C K Williams Poems
A collection of select C K Williams famous poems that were written by C K Williams or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
Don't forget to view our
C K Williams
home page with links to biographical information, articles, and more poems that may not be listed here.
See also:
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
Your thighs are appletrees
whose blossoms touch the sky.
Which sky? The sky
where Watteau hung a lady's
slipper. Your knees
are a southern breeze—or
a gust of snow. Agh! what
sort of man was Fragonard?
—As if that answered
anything.—Ah, yes. Below
the knees, since the tune
drops that way, it is
one of those white summer days,
the tall grass of your ankles
flickers upon the shore—
Which shore?—
the sand clings to...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
The years become you as Oxford becomes you,
As you became Oxford through the protest years;
From Magdalen’s grey gargoyles to its bridge in May,
From the cement buttresses of Wellington Square
To Balliol, Balliol in the rain.
The years become you as the Abbey Road becomes you,
As you became that road through silent years,
From the famous crossing to the stunted bridge
Caparisoned with carnivals...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me
I went to Springfield. There I met a lush,
Whose father just deceased left him a fortune.
He married me when drunk. My life was wretched.
A year passed and one day they found him dead.
That made me rich. I moved on to Chicago.
After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain.
I moved on to New York....Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
This, with a face
like a mashed blood orange
that suddenly
would get eyes
and look up and scream
War! War!
clutching her
thick, ragged coat
a piece of hat
broken shoes
War! War!
stumbling for dread
at the young men
who with their gun-butts
shove her
sprawling—
a note
at the foot of the page....Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain—bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,—
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,—plunging glassy funnels
fall—
And—the other world—
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Lee Masters
I was the milliner
Talked about, lied about,
Mother of Dora,
Whose strange disappearance
Was charged to her rearing.
My eye quick to beauty
Saw much beside ribbons
And buckles and feathers
And leghorns and felts,
To set off sweet faces,
And dark hair and gold.
One thing I will tell you
And one I will ask:
The stealers of husbands
Wear powder and trinkets,
And fashionable hats.
Wives, wear them yourselves.
Hats may make...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
Upon the table in their bowl
in violent disarray
of yellow sprays, green spikes
of leaves, red pointed petals
and curled heads of blue
and white among the litter
of the forks and crumbs and plates
the flowers remain composed.
Coolly their colloquy continues
above the coffee and loud talk
grown frail as vaudeville....Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
This plot of ground
facing the waters of this inlet
is dedicated to the living presence of
Emily Dickinson Wellcome
who was born in England; married;
lost her husband and with
her five year old son
sailed for New York in a two-master;
was driven to the Azores;
ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,
met her second husband
in...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens....Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
Here it is spring again
and I still a young man!
I am late at my singing.
The sparrow with the black rain on his breast
has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past:
What is it that is dragging at my heart?
The grass by the back door
is stiff with sap.
The old maples are opening
their...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
As the cat
climbed over
the top of
the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot
carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot...Read more of this...
by
Hugo Williams
The smell of ammonia in the entrance hall.
The racing bike. The junk mail.
The timer switch whose single naked bulb
allowed us as far as the first floor.
The backs of your legs
as you went ahead of me up the stairs.
The landing where we paused for breath
and impatient key searching.
The locks which would never open quickly enough
to let us in.
The green of...Read more of this...
by
Hugo Williams
How beautiful it would be to wait for you again
in the usual place,
not looking at the door,
keeping a lookout in the long mirror,
knowing that if you are late
it will not be too late,
knowing that all I have to do
is wait a little longer
and you will be pushing through the other customers,
out of breath, apologetic.
Where have you...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
It is cold. The white moon
is up among her scattered stars—
like the bare thighs of
the Police Sergeant's wife—among
her five children . . .
No answer. Pale shadows lie upon
the frosted grass. One answer:
It is midnight, it is still
and it is cold . . . !
White thighs of the sky! a
new answer out...Read more of this...
by
Hugo Williams
How do you think I feel
when you make me talk to you
and won't let me stop
till the words turn into a moan?
Do you think I mind
when you put your hand over my mouth
and tell me not to move
so you can "hear" it happening?
And how do you think I like it
when you tell me what to do
and your mouth opens
and...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
Vast and grey, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
are vast and grey and—
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
My head is in the air
but who am I . . . ?
—and my heart stops amazed
at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me....Read more of this...
by
Hugo Williams
This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls
the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can't remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I...Read more of this...
by
Kenneth Koch
1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.
2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.
3
I gave away the...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
It was Karl Shapiro who wrote in his ‘Defence of Ignorance’ how many poets
Go mad or seem to be so and the majority think we should all be in jail
Or mental hospital and you have ended up in both places - fragile as bone china,
Your pale skin taut, your fingers clasped tight round a cup, sitting in a pool
Of...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
They call me and I go.
It is a frozen road
past midnight, a dust
of snow caught
in the rigid wheeltracks.
The door opens.
I smile, enter and
shake off the cold.
Here is a great woman
on her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
Night is a room
darkened for lovers,
through the jalousies the sun
has sent one golden...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
I gotta
buy me a new
girdle.
(I'll buy
you one) O.K.
(I wish
you'd wig-
gle that way
for me,
I'd be
a happy man)
I GOTTA
wig-
gle for this.
(You pig)...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
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.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly,...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
The green-blue ground
is ruled with silver lines
to say the sun is shining
And on this moral sea
of grass or dreams lie flowers
or baskets of desires
Heaven knows what they are
between cerulean shapes
laid regularly round
Mat roses and tridentate
leaves of gold
threes, threes and threes
Three roses and three stems
the basket floating
standing in the horns of blue
Repeating to the ceiling
to the windows
where the day
Blows in
the scalloped...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
like a buttercup
upon its branching stem-
save that it's green and wooden-
I come, my sweet,
to sing to you.
We lived long together
a life filled,
if you will,
with flowers. So that
I was cheered
when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
in hell.
Today
I'm filled with the fading memory of...Read more of this...
by
William Carlos (WCW) Williams
There were some dirty plates
and a glass of milk
beside her on a small table
near the rank, disheveled bed—
Wrinkled and nearly blind
she lay and snored
rousing with anger in her tones
to cry for food,
Gimme something to eat—
They're starving me—
I'm all right I won't go
to the hospital. No, no, no
Give me something to eat
Let me take you
to the hospital, I said
and after...Read more of this...