And yet one arrives somehow,
finds himself loosening the hooks of
her dress
in a strange bedroom–
feels the autumn
dropping its silk and linen leaves
about her ankles.
The tawdry veined body emerges
twisted upon itself
like a winter wind. . .!
William Carlos Williams
Epitaph by William Carlos Williams
An old willow with hollow branches
slowly swayed his few high bright tendrils
and sang:
Love is a young green willow
shimmering at the bare wood’s edge.
Hero by William Carlos Williams
Fool,
put your adventures
into those things
which break ships–
not female flesh.
Let there pass
over the mind
the waters of
four oceans, the airs
of four skies!
Return hollow-bellied
keen-eyed, hard!
A simple scar or two.
Little girls will come
bringing you
roses for your button-hole.
The Poem by William Carlos Williams
It’s all in
the sound. A song.
Seldom a song. It should
be a song–made of
particulars, wasps,
a gentian–something
immediate, open
scissors, a lady’s
eyes–waking
centrifugal, centriperal
El Hombre by William Carlos Williams
It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the universe
toward which you lend no part!
from The Rose by William Carlos Williams
The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates space.
Sonnet in Search of an Author by William Carlos Williams
Nude bodies like peeled logs
sometimes give off the sweetest
odor, man and woman
under the trees in full excess
matching the cushion of
aromatic pine-drift fallen
threaded with trailing woodbine
a sonnet might be made of it
Might be made of it! odor of excess
odor of pine needles, odor of
peeled logs, odor of no odor
other than trailing woodbine that
has no odor, odor of nude woman
sometimes, odor of man.
The Chrysanthemum by William Carlos Williams
how shall we tell
the bright petals
from the sun in the
sky concentrically
crowding the branch
save that it yields
in its modesty
to that splendor?
Iris by William Carlos Williams
a burst of iris so that
come down for
breakfast
we searched through the
rooms for
that
sweetest odor and at
first could not
find its
source then a blue as
of the sea
struck
startling us from among
those trumpeting
petals
Poem by William Carlos Williams
The rose fades
and is renewed again
by its seed, naturally
but where
save in the poem
shall it go
to suffer no diminution
of its splendor