Poems by William Carlos Williams | Poetree

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The Horse Show

The Horse Show

Constantly near you, I never in my entire

sixty-four years knew you so well as yesterday

or half so well. We talked. you were never

so lucid, so disengaged from all exigencies

of place and time. We talked of ourselves,

intimately, a thing never heard between us.

How long have we waited? almost a hundred years.

You said, Unless there is some spark, some

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by William Carlos Williams

Danse Russe

Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

and the sun is a flame-white disc

in silken mists

above shining trees,—

if I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

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by William Carlos Williams

Postlude

Postlude

Now that I have cooled to you

Let there be gold of tarnished masonry,

Temples soothed by the sun to ruin

That sleep utterly.

Give me hand for the dances,

Ripples at Philae, in and out,

And lips, my Lesbian,

Wall flowers that once were flame.

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by William Carlos Williams

The Dance

The Dance

In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,

the dancers go round, they go round and

around, the squeal and the blare and the

tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles

tipping their bellies, (round as the thick-

sided glasses whose wash they impound)

their hips and their bellies off balance

to turn them. Kicking and rolling about

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by William Carlos Williams

The Young Housewife

The Young Housewife

At ten a.m. the young housewife

moves about in negligee behind

the wooden walls of her husband’s house.

I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb

to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands

shy, uncorseted, tucking in

stray ends of hair, and I compare her

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by William Carlos Williams

A Sort Of A Song

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.

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by William Carlos Williams

The Widow's Lament In Springtime

The Widow's Lament In Springtime

Sorrow is my own yard

where the new grass

flames as it has flamed

often before but not

with the cold fire

that closes round me this year.

Thirtyfive years

I lived with my husband.

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by William Carlos Williams

Between Walls

Between Walls

the back wings

of the

hospital where

nothing

will grow lie

cinders

In which shine

the broken

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by William Carlos Williams

Flowers By The Sea

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

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by William Carlos Williams

This Is Just To Say

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

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by William Carlos Williams

Young Sycamore

Young Sycamore

I must tell you

this young tree

whose round and firm trunk

between the wet

pavement and the gutter

(where water

is trickling) rises

bodily

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by William Carlos Williams

The Red Wheelbarrow

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

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by William Carlos Williams