Muier
Oh, black Persian cat!
Was not your life
already cursed with offspring?
We took you for rest to that old
Yankee farm, — so lonely
and with so many field mice
in the long grass —
and you return to us
in this condition —!
Oh, black Persian cat.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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To a Friend
Well, Lizzie Anderson! seventeen men--and
the baby hard to find a father for!
What will the good Father in Heaven say
to the local judge if he do not solve this problem?
A little two-pointed smile and--pouff!--
the law is changed into a mouthful of phrases.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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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.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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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.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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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.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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The Spouts
In this world of
as fine a pair of breasts
as ever I saw
the fountain in
Madison Square
spouts up of water
a white tree
that dies and lives
as the rocking water
in the basin
turns from the stonerim
back upon the jet
and rising there
reflectively drops down again.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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The Birds
The world begins again!
Not wholly insufflated
the blackbirds in the rain
upon the dead topbranches
of the living tree,
stuck fast to the low clouds,
notate the dawn.
Their shrill cries sound
announcing appetite
and drop among the bending roses
and the dripping grass.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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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
[...] Read more
poem by William Carlos Williams
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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
poem by William Carlos Williams
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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 buffeted
by a dark wind --
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested --
the snow
is covered with broken
seed husks
and the wind tempered
with a shrill
piping of plenty.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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