PASTORAL
When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yeards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel-staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best
of all colors.
No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.
from Al Que Quiere!, 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
PASTORAL
The little sparrows
hop ingenuously
about the pavement
quarreling
with sharp voices
over those things
that interest them.
But we who are wiser
shut ourselves in
on either hand
and no one knows
whether we think good
or evil.
Meanwhile,
the old man who goes about
gathering dog-lime
walks in the gutter
without looking up
as his tread
is more majestic than
that of the Episcopal minister
approaching the pulpit
of a Sunday.
These things
astonish me beyond words.
from ‘Al Que Quiere’, 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
EL HOMBRE
It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part!
from Al Que Quiere!, 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
SUMMER SONG
Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,–
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer’s smile,–
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?
from Al Que Quiere, 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
LOVE SONG
Sweep the house clean,
hang fresh curtains
in the windows
put on a new dress
and come with me!
The elm is scattering
its little loaves
of sweet smells
from a white sky!
Who shall hear of us
in the time to come?
Let him say there was
a burst of fragrance
from black branches.
from Al Que Quiere! 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
DANSE RUSSE
If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white-disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,–
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonelt, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,–
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
from Al Que Quiere, 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
SPRING STRAINS
In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
crowded erect with desire against
the sky–
tense blue-grey twigs
slenderly anchoring them down, drawing
them in–
two blue-grey birds chasing
a third struggle in circles, angles,
swift convergings to a point that bursts
instantly!
Vibrant bowing limbs
pull downward, sucking in the sky
that bulges from behind, plastering itself
against them in packed rifts, rock blue
and dirty orange!
But–
(Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)
the blinding and red-edged sun-blur–
creeping energy, concentrated
counterforce – welds sky, buds, trees,
rivets them in one puckering hold!
Sticks through! Pulls the whole
counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,
locks even the opaque, not yet defined
ground in a terrific drag that is
loosening the very tap-roots!
On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,
at full cry! Now they are
flung outward and up – disappearing suddenly!
from Al Que Quiere, 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
TREES
Crooked, black tree
on your little grey-black hillock,
ridiculously raised one step toward
the infinite summits of the night:
even you the few grey stars
draw upward into a vague melody
of harsh threads.
Bent as you are from straining
against the bitter horizontals of
a north wind,–there below you
how easily the long yellow notes
of poplars flow upward in a descending
scale, each note secure in its own
posture–singularly woven.
All voices are blent willingly
against the heaving contra-bass
of the dark but you alone
warp yourself passionately to one side
in your eagerness.
from Al Que Quiere! 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE
Rather notice, mon cher,
that the moon is
tilted above
the point of the steeple
than that its color
is shell-pink.
Rather observe
that it is early morning
than that the sky
is smooth
as a turquoise.
Rather grasp
how the dark
converging lines
of the steeple
meet at the pinnacle–
perceive how
its little ornament
tries to stop them–
See how it fails!
See how the converging lines
of the hexagonal spire
escape upward–
receding, dividing!
–sepals
that guard and contain
the flower!
Observe
how motionless
the eaten moon
lies in the protecting lines.
It is true:
in the light colors
of morning
brown-stone and slate
shine orange and dark blue.
But observe
the oppressive weight
of the squat edifice!
Observe
the jasmine lightness
of the moon.
from Al Que Quiere! 1917
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
THE DESOLATE FIELD
Vast and grey, the sky
in a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
are vast and grey, and–
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
–my head is in the air
but who am I ..?
And amazed my heart leaps
at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me.
from Sour Grapes, 1921
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
JANUARY
Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.
from Sour Grapes, 1921
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
THURSDAY
I have had my dream–like others–
and it has come to nothing, so that
I remain now carelessly
with feet planted on the ground
and look up at the sky–
feeling my clothes around me,
the weight of my body in my shoes,
the rim of my hat, air passing in and out
at my nose–and decide to dream no more.
from Sour Grapes, 1921
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
SPRING
O my grey hairs!
You are truly white as plum blossoms.
from Sour Grapes, 1921
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
LINES
Leaves are greygreen,
the glass broken, bright green.
from Sour Grapes, 1921
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
BLUEFLAGS
I stopped the car
to let the children down
where the streets end
in the sun
at the marsh edge
and the reeds begin
and there are small houses
facing the reeds
and the blue mist
in the distance
with grapevine trellises
with grape clusters
small as strawberries
on the vines
and ditches
running springwater
that continue the gutters
with willows over them.
The reeds begin
like water at a shore
their pointed petals waving
dark green and light.
But blueflags are blossoming
in the reeds
which the children pluck
chattering in the reeds
high over their heads
which they part
with bare arms to appear
with fists of flowers
till in the air
there comes the smell
of calamus
from wet, gummy stalks.
from Sour Grapes, 1921
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM
Light hearted William twirled
his November moustaches
and, half dressed, looked
from the bedroom window
upon the spring weather.
Height-ya! sighed he gaily
leaning out to see
up and down the street
where a heavy sunlight
lay beyond some blue shadows.
Into the room he drew
his head again and laughed
to himself quietly
twirling his green moustaches.
from Sour Grapes, 1921
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
THE LONELY STREET
School is over. It is too hot
to walk at ease. At ease
in light frocks they walk the streets
to while the time away.
They have grown tall. They hold
pink flames in their right hands.
In white from head to foot,
with sidelong, idle look–
in yellow, floating stuff,
black sash and stockings–
touching their avid mouths
with pink sugar on a stick–
like a carnation each holds in her hand–
they mount the lonely street.
from Sour Grapes, 1921
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
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
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
SPRING AND ALL
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast – a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines –
Lifeless in appearence, sluggish
dazed spring approaches –
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind –
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined –
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance – Still, the profound change
had come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
from Spring and All, 1923
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
VI
No that is not it
nothing that I have done
nothing
I have done
is made up of
nothing
and the dipthong
ae
together with
the first person
singular
indicative
of the auxiliary
verb
to have
everything
I have done
is the same
if to do
is capable
of an
infinity of
combinations
involving the
moral
physical
and religious
codes
for everything
and nothing
are synonymous
when
energy in vacuo
has the power
of confusion
which only to
have done nothing
can make
perfect
from Spring and All, 1923
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
XI
In passing with my mind
on nothing in the world
but the right of way
I enjoy on the road by
virtue of the law–
I saw
an elderly man who
smiled and looked away
to the north past a house–
a woman in blue
who was laughing and
leaning forward to look up
into the man’s half
averted face
and a boy of eight who was
looking at the middle of
the man’s belly
at a watchchain–
The supreme importance
of this nameless spectacle
sped me by them
without a word–
Why bother where I went?
for I went spinning on the
four wheels of my car
along the wet road until
I saw a girl with one leg
over the rail of a balcony
from Spring and All, 1923
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
from Spring and All, 1923
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
YOUNG SYCAMORE
I must tell you
this younf tree
whose round and firm trunk
between the wet
pavement and the gutter
(where water
is trickling) rises
bodily
into the air with
one undulant
thrust half its height–
and then
dividing and waning
sending out
young branches on
all sides–
hung with cocoons–
it thins
till nothing is left of it
but two
eccentric knotted
twigs
bending forward
hornlike at the top
from Poems, 1927
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
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
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
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
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
On hot days
the sewing machine
whirling
in the next room
in the kitchen
and men at the bar
talking of the strike
and cash
sultry from The Descent of Winter, 1928
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
10/28
in this strong light
the leafless beechtree
shines like a cloud
it seems to glow
of itself
with a soft stript light
of love
over the brittle
grass
But there are
on second look
a few yellow leaves
still shaking
far apart
just one here one there
trembling vividly
specificularity within a cast-iron-changing season from the Descent of Winter, 1928 by William Carlos Williams
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
To freight cars in the air
all the slow
clank, clank
clank, clank
moving above the treetops
the
wha, wha
of the hoarse whistle
pah, pah, pah
pah, pah, pah, pah, pah
piece and piece
piece and piece
moving still trippingly
through the morningmist
long after the engine
has fought by
and disappeared
in silence
to the left
obviously, the sound, echoingly, the sound, only, the sound; from the Descent of Winter, 1928 by William Carlos Williams
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
poetry should strive for nothing else, this vividness alone, per se, for itself. The realization of this has its own internal fire that is “like” nothing. Therefore the bastardy of the smile. That thing, the vividness which is poetry by itself, makes the poem. There is no need to explain or compare. Make it and it is a poem. This is modern, not the saga. There are no sagas–only trees now, animals, engines: There’s that.
11/1 I won’t have to powder my nose tonight `cause Billie’s gonna take me home in his car–
The moon, the dried weeds
and the Pleiades–
Seven feet tall
the dark, dried weedstalks
make a part of the night
a red lace
on the blue milky sky
Write–
by a small lamp
the Pleiades are almost
nameless
and the moon is tilted
and halfgone
And in runningpants and
with ecstatic, aesthetic faces
on the illumined
signboard are leaping
over printed hurdles and
“¼ of their energy comes from bread”
two
gigantic highschool boys
ten feet tall
from The Descent of Winter, 1928 by William Carlos Williams
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
THE ATTIC WHICH IS DESIRE:
the unused tent
of
bare beams
beyond which
directly wait
the night
and day–
Here
from the street
by
* * *
* S *
* O *
* D *
* A *
* * *
ringed with
running lights
the darkened
pane
exactly
down the center
is
transfixed
from Poems, 1930: the word becomes the poem, nothing beyond the word itself – cf. * SODA * – but everything in it just the same; WCW was an atomist, a catalyst and maybe, even, an alchemist, but he was not a dogmatist or a fantasist and definitely not a rhapsodist, although he was a poet, and very often-enough, didn’t know it
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
POEM
As the cat
climbed over
the top of
the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot
carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot
from Poems, 1930-1931: the care; and bother; to be so; meticulous; about no; thing in; particular; that it; becomes; everything; worthwhile; noticing
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS
Upon the fallen
cheek
a gauzy down–
And on
the nape
–indecently
a mat
of yellow hair
stuck with
celluloid
pins
not quite
matching it
–that’s
two shades
darker
at the roots
Hanging
from the ears
the hooks
piercing the
flesh–
gold and semi-
precious
stones–
And in her
lap the dog
(Youth)
resting
his head on
the ample
shoulder his
bright
mouth agape
pants restlessly
backward
from POEMS 1932
it was the revelation: that there was of such importance, in the minute observation, with wonder, of the minutest things, with love, and their intersposal with each other, with relationship, quite denuded of any sticky intention, that let’s them so; that has made WCW such an influential poet for me
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
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
~~~ “WCW” ~~~
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mlewisredford 