YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1934, cheek, child, glass, hands, innocence, lap, nose, passing, sitting, tears, William Carlos Williams, windows, woman

YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW

While she sits
there
 
with tears on
her cheek
 
her cheek on
her hand
 
this little child
who robs her
 
knows nothing of
his theft
 
but rubs his
nose

 

YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW

She sits with
tears on
 
her cheek
her cheek on
 
her hand
the child
 
in her lap
his nose
 
pressed
to the glass

 

from Poems 1934
I prefer the second one, but I can’t fully appreciate the second one without the bed of the first one; which is why WCW had them this way, I guess; this is observed compassion, not getting-in-the-way compassion, not judging compassion; it is the compassion of a passing stream

 

 

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

child & sitting & windows & woman wormhole: silence
glass wormhole: Four Noble Truths
hands wormhole: psssssh
passing & William Carlos Williams wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
tears wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough

 

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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

 

Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20

Tags

2016, abundance, atrophy, bitterness, Bowie, city, cross, curtains, decay, defeat, dockside, earth, gods, hatch, horizon, humanity, love, mortality, mountain, opening, pen, piles, plane, portal, privacy, rage, reverse, river, ruler, sphere, step, tears, wanting, waves

                                reverse
                of usual effulgent horizons opening like shallow waves
                                              logarithmically
                                wanting
                fall-to-knees mortality and tears over abundance, equally
                                              untenable
                                              atrophic

                                stepped to the earth
                                from the mountains
                                a god stood like a man

                                down by the docks, by
                                the piles, while a city grew
                                and festered all about

                                the river: hatch and cross,
                                pen and ruler, private
                                and bitter, sphere and

                                plane, all with woven
                                curtain pulled, defeated,
                                across every portal, and

                                no room for Quiver of
                                Tiffany, only a rage that
                                I cannot control, after all

 

through the lonely portals of The Supermen, 1970; Saviour Machine, 1970; Running Gun Blues, 1970

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

Bowie wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
city wormhole: gotcha
curtains wormhole: the art of sit and follow
horizon wormhole: stacked
love wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
river wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
tears wormhole: dear clown’s face
waves wormhole: thick thick fog

 

dear clown’s face

Tags

2013, armour, attitude, audience, breathing, clown, cobwebs, eyebrow, gaze, identity, infiltrate, managerialism, motive, politics, professionalism, revenge, talking to myself, tears

 

 

 

                                so what shield do I wear to the
                                Opera of Minimum Standards
                                what armour what attitude for
                                to raise my eyebrows brave above
                                Cacophony of Professionalism

                                what motive-secret knowledge
                                to infiltrate to play unseen but
                                still to breathe deep amid the
                                Way Things Are These Days
                                what revenge could I …

                                … no, Mark, no; let all the cobwebs
                                gather by themselves let them
                                roll out and flurry over the crowd
                                while you stand there nonplussed,
                                turn your head to the audience and

                gaze a little agog and welled tear on your dear clown’s face; then breathe

 

 

 

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

breathing & talking to myself wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
identity wormhole: through
managerialism & politics wormhole: teached / in the ass
professionalism wormhole: portrait

 

‘the dining room …’

Tags

1980, blue, dancing, dining room, empty, furniture, mouse, puppet, spotlights, tears, windows

 

 

 

                           the dining room
                           clear of furniture
                           the blue marionette
                           in bright dinner jacket
                           performed a stiff
                           arabesque under the
                           window-spotlight

                           cheeky satisfaction
                           running down his face
                           he tip-toed over to his
                           top hat, tapped it twice
                           and disappeared
                           a mouse in the corner
                           ate his shoes

 

 

 

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

blue wormhole: the edge has come …
dancing wormhole: ‘in the centre of the bare room …’
spotlights wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
tears wormhole: 32 years
windows wormhole: To my Mum

 

32 years

Tags

2013, 5*, Carol, commitment, faces, finding, hands, life, lifetimes, love, married, tears, vow, war

(unfortunately we were on holiday when our anniversary came to visit so I couldn’t correspond the event with my posts as I’d planned (I haven’t mastered hold-publishing tool with any confidence yet); it happened quietly and gloriously on 25^th August – we are saccharinely proud of ourselves; please retrospectively wish us well; thank you)

 

 

 

32 years

I made a heart-sob vow
lifetimes ago holding the
dear tear-scarred face in my hands
while the war of life raged all around
I will never leave you
I will always find you
again

 

 

 

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

C & hands & life & love wormhole: we still stroll there
faces wormhole: Saturday
lifetimes wormhole: some steps
tears wormhole: ‘from the …’
war wormhole: bombs on / Catford

 

‘from the …’

Tags

'scape, 1980, 2*, blue, city, eyes, stars, tears, velvet, white

 

 

 

                           from the
                           velvet blue plain
                           he looked up
                           at the white city wall
                           the stars twinkled
                           his lips blushed
                           and fawning emotion
                           unfolded from his eyes
                           like portcullises

 

 

 

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

blue wormhole: ‘our blue soft eyeballs kissed …’
city wormhole: “WHOOOOOOOOOP!!!”
stars wormhole: the silent night / of the Batman
tears wormhole: “…he paced about the bricks with / empty glasses…”
white wormhole: ‘small Tina at the table …’

 

“…he paced about the bricks with / empty glasses…”

Tags

1980, 6*, beach, blue, breeze, cars, Cluster & Eno, desert, desertion, eyes, father, music, portrait, puddle, review, sky, speech, streets, tears, water, yellow

“Wehrmut” by Cluster & Eno, from the album ‘Cluster & Eno’ (1977)

 

 

 

                           “…he paced about the bricks with
                           empty glasses…”

                you could see the dust around his
                shining car
                driving into the desert

                           (he was driving through water he was
                            going away
                            he was drowning).

                In the rooftop restaurant
                I could barely see his eyes under
                the reflection of building and sky

                           (on the street we
                            walked past the deep-blue sky poster
                            for cigarettes)

                when he walked
                the air rippled through his head
                like worms, he said,

                           “…I felt the clear emotion
                             of the sky
                             I…”

                “…crumpled inside
                  felt like wallowing yellow
                  like ribbed yellow…”

                           “…in my chest in
                             whapple, lapple, lapping, lopping…”
                           he laughed, dead serious.

                He told me once
                he smiled on the beach, the puddles
                smarted his eyes

                           cut them:
                           real yellow tears
                           real yellow tears
                           real yellow tears

 

 

 

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

beach wormhole: the Last Day of Morecambe Illuminations
blue sky wormhole: morning in / Shrewsbury Park / reading POW comics
breeze wormhole: ‘hovering …’
cars & music wormhole: To my Mum
eyes wormhole: the VERY THINGS
sky wormhole: grey sky
speech & streets wormhole: Rue de Provence
water wormhole: summertime
yellow wormhole: ‘in the summer-morning sun …’