Poetry William Carlos Williams (good book club books .TXT) 📖

Not twofour. Two!

Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights⁠—

In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!

—rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely.
The dance is sure.

Romance Moderne

Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain⁠—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake⁠—
or brown stream rising and falling
at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it⁠—plunging glassy funnels
fall⁠—
And⁠—the other world⁠—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk to me. Sh! they would hear us.
—the backs of their heads facing us⁠—
The stream continues its motion of
a hound running over rough ground.

Trees vanish⁠—reappear⁠—vanish:
detached dance of gnomes⁠—as a talk
dodging remarks, glows and fades.
—The unseen power of words⁠—
And now that a few of the moves
are clear the first desire is
to fling oneself out at the side into
the other dance, to other music.
Peer Gynt. Rip Van Winkle. Diana.

If I were young I would try a new alignment⁠—
alight nimbly from the car, Good-bye!⁠—
Childhood companions linked two and two
criss-cross: four, three, two, one.
Back into self, tentacles withdrawn.
Feel about in warm self-flesh.
Since childhood, since childhood!
Childhood is a toad in the garden, a
happy toad. All toads are happy
and belong in gardens. A toad to Diana!

Lean forward. Punch the steersman
behind the ear. Twirl the wheel!
Over the edge! Screams! Crash!
The end. I sit above my head⁠—
a little removed⁠—or
a thin wash of rain on the roadway
—I am never afraid when he is driving⁠—
interposes new direction,
rides us sidewise, unforseen
into the ditch! All threads cut!
Death! Black. The end. The very end⁠—

I would sit separate weighing a
small red handful: the dirt of these parts,
sliding mists sheeting the alders
against the touch of fingers creeping
to mine. All stuff of the blind emotions.
But⁠—stirred, the eye seizes
for the first time⁠—The eye awake!⁠—
anything, a dirt bank with green stars
of scrawny weed flattened upon it under
a weight of air⁠—For the first time!⁠—
or a yawning depth: Big!
Swim around in it, through it⁠—
all directions and find
vitreous seawater stuff⁠—
God how I love you!⁠—or, as I say,
a plunge into the ditch. The end. I sit
examining my red handful. Balancing
—this⁠—in and out⁠—agh.

Love you? It’s
a fire in the blood, willy-nilly!
It’s the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it’s the grey moon too, already up
in the morning. You are slow.
Men are not friends where it concerns
a woman? Fighters. Playfellows.
White round thighs! Youth! Sighs⁠—!
It’s the fillip of novelty. It’s⁠—

Mountains. Elephants humping along
against the sky⁠—indifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces. It’s
the fillip of novelty. It’s a fire in the blood.

Oh get a flannel shirt, white flannel
or pongee. You’d look so well!
I married you because I liked your nose.
I wanted you! I wanted you
in spite of all they’d say⁠—

Rain and light, mountain and rain,
rain and river. Will you love me always?
—A car overturned and two crushed bodies
under it.⁠—Always! Always!
And the white moon already up.
White. Clean. All the colors.
A good head, backed by the eye⁠—awake!
backed by the emotions⁠—blind⁠—
River and mountain, light and rain⁠—or
rain, rock, light, trees⁠—divided:
rain-light counter rocks-trees or
trees counter rain-light-rocks or⁠—

Myriads of counter processions
crossing and recrossing, regaining
the advantage, buying here, selling there
—You are sold cheap everywhere in town!⁠—
lingering, touching fingers, withdrawing
gathering forces into blares, hummocks,
peaks and rivers⁠—river meeting rock
—I wish that you were lying there dead
and I sitting here beside you.⁠—
It’s the grey moon⁠—over and over.
It’s the clay of these parts.

The Desolate Field

Vast and grey, the sky
is 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.

Willow Poem

It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river⁠—
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.

Approach of Winter

The half stripped trees
struck by a wind together,
bending all,
the leaves flutter drily
and refuse to let go
or driven like hail
stream bitterly out to one side
and fall
where the salvias, hard carmine,⁠—
like no leaf that ever was⁠—
edge the bare garden.

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.

Blizzard

Snow:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down⁠—
the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the sun! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes⁠—
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there⁠—
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.

To Waken an Old Lady

Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffetted
by a dark wind⁠—
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested,
the snow
is covered with broken
seedhusks
and the wind tempered
by a shrill
piping of plenty.

Winter Trees

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

Complaint

They call me and I go
It is a frozen road
past midnight, a dust
of snow caught
in the rigid wheeltracks.
The door opens.
I smile, enter and
shake off the cold.
Here is a great woman
on her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
Night is a room
darkened for lovers,
through the jalousies the sun
has sent one gold needle!
I pick the hair from her eyes
and watch her misery
with compassion.

The Cold Night

It is cold. The white moon
is up among her scattered stars⁠—
like the bare thighs of
the Police Sergeant’s wife⁠—among
her five children⁠ ⁠…
No answer. Pale shadows lie upon
the frosted grass. One answer:
It is midnight, it