A Book of Poems, Al Que Quiere!
Part 1
A BOOK OF POEMS
AL QUE QUIERE!
+--------------------------------+ | _By William Carlos Williams_ | | | | THE TEMPERS | | | | [London: Elkin Mathews] | +--------------------------------+
A BOOK OF POEMS
AL QUE QUIERE!
BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
BOSTON THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY 1917
_Copyright, 1917, by_ THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY
The Four Seas Press Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
Había sido un arbusto desmedrado que prolonga sus filamentos hasta encontrar el humus necesario en una tierra nueva. Y cómo me nutría! Me nutría con la beatitud con que las hojas trémulas de clorófila se extienden al sol; con la beatitud con que una raíz encuentra un cadáver en descompositión; con la beatitud con que los convalecientes dan sus pasos vacilantes en las mañanas de primavera, bañadas de luz; ...
RAFAEL ARÉVALO MARTÍNEZ
Many of the poems in this book have appeared in magazines, especially in _Poetry_, _Others_, _The Egoist_, and _The Poetry Journal_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
SUB TERRA 13
PASTORAL 14
CHICKORY AND DAISIES 15
METRIC FIGURE 16
WOMAN WALKING 17
GULLS 18
APPEAL 19
IN HARBOR 20
WINTER SUNSET 21
APOLOGY 22
PASTORAL 23
LOVE SONG 24
M. B. 25
TRACT 26
PROMENADE 29
EL HOMBRE 31
HERO 31
LIBERTAD! IGUALDAD! FRATERNIDAD! 32
CANTHARA 33
MUJER 33
SUMMER SONG 34
LOVE SONG 35
FOREIGN 35
A PRELUDE 36
HISTORY 37
WINTER QUIET 42
DAWN 42
GOOD NIGHT 43
DANSE RUSSE 44
PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN IN BED 45
VIRTUE 47
CONQUEST 49
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN WITH A BAD HEART 49
KELLER GEGEN DOM 50
SMELL 52
BALLET 52
SYMPATHETIC PORTRAIT OF A CHILD 54
THE OGRE 55
RIPOSTE 56
THE OLD MEN 57
PASTORAL 57
SPRING STRAINS 58
TREES 59
A PORTRAIT IN GREYS 60
INVITATION 61
DIVERTIMIENTO 62
JANUARY MORNING 62
TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE 67
DEDICATION FOR A PLOT OF GROUND 69
K. MCB. 70
LOVE SONG 71
THE WANDERER 75
AL QUE QUIERE!
SUB TERRA
Where shall I find you, you my grotesque fellows that I seek everywhere to make up my band? None, not one with the earthy tastes I require; the burrowing pride that rises subtly as on a bush in May.
Where are you this day, you my seven year locusts with cased wings? Ah my beauties how I long--! That harvest that shall be your advent-- thrusting up through the grass, up under the weeds answering me, _that_ shall be satisfying! The light shall leap and snap that day as with a million lashes!
Oh, I have you; yes you are about me in a sense: playing under the blue pools that are my windows,-- but they shut you out still, there in the half light.
For the simple truth is that though I see you clear enough you are not there!
It is not that--it is you, you I want!
--God, if I could fathom the guts of shadows!
You to come with me poking into negro houses with their gloom and smell! In among children leaping around a dead dog! Mimicking onto the lawns of the rich! You! to go with me a-tip-toe, head down under heaven, nostrils lipping the wind!
PASTORAL
When I was younger it was plain to me I must make something of myself. Older now I walk back streets admiring the houses of the very poor: roof out of line with sides the yards cluttered with old chicken wire, ashes, furniture gone wrong; the fences and outhouses built of barrel-staves and parts of boxes, all, if I am fortunate, smeared a bluish green that properly weathered pleases me best of all colors.
No one will believe this of vast import to the nation.
CHICKORY AND DAISIES
I.
Lift your flowers on bitter stems chickory! Lift them up out of the scorched ground! Bear no foliage but give yourself wholly to that!
Strain under them you bitter stems that no beast eats-- and scorn greyness! Into the heat with them: cool! luxuriant! sky-blue! The earth cracks and is shriveled up; the wind moans piteously; the sky goes out if you should fail.
II.
I saw a child with daisies for weaving into the hair tear the stems with her teeth!
METRIC FIGURE
There is a bird in the poplars! It is the sun! The leaves are little yellow fish swimming in the river. The bird skims above them, day is on his wings. Phœbus! It is he that is making the great gleam among the poplars! It is his singing outshines the noise of leaves clashing in the wind.
WOMAN WALKING
An oblique cloud of purple smoke across a milky silhouette of house sides and tiny trees-- a little village-- that ends in a saw edge of mist-covered trees on a sheet of grey sky.
To the right, jutting in, a dark crimson corner of roof. To the left, half a tree:
--what a blessing it is to see you in the street again, powerful woman, coming with swinging haunches, breasts straight forward, supple shoulders, full arms and strong, soft hands (I’ve felt them) carrying the heavy basket. I might well see you oftener! And for a different reason than the fresh eggs you bring us so regularly.
Yes, you, young as I, with boney brows, kind grey eyes and a kind mouth; you walking out toward me from that dead hillside! I might well see you oftener.
GULLS
My townspeople, beyond in the great world, are many with whom it were far more profitable for me to live than here with you. These whirr about me calling, calling! and for my own part I answer them, loud as I can, but they, being free, pass! I remain! Therefore, listen! For you will not soon have another singer.
First I say this: you have seen the strange birds, have you not, that sometimes rest upon our river in winter?
Let them cause you to think well then of the storms that drive many to shelter. These things do not happen without reason.
And the next thing I say is this: I saw an eagle once circling against the clouds over one of our principal churches-- Easter, it was--a beautiful day!--: three gulls came from above the river and crossed slowly seaward! Oh, I know you have your own hymns, I have heard them-- and because I knew they invoked some great protector I could not be angry with you, no matter how much they outraged true music--
You see, it is not necessary for us to leap at each other, and, as I told you, in the end the gulls moved seaward very quietly.
APPEAL
You who are so mighty, crimson salamander, hear me once more.
I lay among the half burned sticks at the edge of the fire. The fiend was creeping in. I felt the cold tips of fingers--
O crimson salamander!
Give me one little flame, one! that I may bind it protectingly about the wrist of him that flung me here, here upon the very center!
This is my song.
IN HARBOR
Surely there, among the great docks, is peace, my mind; there with the ships moored in the river. Go out, timid child, and snuggle in among the great ships talking so quietly. Maybe you will even fall asleep near them and be lifted into one of their laps, and in the morning-- There is always the morning in which to remember it all!
Of what are they gossiping? God knows. And God knows it matters little for we cannot understand them. Yet it is certainly of the sea, of that there can be no question. It is a quiet sound. Rest! That’s all I care for now. The smell of them will put us to sleep presently. Smell! It is the sea water mingling here into the river-- at least so it seems--perhaps it is something else--but what matter?
The sea water! It is quiet and smooth here! How slowly they move, little by little trying the hawsers that drop and groan with their agony. Yes, it is certainly of the high sea they are talking.
WINTER SUNSET
Then I raised my head and stared out over the blue February waste to the blue bank of hill with stars on it in strings and festoons-- but above that: one opaque stone of a cloud just on the hill left and right as far as I could see; and above that a red streak, then icy blue sky!
It was a fearful thing to come into a man’s heart at that time: that stone over the little blinking stars they’d set there.
APOLOGY
Why do I write today?
The beauty of the terrible faces of our nonentities 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-- but not in the same way.
PASTORAL
The little sparrows hop ingenuously about the pavement quarreling with sharp voices over those things that interest them. But we who are wiser shut ourselves in on either hand and no one knows whether we think good or evil. Meanwhile, the old man who goes about gathering dog-lime walks in the gutter without looking up and his tread is more majestic than that of the Episcopal minister approaching the pulpit of a Sunday. These things astonish me beyond words.
LOVE SONG
Daisies are broken petals are news of the day stems lift to the grass tops they catch on shoes part in the middle leave root and leaves secure.
Black branches carry square leaves to the wood’s top. They hold firm break with a roar show the white!
Your moods are slow the shedding of leaves and sure the return in May!
We walked in your father’s grove and saw the great oaks lying with roots ripped from the ground.
M. B.
Winter has spent this snow out of envy, but spring is here! He sits at the breakfast table in his yellow hair and disdains even the sun walking outside in spangled slippers:
He looks out: there is a glare of lights before a theater,-- a sparkling lady passes quickly to the seclusion of her carriage. Presently under the dirty, wavy heaven of a borrowed room he will make re-inhaled tobacco smoke his clouds and try them against the sky’s limits!
TRACT
I will teach you my townspeople how to perform a funeral-- for you have it over a troop of artists-- unless one should scour the world-- you have the ground sense necessary.
See! the hearse leads. I begin with a design for a hearse. For Christ’s sake not black-- nor white either-- and not polished! Let it be weathered-- like a farm wagon-- with gilt wheels (this could be applied fresh at small expense) or no wheels at all: a rough dray to drag over the ground.
Knock the glass out! My God--glass, my townspeople! For what purpose? Is it for the dead to look out or for us to see how well he is housed or to see the flowers or the lack of them-- or what? To keep the rain and snow from him? He will have a heavier rain soon: pebbles and dirt and what not. Let there be no glass-- and no upholstery phew! and no little brass rollers and small easy wheels on the bottom-- my townspeople what are you thinking of?
A rough plain hearse then with gilt wheels and no top at all. On this the coffin lies by its own weight.
No wreathes please-- especially no hot house flowers. Some common memento is better, something he prized and is known by: his old clothes-- a few books perhaps-- God knows what! You realize how we are about these things my townspeople-- something will be found-- anything even flowers if he had come to that.
So much for the hearse. For heaven’s sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact that’s no place at all for him-- up there unceremoniously dragging our friend out to his own dignity! Bring him down-- bring him down! Low and inconspicuous! I’d not have him ride on the wagon at all-- damn him-- the undertaker’s understrapper! Let him hold the reins and walk at the side and inconspicuously too!
Then briefly as to yourselves: Walk behind-- as they do in France, seventh class, or if you ride Hell take curtains! Go with some show of inconvenience; sit openly-- to the weather as to grief. Or do you think you can shut grief in? What--from us? We who have perhaps nothing to lose? Share with us share with us-- it will be money in your pockets.
Go now I think you are ready.
PROMENADE
I.
Well, mind, here we have our little son beside us: a little diversion before breakfast!
Come, we’ll walk down the road till the bacon will be frying. We might better be idle? A poem might come of it? Oh, be useful. Save annoyance to Flossie and besides--the wind! It’s cold. It blows our old pants out! It makes us shiver! See the heavy trees shifting their weight before it. Let us be trees, an old house, a hill with grass on it! The baby’s arms are blue. Come, move! Be quieted!
II.
So. We’ll sit here now and throw pebbles into this water-trickle.
Splash the water up! (Splash it up, Sonny!) Laugh! Hit it there deep under the grass.
See it splash! Ah, mind, see it splash! It is alive! Throw pieces of broken leaves into it. They’ll pass through. No! Yes--just!
Away now for the cows! But-- It’s cold! It’s getting dark. It’s going to rain. No further!
III.
Oh then, a wreath! Let’s refresh something they used to write well of.
Two fern plumes. Strip them to the mid-rib along one side. Bind the tips with a grass stem. Bend and intertwist the stalks at the back. So! Ah! now we are crowned! Now we are a poet!
Quickly! A bunch of little flowers for Flossie--the little ones only: a red clover, one blue heal-all, a sprig of bone-set, one primrose, a head of Indian tobacco, this magenta speck and this little lavender! Home now, my mind!-- Sonny’s arms are icy, I tell you-- and have breakfast!
EL HOMBRE
It’s a strange courage you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise toward which you lend no part!
HERO
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.
LIBERTAD! IGUALDAD! FRATERNIDAD!
You sullen pig of a man you force me into the mud with your stinking ash-cart!
Brother! --if we were rich we’d stick our chests out and hold our heads high!
It is dreams that have destroyed us.
There is no more pride in horses or in rein holding. We sit hunched together brooding our fate.
Well-- all things turn bitter in the end whether you choose the right or the left way and-- dreams are not a bad thing.
CANTHARA
The old black-man showed me how he had been shocked in his youth by six women, dancing a set-dance, stark naked below the skirts raised round their breasts: bellies flung forward knees flying! --while his gestures, against the tiled wall of the dingy bath-room, swished with ecstasy to the familiar music of his old emotion.
MUJER
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.
SUMMER SONG
Wanderer moon smiling a faintly ironical smile at this brilliant, dew-moistened summer morning,-- a detached sleepily indifferent smile, a wanderer’s smile,-- if I should buy a shirt your color and put on a necktie sky blue where would they carry me?
LOVE SONG
Sweep the house clean, hang fresh curtains in the windows put on a new dress and come with me! The elm is scattering its little loaves of sweet smells from a white sky!
Who shall hear of us in the time to come? Let him say there was a burst of fragrance from black branches.
FOREIGN
Artsybashev is a Russian. I am an American. Let us wonder, my townspeople, if Artsybashev tends his own fires as I do, gets himself cursed for the baby’s failure to thrive, loosens windows for the woman who cleans his parlor-- or has he neat servants and a quiet library, an intellectual wife perhaps and no children,--an apartment somewhere in a back street or lives alone or with his mother or sister--
I wonder, my townspeople, if Artsybashev looks upon himself the more concernedly or succeeds any better than I in laying the world.
I wonder which is the bigger fool in his own mind.
These are shining topics my townspeople but-- hardly of great moment.
A PRELUDE
I know only the bare rocks of today. In these lies my brown sea-weed,-- green quartz veins bent through the wet shale; in these lie my pools left by the tide-- quiet, forgetting waves; on these stiffen white star fish; on these I slip bare footed!
Whispers of the fishy air touch my body; “Sisters,” I say to them.
HISTORY
I.
A wind might blow a lotus petal over the pyramids--but not this wind.
Summer is a dried leaf.
Leaves stir this way then that on the baked asphalt, the wheels of motor cars rush over them,-- gas smells mingle with leaf smells.
Oh, Sunday, day of worship!!!
The steps to the museum are high. Worshippers pass in and out. Nobody comes here today. I come here to mingle faiance dug from the tomb, turquoise colored necklaces and belched wind from the stomach; delicately veined basins of agate, cracked and discolored and the stink of stale urine!
Enter! Elbow in at the door. Men? Women? Simpering, clay fetish-faces counting through the turnstile. Ah!
II.
This sarcophagus contained the body of Uresh-Nai, priestess to the goddess Mut, Mother of All--
Run your finger against this edge! --here went the chisel!--and think of an arrogance endured six thousand years without a flaw!
But love is an oil to embalm the body. Love is a packet of spices, a strong smelling liquid to be squirted into the thigh. No? Love rubbed on a bald head will make hair--and after? Love is a lice comber! Gnats on dung!
“The chisel is in your hand, the block is before you, cut as I shall dictate: this is the coffin of Uresh-Nai, priestess to the sky goddess,--built to endure forever! Carve the inside with the image of my death in little lines of figures three fingers high. Put a lid on it cut with Mut bending over the earth, for my headpiece, and in the year to be chosen I will rouse, the lid shall be lifted and I will walk about the temple where they have rested me and eat the air of the place:
Ah--these walls are high! This is in keeping.”
III.
The priestess has passed into her tomb. The stone has taken up her spirit! Granite over flesh: who will deny its advantages?
Your death?--water spilled upon the ground-- though water will mount again into rose-leaves-- but you?--would hold life still, even as a memory, when it is over. Benevolence is rare.
Climb about this sarcophagus, read what is writ for you in these figures, hard as the granite that has held them with so soft a hand the while your own flesh has been fifty times through the guts of oxen,--read! “The rose-tree will have its donor even though he give stingily. The gift of some endures ten years, the gift of some twenty and the gift of some for the time a great house rots and is torn down. Some give for a thousand years to men of one face, some for a thousand to all men and some few to all men while granite holds an edge against the weather. Judge then of love!”
IV.