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Danse Russe

Started by Cramulus, May 09, 2016, 08:46:25 PM

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Cramulus

William Carlos Williams, "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
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
again the yellow drawn shades,--

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

minuspace


William Carlos Williams

"To Elsie" or "The pure products of America / go crazy"


from Spring and all (1923)

The pure products of America
go crazy--
mountain folk from Kentucky
or the ribbed north end of
Jersey
with its isolate lakes and

valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves
old names
and promiscuity between

devil-may-care men who have taken
to railroading
out of sheer lust of adventure--

and young slatterns, bathed
in filth
from Monday to Saturday

to be tricked out that night
with gauds
from imaginations which have no

peasant traditions to give them
character
but flutter and flaunt

sheer rags succumbing without
emotion
save numbed terror

under some hedge of choke-cherry
or viburnum--
which they cannot express--

Unless it be that marriage
perhaps
with a dash of Indian blood

will throw up a girl so desolate
so hemmed round
with disease or murder

that she'll be rescued by an
agent--
reared by the state and

sent out at fifteen to work in
some hard-pressed
house in the suburbs--

some doctor's family, some Elsie
voluptuous water
expressing with broken

brain the truth about us--
her great
ungainly hips and flopping breasts

addressed to cheap
jewelry
and rich young men with fine eyes

as if the earth under our feet
were
an excrement of some sky

and we degraded prisoners
destined
to hunger until we eat filth

while the imagination strains
after deer
going by fields of goldenrod in

the stifling heat of September
somehow
it seems to destroy us

It is only in isolate flecks that
something
is given off

No one
to witness
and adjust, no one to drive the car

Freeky

Quote from: Cramulus on May 09, 2016, 08:46:25 PM
William Carlos Williams, "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
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
again the yellow drawn shades,--

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

This makes me happy in some way, but I don't know why.  I will not question it.

Cramulus

Quote from: LuciferX on May 09, 2016, 11:57:17 PM

William Carlos Williams

"To Elsie" or "The pure products of America / go crazy"


from Spring and all (1923)



I love that whole set, Spring and all. I think it was Nigel who first introduced me to Williams, the "So much depends on..." poem. A while back I found a collection of his work and devoured it. I love his style. He reminds me of this quote from an interview with David Byrne. Byrne says he doesn't like writing songs about big things, like Love. He prefers to write about small things, little moments, secrets, things that people don't often notice.

minuspace

Quote from: Cramulus on May 10, 2016, 04:50:23 PM
Quote from: LuciferX on May 09, 2016, 11:57:17 PM

William Carlos Williams

"To Elsie" or "The pure products of America / go crazy"


from Spring and all (1923)



I love that whole set, Spring and all. I think it was Nigel who first introduced me to Williams, the "So much depends on..." poem. A while back I found a collection of his work and devoured it. I love his style. He reminds me of this quote from an interview with David Byrne. Byrne says he doesn't like writing songs about big things, like Love. He prefers to write about small things, little moments, secrets, things that people don't often notice.

Thank you guys for sharing it.  Looking forward to having something good to read again.

minuspace

...  And then a little Kerouac, I was looking for the source of that little phrase "praised be the non-ending".
QuotePraised be man, he is existing in milk
and living in lilies -
And his violin music takes place in milk
and creamy emptiness -
Praised be the unfolded inside petal
flesh of tend'rest thought -
(petrels on the follying
wave-valleys idly
sing themselves asleep) -
Praised be delusion, the ripple -
Praised be the Holy Ocean of Eternity -
Praised be I, writing, dead already and
dead again -
Dipped in acid inkl
the flamd
of Tim
the Anglo Oglo Saxon Maneuvers
Of Old Poet-o's -

Praised be wood, it is milk -
Praised be Honey at the Source -
Praised be the embrace of soft sleep
- the valor of angels in valleys
of hell on earth below -
Praised be the Non ending -
Praised be the lights of earth-man -
Praised be the watchers -
Praised be my fellow man
For dwelling in milk"