Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Those Fleas That Escaped Earth and Fire Died by the Cold, or: Born One Hundred Thirty-One Years Ago Today





THE GREAT FIGURE

William Carlos Williams

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.






William Carlos Williams, born 131 years ago today. Here, someone else's WCW birthday post too. Yes, I posted the 5 (and the celebratory blog background) last night with urgency after I brainfarted and published and then deleted the above photo and the below poems, now incorporated last night's into this post and deleted last night. Click the WCW tag for more poems.



COMPLETE DESTRUCTION

We buried the cat
then took her box
and set fire to it
in the backyard.
Those fleas that escaped
earth and fire
died by the cold.

*

A SORT OF SONG

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wake,
sleepless
    - through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No idea
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

*

SMELL

Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose,
always indiscriminate, always unashamed,
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth
beneath them. With what deep thirst
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing springtime!
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your ardors
for something less unlovely? What girl will care
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways?
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?
Must you have a part in everything?

*

SONNET IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR

Nude bodies like peeled logs
sometimes give off a 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 a nude woman
sometimes, odor of a man.

2 comments:

  1. You are Number 12 Wanker. You updated that post in the middle of my comment submission and blew me all to hell.

    You have accommodated the entirety of my request (which you knew), so thank you very kindly. And you know I wholeheartedly approve of the wallpaper. So thanks for that too. If only we had known, drugged and dazed as we stared at the figure 5 in gold on the wall of that crappy apartment in Murder Branch Village, that it would turn out to be the shirt number of our favorite United player EVar. I propose that we also dedicate this day to the progenitor of Erp-Fu (with a shout to SeatSix, who named it).

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    Replies
    1. Your second parents love a Mexican restaurant in the Murder Branch Village shopping center. Last time (and hopefully the last time - it sucks) we met them them there I drove through the lots trying to remember which one you and Wife the First lived in.

      I read in the paper just now that United played and won a CONCACAF Champs League game in Jamaica last night. In the Era of Erp-Fu I would have gave a damn.

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