Transitional
First he said:
It is the woman in us
That makes us write-
Let us acknowledge it-
Men would be silent.
We are not men
Therefore we can speak
And be conscious
(of the two sides)
Unbent by the sensual
As befits accuracy.
I then said:
Dare you make this
Your propaganda?
And he answered:
Am I not I-here?
poem by William Carlos Williams
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Thursday
I have had my dream--like others--
and it has come to nothing, so that
I remain now carelessly
with feet planted on the ground
and look up at the sky--
feeling my clothes about me,
the weight of my body in my shoes,
the rim of my hat, air passing in and out
at my nose--and decide to dream no more.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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Apology
Why do I write today?
The beauty of
the terrible faces
of our nonentites
stirs me to it:
colored women
day workers—
old and experienced—
returning home at dusk
in cast off clothing
faces like
old Florentine oak.
Also
the set pieces
of your faces stir me—
leading citizens—
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poem by William Carlos Williams
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The Shadow
Soft as the bed in the earth
Where a stone has lain—
So soft, so smooth and so cool,
Spring closes me in
With her arms and her hands.
Rich as the smell
Of new earth on a stone,
That has lain, breathing
The damp through its pores—
Spring closes me in
With her blossomy hair;
Brings dark to my eyes.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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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
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poem by William Carlos Williams
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The Disputants
Upon the table in their bowl
in violent disarray
of yellow sprays, green spikes
of leaves, red pointed petals
and curled heads of blue
and white among the litter
of the forks and crumbs and plates
the flowers remain composed.
Coolly their colloquy continues
above the coffee and loud talk
grown frail as vaudeville.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax
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poem by William Carlos Williams
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Youth and Beauty
I bought a dishmop--
having no daughter--
for they had twisted
fine ribbons of shining copper
about white twine
and made a tousled head
of it, fastened it
upon a turned ash stick
slender at the neck
straight, tall--
when tied upright
on the brass wallbracket
to be a light for me
and naked
as a girl should seem
to her father.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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Blizzard
Snow falls:
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.
poem by William Carlos Williams
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The Wedding Dance In The Open Air
Disciplined by the artist
to go round
and round
in holiday gear
a riotously gay rabble of
peasants and their
ample-bottomed doxies
fills
the market square
featured by the women in
their starched
white headgear
they prance or go openly
toward the wood's
edges
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poem by William Carlos Williams
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