Bookmark, Selected Poems, William Carlos Williams

Out

of these fragile dry
still fragrant yellow-

green stems & leaves
of wild clover pressed

between

the descent
of winter

&

the locust tree
in flower,

the sense of spring.

The Origin of Species

On top of poems are written
Other poems, thus

The destruction of the world's
Perfected.



(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

Logbook Memo

ship

wrecks


memories

harbor



(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

Small-Town Bootblack vs Clunkers, Raymond, Washington, circa 1960: My Almost Inaugural Poem

Coolly

Tooling by that run-down
Shoeshine stand

In their souped-up clunkers,
Our honkies must have thought

The town's sole token Nigger
Ned couldn't tell shit from Shineola;

And that they surely had it over
Him to boot.

I guess that explains why
He was never caught hauling

Smart-ass white punks like us a hundred
Miles to his whores in the city and back

Come late every Saturday night
In that beautiful, sharp, shining, slick

Mother-fucking classic of a black
Eldorado Cadillac.


POSTSCRIPT: I was seriously considering posting this poem before President Obama's inauguration ceremony but decided against it for fear of having my blog flagged for using vulgar, offensive language. However, after reading Ron Silliman's blog which had a link to a Guardian
article about a high school "teacher" in my former home state of Washington, I had second thoughts about not posting it. Hope nobody's offended.

How I Was Cured of Hunting

spied

thrush in thicket
looking

after its wound,
a sprig

of therapeutic

o-
re-
ga-

no in its bleeding
beak.

(First published in Shearsman 62)