William Carlos Williams - 'Spring and All'

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), American poet that described the common things with an elegant suavity.




Spring and All

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast—a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches—

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind—

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted they
grip down and begin to awaken

from:
The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams

E.E. Cummings - 'i have found what you are like'

E.E. Cumming (1894-1962) is, himself, an entire different type. His poetry is full of movement and fierceness, directness and hidden messages. A pleasure to read.

i have found what you are like

i have found what you are like
the rain,

   (Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike

the air in utterable coolness

deeds of green thrilling light
                         with thinned

newfragile yellows

             lurch and.press

-in the woods
        which
             stutter
                    and

                       sing

And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost,
          your kiss

from:
E.E. Cummings: 100 Selected Poems

Antonio Machado - 'Siesta'

Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (1875-1939) of extreme melancholy and sweetness. Here a sample of his style:


Siesta

In Memory of Abel Martin

While the fish of fire traces its curve,
near the cypress beneath the supreme blue,
and the blind child flies in the white stone,
and in the elm the ivory couplet
of the green cicada beats and returns,
let's honor the Lord
-- the black stamp of his good hand --
who has dictated the silence in the clamor.

To the god of the distance and the absence,
of the anchor in the sea, the open sea...
He frees us from the world -- omnipresence --
opening for us a path to walk on.

With the hidden cup well-filled,
with this ever-filling heart,
let's honor the Lord who has made the Void
and has sculpted in faith our reason.

from:
Border of a Dream: Selected Poems

Sylvia Plath - 'The Other'

I recently 'discovered' Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) and this is already one of my favorite poems of hers.


The Other

You come in late, wiping your lips.
What did I leave untouched on the doorstep---

White Nike,
Streaming between my walls?

Smilingly, blue lightning
Assumes, like a meathook, the burden of his parts.

The police love you, you confess everything.
Bright hair, shoe-black, old plastic,

Is my life so intriguing?
Is it for this you widen your eye-rings?

Is it for this the air motes depart?
They rae not air motes, they are corpuscles.

Open your handbag. What is that bad smell?
It is your knitting, busily

Hooking itself to itself,
It is your sticky candies.

I have your head on my wall.
Navel cords, blue-red and lucent,

Shriek from my belly like arrows, and these I ride.
O moon-glow, o sick one,

The stolen horses, the fornications
Circle a womb of marble.

Where are you going
That you suck breath like mileage?

Sulfurous adulteries grieve in a dream.
Cold glass, how you insert yourself

Between myself and myself.
I scratch like a cat.

The blood that runs is dark fruit---
An effect, a cosmetic.

You smile.
No, it is not fatal.

from
Sylvia Plath: The Collected Poems

First Post

Welcome!
Poetry is one of my greatest passions.
Fundamentally these are the elements I look for in them:
Originality
Rawness
Fluidity
Some of the genres are: Surrealism, dadaism, futurism, creationism, ultraism, modernism, and other 'isms' that will cross my mind, eventually as I write.
Poetry / Poesia
Common imagery is not allowed in this 'space'