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A Book of Poems, Al Que Quiere!

Chapter 48: RIPOSTE
By William Carlos Williams
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American LiteraturePoetry

About This Book

The collection assembles concise lyric pieces that move between urban observation and intimate rural imagery, employing spare, imagistic language and flexible free verse. Poems attend to ordinary people, street dealings, household fragments and natural details—birds, trees, sea—rendered in plain yet vivid sensory lines. Voices shift from ironic and playful to tender and urgent, alternating pastoral reverie with municipal grit and occasional satirical civic addresses. Recurrent concerns include close attention to everyday materials, bodily presence, and the poet’s aim to record immediate perception.

Shine alone in the sunrise
 toward which you lend no part!
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.
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.
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.

Who shall hear of us
 in the time to come?
 Let him say there was
 a burst of fragrance
 from black branches.
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.
Whispers of the fishy air touch my body;
 “Sisters,” I say to them.
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.

“My flesh is turned to stone.   I
 have endured my summer.   The flurry
 of falling petals is ended.   Lay
 the finger upon this granite.   I was
 well desired and fully caressed
 by many lovers but my flesh
 withered swiftly and my heart was
 never satisfied.   Lay your hands
 upon the granite as a lover lays his
 hand upon the thigh and upon the
 round breasts of her who is
 beside him, for now I will not wither,
 now I have thrown off secrecy, now
 I have walked naked into the street,
 now I have scattered my heavy beauty
 in the open market.
 Here I am with head high and a
 burning heart eagerly awaiting
 your caresses, whoever it may be,
 for granite is not harder than
 my love is open, runs loose among you!
I arrogant against death! I
 who have endured! I worn against
 the years!”

V.

But it is five o’clock. Come!
 Life is good—enjoy it!
 A walk in the park while the day lasts.
 I will go with you. Look! this
 northern scenery is not the Nile, but—
 these benches—the yellow and purple dusk—
 the moon there—these tired people—
 the lights on the water!
Are not these Jews and—Ethiopians?
 The world is young, surely! Young
 and colored like—a girl that has come upon
 a lover! Will that do?

Waiting, with a glass in my hand
 —three girls in crimson satin
 pass close before me on
 the murmurous background of
 the crowded opera—
 it is
memory playing the clown—
 three vague, meaningless girls
 full of smells and
 the rustling sound of
 cloth rubbing on cloth and
 little slippers on carpet—
 high-school French
 spoken in a loud voice!
Parsley in a glass,
 still and shining,
 brings me back. I take my drink
 and yawn deliciously.
 I am ready for bed.
who shall say I am not
 the happy genius of my household?
I’m sick of trouble!
 Lift the covers
 if you want me
 and you’ll see
 the rest of my clothes—
 though it would be cold
 lying with nothing on!
I won’t work
 and I’ve got no cash.
 What are you going to do
 about it?
—and no jewelry
 (the crazy fools)
But I’ve my two eyes
 and a smooth face
 and here’s this! look!
 it’s high!
 There’s brains and blood
 in there—
 my name’s Robitza!
 Corsets
 can go to the devil—
 and drawers along with them!
 What do I care!
My two boys?
 —they’re keen!
 Let the rich lady
 care for them—
 they’ll beat the school
 or
 let them go to the gutter—
 that ends trouble.
This house is empty
 isn’t it?
 Then it’s mine
 because I need it.
Oh, I won’t starve
 while there’s the Bible
 to make them feed me.
Try to help me
 if you want trouble
 or leave me alone—
 that ends trouble.
The county physician
 is a damned fool
 and you
 can go to hell!
You could have closed the door
 when you came in;
 do it when you go out.
 I’m tired.
Why—
 it is the smile of her
 the smell of her
 the vulgar inviting mouth of her!
 It is—Oh, nothing new
 nothing that lasts
 an eternity, nothing worth
 putting out to interest,
 nothing—
 but the fixing of an eye
 concretely upon emptiness!
Come! here are—
 cross-eyed men, a boy
 with a patch, men walking
 in their shirts, men in hats
 dark men, a pale man
 with little black moustaches
 and a dirty white coat,
 fat men with pudgy faces,
 thin faces, crooked faces
 slit eyes, grey eyes, black eyes
 old men with dirty beards,
 men in vests with
 gold watch chains. Come!

Lie there, blue city, mine at last—
 rimming the banked blue grey
 and rise, indescribable smoky yellow
 into the overpowering white!
If I go meeting her
 on the corner
 some damned fool
 will go blabbing it
to the old man and
 she’ll get hell.
 He’s a queer old bastard!
 Every time he sees me
 you’d think
 I wanted to kill him.
 But I figure it out
 it’s best to let things
 stay as they are—
 for a while at least.
It’s hard
 giving up the thing
 you want most
 in the world, but with this
 damned pump of mine
 liable to give out ...
She’s a good kid
 and I’d hate to hurt her
 but if she can get over it—
it’d be the best thing.

KELLER GEGEN DOM

Witness, would you—
 one more young man
 in the evening of his love
 hurrying to confession:
steps down a gutter
 crosses a street
 goes in at a doorway
 opens for you—
 like some great flower—
 a room filled with lamplight;
 or whirls himself
 obediently to
 the curl of a hill
 some wind-dancing afternoon;
 lies for you in
 the futile darkness of
 a wall, sets stars dancing
 to the crack of a leaf—
and—leaning his head away—
 snuffs (secretly)
 the bitter powder from
 his thumb’s hollow,
 takes your blessing and
 goes home to bed?
Witness instead
 whether you like it or not
 a dark vinegar smelling place
 from which trickles
 the chuckle of
 beginning laughter
It strikes midnight.

BALLET

Are you not weary,
 great gold cross
 shining in the wind—
 are you not weary
of seeing the stars
 turning over you
 and the sun
 going to his rest
 and you frozen with
 a great lie
 that leaves you
 rigid as a knight
 on a marble coffin?
—and you,
 higher, still,
 robin,
 untwisting a song
 from the bare
 top-twigs,
 are you not
 weary of labor,
 even the labor of
 a song?
Come down—join me
 for I am lonely.
First it will be
 a quiet pace
 to ease our stiffness
 but as the west yellows
 you will be ready!
Here in the middle
 of the roadway
 we will fling
 ourselves round
 with dust lilies
 till we are bound in
 their twining stems!
 We will tear
 their flowers
 with arms flashing!
And when
 the astonished stars
 push aside
 their curtains
 they will see us
 fall exhausted where
 wheels and
 the pounding feet
 of horses
 will crush forth
 our laughter.
Her skinny little arms
 wrap themselves
 this way then that
 reversely about her body!
 Nervously
 she crushes her straw hat
 about her eyes
 and tilts her head
 to deepen the shadow—
 smiling excitedly!
As best as she can
 she hides herself
 in the full sunlight
 her cordy legs writhing
 beneath the little flowered dress
 that leaves them bare
 from mid-thigh to ankle—
Why has she chosen me
 for the knife
 that darts along her smile?
This is fortunate for they would
 burn you to an ash otherwise.
 Your petals would be quite curled up.
This is all beyond you—no doubt,
 yet you do feel the brushings
 of the fine needles;
 the tentative lines of your whole body
 prove it to me;
 so does your fear of me,
 your shyness;
 likewise the toy baby cart
 that you are pushing—
 and besides, mother has begun
 to dress your hair in a knot.
 These are my excuses.
Love is so precious
 my townspeople
 that if I were you I would
 have it under lock and key—
 like the air or the Atlantic or
 like poetry!

“None has dipped his hand
in the black waters of the sky
 nor picked the yellow lilies
 that sway on their clear stems
 and no tree has waited
 long enough nor still enough
 to touch fingers with the moon.”
I looked and there were little frogs
 with puffed out throats,
 singing in the slime.
Vibrant bowing limbs
 pull downward, sucking in the sky
 that bulges from behind, plastering itself
 against them in packed rifts, rock blue
 and dirty orange!
 But—
(Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)
 the blinding and red-edged sun-blur—
 creeping energy, concentrated
 counterforce—welds sky, buds, trees,
 rivets them in one puckering hold!
 Sticks through! Pulls the whole
 counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,
 locks even the opaque, not yet defined
 ground in a terrific drag that is
 loosening the very tap-roots!
On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
 two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,
 at full cry!   Now they are
 flung   outward   and   up—disappearing suddenly!
Bent as you are from straining
 against the bitter horizontals of
a north wind,—there below you
 how easily the long yellow notes
 of poplars flow upward in a descending
 scale, each note secure in its own
 posture—singularly woven.
All voices are blent willingly
 against the heaving contra-bass
 of the dark but you alone
 warp yourself passionately to one side
 in your eagerness.