William Williams
William Williams
closes cold round sorrow
Sorrow is my own yardwhere the new grassflames as it has flamedoften before but notwith the cold firethat closes round me this year.
red
so much dependsupona red wheelbarrowglazed with rainwaterbeside the whitechickens.
beside depends rain red water wheel white
so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.
pass solitary ten walls
At ten a.m. the young housewifemoves about in negligee behindthe wooden walls of her husband's house.I pass solitary in my car.
ground perform teach
I will teach you my townspeoplehow to perform a funeralfor you have it over a troopof artists--unless one should scour the world--you have the ground sense necessary.
blind lives
We are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness.
bad bitter choose dreams left turn
Well--all things turn bitter in the endwhether you choose the right orthe left wayand--dreams are not a bad thing.
bad bitter choose dreams left turn whether
Well-- all things turn bitter in the end whether you choose the right or the left way and-- dreams are not a bad thing.
late spring
Here it is spring againand I still a young man!I am late at my singing.
inside itself shall storm time
Time is a storm in which we are all lost. Only inside the convolutions of the storm itself shall we find our directions.
best born
I am lonely, lonely. I was born to be lonely, I am best so!
either ourselves
But we who are wisershut ourselves inon either handand no one knowswhether we think goodor evil.
array art becomes cling close detail devil difficulty direct eternally finality good imagination knowing lie lifting modern natural scientific scrutiny senses sets stands thus value virtual walking works
But the thing that stands eternally in the way of really good writing is always one: the virtual impossibility of lifting to the imagination those things which lie under the direct scrutiny of the senses, close to the nose. It is this difficulty that sets a value upon all works of art and makes them a necessity. The senses witnessing what is immediately before them in detail see a finality which they cling to in despair, not knowing which way to turn. Thus this so-called natural or scientific array becomes fixed, the walking devil of modern life.
art employment exist object poet poetry senses sensual since
But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn't declaim or explain, it presents.