to be out, away, alone, in the air, by the sea, breathing it in.   She’d lie in the water’s edge every summer’s day till she was eighty.   Sometimes she’d be so weak, all alone there, she couldn’t get up with her wet rags dragging on her.   She’d turn blue with the effort to lift herself on her hands and knees, laughing self consciously the while but doing it, doing it–   She’d envy the birds the cherries they’d eat, or she’d sit and watch them playing and go get crumbs to throw them, or half scrape a fish the boys would be too lazy to clean, disgusted with its smallness–   Lord what a bed she’d sleep in!   I would carry you away with what it had in it.   When she’d come to kiss you, you’d want to but you’d go easy and there’d be a good smell out of her scalp and up her neck–   She liked me, I’d stand up and fight her by the day trying to get her to have clean dish rags or whatever it would be – some moral issue.   All she wanted was to be alone and to have her quiet way.   She had it.   And love.   She wanted that, hot food into the grave, you couldn’t get her without it.   Took my father up to the cemetery the night before he married and made him promise her things over the grave of his dead sister.   God pardon her for it.

 

from Poems, 1927
a most vibrant biographical sketch of a person; I know her so well just from this; I wish biographical sketches of famous people were like this – sinewy fibres of life that tell no story, but reveal all that you need to know; and straight-forward language that doesn’t beguile but nonetheless jabs out into the universe

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air & William Carlos Williams wormhole: YOUNG SYCAMORE by William Carlos Williams
birds wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
breathing wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
city wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
death wormhole: on facing the Have
house wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
love wormhole: and … // … sound
sea wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
smell wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Pigs
speech wormhole: between
Spring wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
talking wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’

 

THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1921, 4*, city, firetruck, gold, gong, light, night, passing, rain, red, rumbling, siren, sound, wheel, William Carlos Williams

                                THE GREAT FIGURE

                Among the rain
                and lights
                I saw the figure 5
                in gold
                on a red
                firetruck
                moving
                tense
                unheeded
                to gong clangs
                siren howls
                and wheels rumbling
                through the dark city.

 

from Sour Grapes, 1921
how could this not be included; how could I not include the painting by Charles Demuth; how emblematic is this of taking the notice of all that is in the universe that we are born to …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

city wormhole: raised brow
gold wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
light wormhole: despite that
night wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
passing & red wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
rain wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pigs
William Carlos Williams wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams

 

raised brow

Tags

1969, 2018, 5*, arms, Batman, boulders, buildings, city, compromise, disappearance, eyebrow, face, phone, plan, quiet, society, step, watching

                raised brow

                he crossed his arms, watched
                the hulking step of guile and suit

                approach carefully over wet boulders,
                [the set of plan secure

                 from the phone booth
                 quiet amid all the high-rise of possibility]

                watched immobile until his face
                disappeared

 

Detective Comics #392, October 1969, Frank Robbins, Bob Brown: almost two years after my father left I was beginning to find my nerve

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

Batman wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
buildings & city wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
compromise wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
quiet wormhole: LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams
society wormhole: Victorian pipework

 

‘… plane is upright …’

Tags

1965, 2018, 7*, being, brick, buildings, carlights, circular poem, city, curtains, Dr Strange, existence, eyes, field, floor, guidance, hats, life, lightning, looking, moebius, moon, neighbourhood, passing, perspective, plane, rain, resolution, shadow, sign, speech, Stan Lee, steel, step, Steve Ditko, Strange Tales, streets, sun, throat, time, turning, vertical, walking, walls, way, windows

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                            when field of all temporal …
                                                              than just a façade but                           …
                                                                                                                                   …
                                      of steel and brick more                                                        … plane is upright
                                    the hatch and cross                                                                          and turned to perspective

                      windows, for a second                                                                                              and route is looped
               through endless endless                                                                                                      through the eye of

       neighbourhood boroughs                                                                                                               its own step, there will be
                 will be revealed as                                                                                                                     curtains of reign

   lightning where canyons                                                                                                                        through which to stride
             will always turn to                                                                                                                          oblivious, but the loss under-                                                                        

        but the reach of eye                                                                                                                             brim will seize the rear
 only to the next puddle;                                                                                                                            palate and numb the speech

       passing carlights look                                                                                                                          as eyes turn to look behind
 the walls and floors when                                                                                                                        themselves, save the

             enough to disregard                                                                                                                  moon will always guide
     leaving flit and twistreach                                                                                                               through dusty streets

          falls like inevitable treacle                                                                                                      far better than the beady sun
                 underbrim gathers then                                                                                               with all its signage and

                              as the ride across the                                                                                paraphanelia, no it is by
                              that resolve will be seized                                                                slanting blind shadows

 

Strange Tales #132-133, May-June 1965, Stan Lee; Steve Ditko: it is my contention that Dr Strange is strange because he doesn’t appear in his own event, he slips in and out at right angles to plane existence thence to vanquish solipsistic threat – story of my life

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & life & rain & walking wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
buildings & moon wormhole: the moon, the moon
circular poem wormhole: amid
city & sun & walls wormhole: space for probing thought
curtains wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
Dr Strange wormhole: ‘when travelling astrally …’
eyes & looking wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
field & speech & time wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Pigs
lightning wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – from arm to nature, doing nothing
wormhole
passing wormhole: Victorian pipework
shadow & streets & windows wormhole: LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams

 

space for probing thought

Tags

1967, 2018, 7*, Batman, Batmobile, city, clouds, damson, engine, evening, orange, seclusion, sky, skyline, space, streets, sun, thought, travelling, walls

                there was seclusion
                in the bubble of the Batmobile, that

                while the hog-engine made the destination
                along a sullen street

                there was the
                space for probing thought, that

                running into the city sun along the
                evening wall: did the

                damson clouds cut the sun or the skyline
                snag the orange sky?

 

Detective Comics #360, February 1967, Gardner Fox, Sheldon Moldoff; Batman #190 Gardner Fox, Sheldon Moldoff, March 1967: how; how does the Caped Crusader stay so ahead of the game?

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

Batman & evening wormhole: the moon, the moon
city & clouds & streets wormhole: despite that
orange & sky wormhole: only
skyline & space wormhole: sometimes
sun wormhole: BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams
thought wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
travelling wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
walls wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough

 

despite that

Tags

1966, 2018, 6*, apartment, Batman, Batmobile, between, city, clouds, driving, falling, hats, horizontal, kerb, light, melodrama, moon, night, passing, realisation, silence, silhouette, society, speech, stairs, streets, thinking, vertical

                                despite that

                between the rear fins and
                raised front screen shield

                the case began to settle,
                and the horizontal clouds

                parted to allow the
                Vertical City silhouettes;

                ‘gee, that’s swell,’ said a
                bystander to a witness,

                ‘they have a reason to
                 drive somewhere’, vrrrmm;

                that bowler hats were off
                to work as the moon

                climbed the downpipe
                and, giantly sat over the

                steering wheel the blow
                of resolution struck, the

                apartment lights hung
                unstraight and some fell

                off silently, but really,
                and down the street –

                fin to kerb, kerb to
                bonnet – they were

                getting nowhere fast
                up the staircase

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

Batman & society wormhole: moon- // washed
city wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
clouds wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
light & streets wormhole: BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams
moon wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
night & passing & silence & speech wormhole: only
realisation wormhole: you
silhouette wormhole: that
thinking wormhole: how to teach

 

What You Are by Roger McGough

Tags

1967, accident, advertising, apple, blood, books, buildings, canal, cat, cattle, children, city, clock, clouds, cuckoo, curtains, dawn, death, depth, derelict, dew, distance, duty, eyes, feet, fish, flesh, flowers, found, frog, glasses, God, goldfish, grass, green, hands, heartbeat, Hiroshima, humanity, innocence, ivy, kiss, leaves, library, love, Lusitania, madness, measure, midnight, mirror, moment, morning, moth, mother, murder, neurosis, peace, petals, plastic, poem, politicians, power, prayer, pride, Roger McGough, rosary, sand, seeds, silence, Spring, stage, station, subconscious, sun, sword, symbol, teacher, tears, teeth, time, torpedo, treason, trees, van Gogh, voices, walls, war, water, waves, wind, windows, winter, womb, world, World War, yellow

                What You Are

                you are the cat’s paw
                among the silence of midnight goldfish

                you are the waves
                which cover my feet like cold eiderdowns

                you are the teddybear (as good as new)
                found beside a road accident

                you are the lost day
                in the life of a child murderer

                you are the underwatertree
                around which fish swirl like leaves

                you are the green
                whose depths I cannot fathom

                you are the clean sword
                that slaughtered the first innocent

                you are the blind mirror
                before the curtains are drawn back

                you are the drop of dew on a petal
                before the clouds weep blood

                you are the sweetfresh grass that goes sour
                and rots beneath children’s feet

                you are the rubber glove
                dreading the surgeon’s brutal hand

                you are the wind caught on barbed wire
                and crying out against war

                you are the moth
                entangled in a crown of thorns

                you are the apple for teacher
                left in a damp cloakroom

                you are the smallpox injection
                glowing on the torchsinger’s arm like a swastika

                you are the litmus leaves
                quivering on the suntan trees

                you are the ivy
                which muffles my walls

                you are the first footprints in the sand
                on bankholiday morning

                you are the suitcase full of limbs
                waiting in a leftluggage office
                to be collected like an orphan

                you are a derelict canal
                where the tincans whistle no tunes

                you are the bleakness of winter before the cuckoo
                catching its feathers on a thornbush
                heralding spring

                you are the stillness of Van Gogh
                before he painted the yellow vortex of his last sun

                you are the still grandeur of the Lusitania
                before she tripped over the torpedo
                and laid a world war of american dead
                at the foot of the blarneystone

                you are the distance
                between Hiroshima and Calvary
                measured in mother’s kisses

                you are the distance
                between the accident and the telephone box
                measured in heartbeats

                you are the distance
                between power and politicians
                measured in half-masts

                you are the distance
                between advertising and neuroses
                measured in phallic symbols

                you are the distance
                between you and me
                measured in tears

                you are the moment
                before the noose clenched its fist
                and the innocent man cried: treason

                you are the moment
                before the warbooks in the public library
                turned into frogs and croaked khaki obscenities

                you are the moment
                before the buildings turned into flesh
                and windows closed their eyes

                you are the moment
                before the railwaystations burst into tears
                and the bookstalls picked their noses

                you are the moment
                before the buspeople turned into teeth
                and chewed the inspector
                for no other reason than he was doing his duty

                you are the moment
                before the flowers turned into plastic and melted
                in the heat of the burning cities

                you are the moment
                before the blindman puts on his dark glasses

                you are the moment
                before the subconscious begged to be left in peace

                you are the moment
                before the world was made flesh

                you are the moment
                before the clouds became locomotives
                and hurtled headlong into the sun

                you are the moment
                before the spotlight moving across the darkened stage
                like a crab finds the singer

                you are the moment
                before the seed nestles in the womb

                you are the moment
                before the clocks had nervous breakdowns
                and refused to keep pace with man’s madness

                you are the moment
                before the cattle were herded together like men

                you are the moment
                before God forgot His lines

                you are the moment of pride
                before the fiftieth bead

                you are the moment
                before the poem passed peacefully away at dawn
                like a monarch

 

from The Mersey Sound, 1967
when I first read this poem in 1978 I was too young to let go associations enough to get the metaphor; after a lifetime of being obligated to associations which stood idly by while I wildly floundered without ground, I can let them go with glee and relish and relish the metaphors to the portrait’s content (… still not sure about the ‘lost day of the child murderer’, however, and I’m still not sure why I’m not sure, but I’m not; but I can’t think McGough just slipped up over one couplet … (and I can’t find any discussion of this line in the pages-that-proliferate-like-spores-wafted-across-their-own-private-amphitheatres))

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

books & love wormhole: `whappn’d!
buildings wormhole: cowled
city & windows wormhole: moon- // washed
clouds & green & silence & time & wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
curtains wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
dawn wormhole: between
death wormhole: beguiled / desire
eyes wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Cows
feet wormhole: ‘oh my girls and muse …’
glasses wormhole: … the underleaves show
hands & water & world wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
leaves wormhole: sufficiently away
library wormhole: two profiles
mirror wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams
morning wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: granny
power wormhole: I
Spring & sun wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
trees & voices & yellow wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
walls wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
war wormhole: to arms, then;
waves wormhole: Khandro Tsering Chodron
winter wormhole: where did the silence go

 

moon- // washed

Tags

2017, 5*, Batman, body, city, death, fall, identity, light, moon, society, sound, thinking, voices, windows

                all the
                window
                lights of

                the city,
                audience
                to the

                quick quips
                and the
                eventual

                whappp
                of fall are
                moon-

                washed
                over the
                prostrate

                body

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

Batman wormhole: presence
city & moon wormhole: sometimes
death wormhole: {Ellen Terry’s house}
identity wormhole: cowled
light wormhole: all // are // none
society & thinking wormhole: cowled
sound wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
voices & windows wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams

 

sometimes

Tags

1966, 2017, 7*, action, armchair, Batman, between, building, city, cowl, fence, gap, immanence, mind, moon, outline, pavement, perspective, shadow, sky, skyline, space, streetlight, thought, true nature, turning

                sometimes even the
                broadest flow of thought –

                fan-pivoted about cowled
                head, turning tightly – cannot

                breech the tightening gap
                where casts the shadow,

                sometimes the mind
                must suspend in space

                and enfold
                its natural shape

                      he vaults
                the fence straight down the center
                      of the city
                and the outline of the moon
                      becomes
                the outline of the downtown skyline

                      between

                the streetlamp on the pavement
                and the moon above the sky

                      stood

                the building like a giant armhair –
                immanent perpsective

 

Detective Comics #354, August 1966; cover: Carmine Infantino; “No Exit For Batman!”, writer: John Broome, artist: Sheldon Moldoff: tight-corner thinking and evasion – the redaction to zero, then out, again, the other side

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

Batman & thought wormhole: thought
city wormhole: sufficiently away
mind wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin
moon & sky wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
shadow wormhole: cool / tiled flooring
skyline wormhole: 1964
space wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
streetlight wormhole: where did the silence go