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Selected Poems

Page 7

by William Carlos Williams


  jostling

  half-turned edge

  side by side

  until compact, tense

  evenly stained

  to the last fine edge

  an ecstasy

  from the empurpled ring

  climbs up (though

  firm there still)

  each petal

  by excess of tensions

  in its own flesh

  all rose—

  rose red

  standing until it

  bends backward

  upon the rest, above,

  answering

  ecstasy with excess

  all together

  acrobatically

  not as if bound

  (though still bound)

  but upright

  as if they hung

  from above

  to the streams

  with which

  they are veined and glow—

  the frail fruit

  by its frailty supreme

  opening in the tense moment

  to no bean

  no completion

  no root

  no leaf and no stem

  but color only and a form—

  It is passion

  earlier and later than thought

  that rises above thought

  at instant peril—peril

  itself a flower

  that lifts and draws it on—

  Frailer than level thought

  more convolute

  rose red

  highest

  the soonest to wither

  blacken

  and fall upon itself

  formless—

  And the flowers

  grow older and begin

  to change, larger now

  less tense, when at the full

  relaxing, widening

  the petals falling down

  the color paling

  through violaceous to

  tinted white—

  The structure of the petal

  that was all red

  beginning now to show

  from a deep central vein

  other finely scratched veins

  dwindling to that edge

  through which the light

  more and more shows

  fading through gradations

  immeasurable to the eye—

  The day rises and swifter

  briefer

  more frailly relaxed

  than thought that still

  holds good—the color

  draws back while still

  the flower grows

  the rose of it nearly all lost

  a darkness of dawning purple

  paints a deeper afternoon—

  The day passes

  in a horizon of colors

  all meeting

  less severe in loveliness

  the petals fallen now well back

  till flower touches flower

  all round

  at the petal tips

  merging into one flower—

  The Complete Collected Poems 1906-1938

  (1938)

  Classic Scene

  A power-house

  in the shape of

  a red brick chair

  90 feet high

  on the seat of which

  sit the figures

  of two metal

  stacks—aluminum—

  commanding an area

  of squalid shacks

  side by side—

  from one of which

  buff smoke

  streams while under

  a grey sky

  the other remains

  passive today—

  Autumn

  A stand of people

  by an open

  grave underneath

  the heavy leaves

  celebrates

  the cut and fill

  for the new road

  where

  an old man

  on his knees

  reaps a basket-

  ful of

  matted grasses for

  his goats

  The Term

  A rumpled sheet

  of brown paper

  about the length

  and apparent bulk

  of a man was

  rolling with the

  wind slowly over

  and over in

  the street as

  a car drove down

  upon it and

  crushed it to

  the ground. Unlike

  a man it rose

  again rolling

  with the wind over

  and over to be as

  it was before.

  The Sun

  lifts heavily

  and cloud and sea

  weigh upon the

  unwaiting air—

  Hasteless

  the silence is

  divided

  by small waves

  that wash away

  night whose wave

  is without

  sound and gone—

  Old categories

  slacken

  memoryless—

  weed and shells where

  in the night

  a high tide left

  its mark

  and block of half

  burned wood washed

  clean—

  The slovenly bearded

  rocks hiss—

  Obscene refuse

  charms

  this modern shore—

  Listen!

  it is a sea-snail

  singing—

  Relax, relent—

  the sun has climbed

  the sand is

  drying—Lie

  by the broken boat—

  the eel-grass

  bends

  and is released

  again—Go down, go

  down past knowledge

  shelly lace—

  among the rot

  of children

  screaming

  their delight—

  logged

  in the penetrable

  nothingness

  whose heavy body

  opens

  to their leaps

  without a wound—

  A Bastard Peace

  —where a heavy

  woven-wire fence

  topped with jagged ends, encloses

  a long cinder-field by the river—

  A concrete disposal tank at

  one end, small wooden

  pit-covers scattered about—above

  sewer intakes, most probably—

  Down the center’s a service path

  graced on one side by

  a dandelion in bloom—and a white

  butterfly—

  The sun parches still

  the parched grass. Along

  the fence, blocked from the water

  leans the washed-out street—

  Three cracked houses—

  a willow, two chickens, a

  small boy, with a home-made push cart,

  walking by, waving a whip—

  Gid ap! No other traffic or

  like to be.

  There to rest, to improvise and

  unbend! Through the fence

  beyond the field and shining

  water, 12 o’clock blows

  but nobody goes

  other than the kids from school—

  The Poor

  It’s the anarchy of poverty

  delights me, the old

  yellow wooden house indented

  among the new brick tenements

  Or a cast-iron balcony

  with panels showing oak branches

  in full leaf. It fits

  the dress of the children

  reflecting every stage and

  custom of necessity—

  Chimneys, roofs, fences of

  wood and metal in an unfenced

  age
and enclosing next to

  nothing at all: the old man

  in a sweater and soft black

  hat who sweeps the sidewalk—

  his own ten feet of it

  in a wind that fitfully

  turning his corner has

  overwhelmed the entire city

  The Defective Record

  Cut the bank for the fill.

  Dump sand

  pumped out of the river

  into the old swale

  killing whatever was

  there before—including

  even the muskrats. Who did it?

  There’s the guy.

  Him in the blue shirt and

  turquoise skullcap.

  Level it down

  for him to build a house

  on to build a

  house on to build a house on

  to build a house

  on to build a house on to …

  These

  are the desolate, dark weeks

  when nature in its barrenness

  equals the stupidity of man.

  The year plunges into night

  and the heart plunges

  lower than night

  to an empty, windswept place

  without sun, stars or moon

  but a peculiar light as of thought

  that spins a dark fire—

  whirling upon itself until,

  in the cold, it kindles

  to make a man aware of nothing

  that he knows, not loneliness

  itself—Not a ghost but

  would be embraced—emptiness,

  despair—(They

  whine and whistle) among

  the flashes and booms of war;

  houses of whose rooms

  the cold is greater than can be thought,

  the people gone that we loved,

  the beds lying empty, the couches

  damp, the chairs unused—

  Hide it away somewhere

  out of the mind, let it get roots

  and grow, unrelated to jealous

  ears and eyes—for itself.

  In this mine they come to dig—all.

  Is this the counterfoil to sweetest

  music? The source of poetry that

  seeing the clock stopped, says,

  The clock has stopped

  that ticked yesterday so well?

  and hears the sound of lakewater

  splashing—that is now stone.

  Morning

  on the hill is cool! Even the dead

  grass stems that start with the wind along

  the crude board fence are less than harsh.

  —a broken fringe of wooden and brick fronts

  above the city, fading out,

  beyond the watertank on stilts,

  an isolated house or two here and there,

  into the bare fields.

  The sky is immensely

  wide! No one about. The houses badly

  numbered.

  Sun benches at the curb bespeak

  another season, truncated poplars

  that having served for shade

  served also later for the fire. Rough

  cobbles and abandoned car rails interrupted

  by precipitous cross streets.

  Down-hill

  in the small, separate gardens (Keep out

  you) bare fruit trees and among tangled

  cords of unpruned grapevines low houses

  showered by unobstructed light.

  Pulley lines

  to poles, on one a blue

  and white tablecloth bellying easily.

  Feather beds from windows and swathed in

  old linoleum and burlap, fig trees. Barrels

  over shrubs.

  Level of

  the hill, two old men walking and talking

  come on together.

  —Firewood, all lengths

  and qualities stacked behind patched

  out-houses. Uses for ashes.

  And a church spire sketched on the sky,

  of sheet-metal and open beams, to resemble

  a church spire—

  —These Wops are wise

  —and walk about

  absorbed among stray dogs and sparrows,

  pigeons wheeling overhead, their

  feces falling—

  or shawled and jug in hand

  beside a concrete wall down which,

  from a loose water-pipe, a stain descends,

  the wall descending also, holding up

  a garden—On its side the pattern of

  the boards that made the forms is still

  discernible.—to the oil-streaked

  highway—

  Whence, turn and look where,

  at the crest, the shoulders of a man

  are disappearing gradually below the worn

  fox-fur of tattered grasses—

  And round again, the

  two old men in caps crossing a

  a gutter now, Pago, Pago! still absorbed.

  —a young man’s face staring

  from a dirty window—Women’s Hats—and

  at the door a cat, with one fore-foot on

  the top step, looks back—

  Scatubitch!

  Sacks of flour

  piled inside the bakery window, their

  paley trade-marks flattened to

  the glass—

  And with a stick,

  scratching within the littered field—

  old plaster, bits of brick—to find what

  coming? In God’s name! Washed out, worn

  out, scavengered and rescavengered—

  Spirit of place rise from these ashes

  repeating secretly an obscure refrain:

  This is my house and here I live.

  Here I was born and this is my office—

  —passionately leans examining, stirring

  with the stick, a child following.

  Roots, salads? Medicinal, stomachic?

  Of what sort? Abortifacient? To be dug,

  split, submitted to the sun, brewed

  cooled in a teacup and applied?

  Kid Hot

  Jock, in red paint, smeared along

  the fence.—and still remains, of—

  if and if, as the sun rises, rolls and

  comes again.

  But every day, every day

  she goes and kneels—

  died of tuberculosis

  when he came back from the war, nobody

  else in our family ever had it except a

  baby once after that—

  alone on the cold

  floor beside the candled altar, stifled

  weeping—and moans for his lost

  departed soul the tears falling

  and wiped away, turbid with her grime.

  Covered, swaddled, pinched and saved

  shrivelled, broken—to be rewetted and

  used again.

  The Broken Span

  (1941)

  The Last Words of My English Grandmother

  (A shortened version of a poem first published in 1920)

  There were some dirty plates

  and a glass of milk

  beside her on a small table

  near the rank, disheveled bed—

  Wrinkled and nearly blind

  she lay and snored

  rousing with anger in her tones

  to cry for food,

  Gimme something to eat—

  They’re starving me—

  I’m all right I won’t go

  to the hospital. No, no, no

  Give me something to eat

  Let me take you

  to the hospital, I said

  and after you are well

  you can do as you please.

  She smiled, Yes

  you do what you please first

  then I can do what I please—

  Oh, oh, oh! she cried

 
as the ambulance men lifted

  her to the stretcher—

  Is this what you call

  making me comfortable?

  By now her mind was clear—

  Oh you think you’re smart

  you young people,

  she said, but I’ll tell you

  you don’t know anything.

  Then we started.

  On the way

  we passed a long row

  of elms. She looked at them

  awhile out of

  the ambulance window and said,

  What are all those

  fuzzy-looking things out there?

  Trees? Well, I’m tired

  of them and rolled her head away.

  The Predicter of Famine

  White day, black river

  corrugated and swift—

  as the stone of the sky

  on the prongy ring

  of the tarnished city

  is smooth and without motion:

  A gull flies low

  upstream, his beak tilted

  sharply, his eye

  alert to the providing water.

  A Portrait of the Times

  Two W. P. A. men

  stood in the new

  sluiceway

  overlooking

  the river—

  One was pissing

  while the other

  showed

  by his red

  jagged face the

  immemorial tragedy

  of lack-love

  while an old

  squint-eyed woman

  in a black

  dress

  and clutching

  a bunch of

  late chrysanthemums

  to her

  fatted bosoms

  turned her back

  on them

  at the corner

  Against the Sky

  Let me not forget at least,

  after the three day rain,

  beaks raised aface, the two starlings

  at and near the top twig

  of the white-oak, dwarfing

  the barn, completing the minute

  green of the sculptured foliage, their

  bullet heads bent back, their horny

  lips chattering to the morning

  sun! Praise! while the

  wraithlike warblers, all but unseen

  in looping flight dart from

  pine to spruce, spruce to pine

  southward. Southward! where

  new mating warms the wit and cold

  does not strike, for respite.

  The Wedge

  (1944)

  A Sort of a Song

  Let the snake wait under

  his weed

  and the writing

  be of words, slow and quick, sharp

  to strike, quiet to wait,

  sleepless.

  —through metaphor to reconcile

  the people and the stones.

 

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