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Selected Poems

Page 5

by William Carlos Williams

all sides—

  hung with cocoons

  it thins

  till nothing is left of it

  but two

  eccentric knotted

  twigs

  bending forward

  hornlike at the top

  It Is a Living Coral

  a trouble

  archaically fettered

  to produce

  E Pluribus Unum an

  island

  in the sea a Capitol

  surmounted

  by Armed Liberty—

  painting

  sculpture straddled by

  a dome

  eight million pounds

  in weight

  iron plates constructed

  to expand

  and contract with

  variations

  of temperature

  the folding

  and unfolding of a lily.

  And Congress

  authorized and the

  Commission

  was entrusted was

  entrusted!

  a sculptured group

  Mars

  in Roman mail placing

  a wreath

  of laurel on the brow

  of Washington

  Commerce Minerva

  Thomas

  Jefferson John Hancock

  at

  the table Mrs. Motte

  presenting

  Indian burning arrows

  to Generals

  Marion and Lee to fire

  her mansion

  and dislodge the British—

  this scaleless

  jumble is superb

  and accurate in its

  expression

  of the thing they

  would destroy—

  Baptism of Poca-

  hontas

  with a little card

  hanging

  under it to tell

  the persons

  in the picture.

  It climbs

  it runs, it is Geo.

  Shoup

  of Idaho it wears

  a beard

  it fetches naked

  Indian

  women from a river

  Trumbull

  Varnum Henderson

  Frances

  Willard’s corset is

  absurd—

  Banks White Columbus

  stretched

  in bed men felling trees

  The Hon. Michael

  C. Kerr

  onetime Speaker of

  the House

  of Representatives

  Perry

  in a rowboat on Lake

  Erie

  changing ships the

  dead

  among the wreckage

  sickly green

  The Sun Bathers

  A tramp thawing out

  on a doorstep

  against an east wall

  Nov. 1, 1933:

  a young man begrimed

  and in an old

  army coat

  wriggling and scratching

  while a fat negress

  in a yellow-house window

  nearby

  leans out and yawns

  into the fine weather

  The Cod Head

  Miscellaneous weed

  strands, stems, debris—

  firmament

  to fishes—

  where the yellow feet

  of gulls dabble

  oars whip

  ships churn to bubbles—

  at night wildly

  agitate phospores-

  cent midges—but by day

  flaccid

  moons in whose

  discs sometimes a red cross

  lives—four

  fathom—the bottom skids

  a mottle of green

  sands backward—

  amorphous waver-

  ing rocks—three fathom

  the vitreous

  body through which—

  small scudding fish deep

  down—and

  now a lulling lift

  and fall—

  red stars—a severed cod—

  head between two

  green stones—lifting

  falling

  New England

  is a condition—

  of bedrooms whose electricity

  is brickish or made into

  T beams—They dangle them

  on wire cables to the tops

  of Woolworth buildings

  five and ten cents worth—

  There they have bolted them

  into place at masculine risk—

  Or a boy with a rose under

  the lintel of his cap

  standing to have his picture

  taken on the butt of a girder

  with the city a mile down—

  captured, lonely cock atop

  iron girders wears rosepetal

  smile—a thought of Indians

  on chestnut branches

  to end “walking on the air”

  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

  On Gay Wallpaper

  The green-blue ground

  is ruled with silver lines

  to say the sun is shining

  And on this moral sea

  of grass or dreams lie flowers

  or baskets of desires

  Heaven knows what they are

  between cerulean shapes

  laid regularly round

  Mat roses and tridentate

  leaves of gold

  threes, threes and threes

  Three roses and three stems

  the basket floating

  standing in the horns of blue

  Repeated to the ceiling

  to the windows

  where the day

  Blows in

  the scalloped curtains to

  the sound of rain

  Nantucket

  Flowers through the window

  lavender and yellow

  changed by white curtains—

  Smell of cleanliness—

  Sunshine of late afternoon—

  On the glass tray

  a glass pitcher, the tumbler

  turned down, by which

  a key is lying—And the

  immaculate white bed

  The Attic Which Is Desire

  the unused tent

  of

  bare beams

  beyond which

  directly wait

  the night

  and day—

  Here

  from the street

  by

  ringed with

  running lights

  the darkened

  pane

  exactly

  down the center

  is

  transfixed

  This Is Just to Say

  I have eaten

  the plums

  that were in

  the icebox

  and which

  you were probably

  saving

  for breakfast

  Forgive me

  they were delicious

  so sweet

  and so cold

  The Sea-Elephant

  Trundled from

  the strangeness of the sea—

  a kind of

  heaven—

  Ladies and Gentlemen!

  the greatest

  sea-monster ever exhibited

  alive

  the gigantic

  sea-elephant! O wallow

  of flesh were

  are

  there fish enough for

  that

  appet
ite stupidity

  cannot lessen?

  Sick

  of April’s smallness

  the little

  leaves—

  Flesh has lief of you

  enormous sea—

  Speak!

  Blouaugh! (feed

  me) my

  flesh is riven—

  fish after fish into his maw

  unswallowing

  to let them glide down

  gulching back

  half spittle half

  brine

  the

  troubled eyes—torn

  from the sea.

  (In

  a practical voice) They

  ought

  to put it back where

  it came from.

  Gape.

  Strange head—

  told by old sailors—

  rising

  bearded

  to the surface—and

  the only

  sense out of them

  is that woman’s

  Yes

  it’s wonderful but they

  ought to

  put it

  back into the sea where

  it came from.

  Blouaugh!

  Swing—ride

  walk

  on wires—toss balls

  stoop and

  contort yourselves—

  But I

  am love. I am

  from the sea—

  Blouaugh!

  there is no crime save

  the too-heavy

  body

  the sea

  held playfully—comes

  to the surface

  the water

  boiling

  about the head the cows

  scattering

  fish dripping from

  the bounty

  of …. and spring

  they say

  Spring is icummen in—

  Death

  He’s dead

  the dog won’t have to

  sleep on his potatoes

  any more to keep them

  from freezing

  he’s dead

  the old bastard—

  He’s a bastard because

  there’s nothing

  legitimate in him any

  more

  he’s dead

  He’s sick-dead

  he’s

  a godforsaken curio

  without

  any breath in it

  He’s nothing at all

  he’s dead

  shrunken up to skin

  Put his head on

  one chair and his

  feet on another and

  he’ll lie there

  like an acrobat—

  Love’s beaten. He

  beat it. That’s why

  he’s insufferable—

  because

  he’s here needing a

  shave and making love

  an inside howl

  of anguish and defeat—

  He’s come out of the man

  and he’s let

  the man go—

  the liar

  Dead

  his eyes

  rolled up out of

  the light—a mockery

  which

  love cannot touch—

  just bury it

  and hide its face

  for shame.

  The Botticellian Trees

  The alphabet of

  the trees

  is fading in the

  song of the leaves

  the crossing

  bars of the thin

  letters that spelled

  winter

  and the cold

  have been illumined

  with

  pointed green

  by the rain and sun—

  The strict simple

  principles of

  straight branches

  are being modified

  by pinched-out

  ifs of color, devout

  conditions

  the smiles of love—

  ……

  until the stript

  sentences

  move as a woman’s

  limbs under cloth

  and praise from secrecy

  quick with desire

  love’s ascendancy

  in summer—

  In summer the song

  sings itself

  above the muffled words—

  from The Descent of Winter

  9/30

  There are no perfect waves—

  Your writings are a sea

  full of misspellings and

  faulty sentences. Level. Troubled

  A center distant from the land

  touched by the wings

  of nearly silent birds

  that never seem to rest—

  This is the sadness of the sea—

  waves like words, all broken—

  a sameness of lifting and falling mood.

  I lean watching the detail

  of brittle crest, the delicate

  imperfect foam, yellow weed

  one piece like another—

  There is no hope—if not a coral

  island slowly forming

  to wait for birds to drop

  the seeds will make it habitable

  10/21

  In the dead weeds a rubbish heap

  aflame: the orange flames

  stream horizontal, windblown

  they parallel the ground

  waving up and down

  the flamepoints alternating

  the body streaked with loops

  and purple stains while

  the pale smoke, above

  steadily continues eastward—

  What chance have the old?

  There are no duties for them

  no places where they may sit

  their knowledge is laughed at

  they cannot see, they cannot hear.

  A small bundle on the shoulders

  weighs them down

  one hand is put back under it

  to hold it steady.

  Their feet hurt, they are weak

  they should not have to suffer

  as younger people must and do

  there should be a truce for them

  10/22

  that brilliant field

  of rainwet orange

  blanketed

  by the red grass

  and oilgreen bayberry

  the last yarrow

  on the gutter

  white by the sandy

  rainwater

  and a white birch

  with yellow leaves

  and few

  and loosely hung

  and a young dog

  jumped out

  of the old barrel

  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

  11/1

  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

  ove
r printed hurdles and

  “¼ of their energy comes from bread”

  two

  gigantic highschool boys

  ten feet tall

  An Early Martyr

  (1935)

  An Early Martyr

  Rather than permit him

  to testify in court

  Giving reasons

  why he stole from

  Exclusive stores

  then sent post-cards

  To the police

  to come and arrest him

  —if they could—

  They railroaded him

  to an asylum for

  The criminally insane

  without trial

  The prophylactic to

  madness

  Having been denied him

  he went close to

  The edge out of

  frustration and

  Doggedness—

  Inflexible, finally they

  had to release him—

  The institution was

  “overcrowded”

  They let him go

  in the custody of

  A relative on condition

  that he remain

  Out of the state—

  They “cured” him all

  right

  But the set-up

  he fought against

  Remains—

  and his youthful deed

  Signalizing

  the romantic period

  Of a revolt

  he served well

  Is still good—

  Let him be

  a factory whistle

  That keeps blaring—

  Sense, sense, sense!

  so long as there’s

  A mind to remember

  and a voice to

  carry it on—

  Never give up

  keep at it!

  Unavoided, terrifying

  to such bought

  Courts as he thought

  to trust to but they

  Double-crossed him.

  Flowers by the Sea

  When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s

  edge, unseen, the salt ocean

  lifts its form—chicory and daisies

  tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone

  but color and the movement—or the shape

  perhaps—of restlessness, whereas

  the sea is circled and sways

  peacefully upon its plantlike stem

  Item

  This, with a face

  like a mashed blood orange

  that suddenly

  would get eyes

  and look up and scream

  War! War!

  clutching her

  thick, ragged coat

  A piece of hat

  broken shoes

  War! War!

  stumbling for dread

  at the young men

  who with their gun-butts

  shove her

  sprawling—

  a note

  at the foot of the page

  The Locust Tree in Flower

  (First version)

  Among

 

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