William Carlos Williams Quotes

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 my lips — Which shore?
Agh, petals maybe. How
should I know?
Which shore? Which shore?
I said petals from an appletree.

Hell, New Jersey, it said on the letter. Delivered without comment. So be it! Run from it, if you will. So be it. (Winds that enshroud us in their folds — or no wind). So be it. Pull at the doors, of a hot afternoon, doors that the wind holds, wrenches from our arms — and hands. So be it. The Library is sanctuary to our fears. So be it. So be it. — the wind that has tripped us, pressed upon us, prurient or upon the prurience of our fears — laughter fading. So be it.

The cries of a dying dog are to be blotted out as best I can. René Char you are a poet who believes in the power of beauty to right all wrongs. I believe it also. With invention and courage we shall surpass the pitiful dumb beasts, let all men believe it, as you have taught me also to believe it.

Marriage

So different, this man
And this woman:
A stream flowing
In a field.

…those who belong properly to books, and to whom books, perhaps, do not quite so properly belong.

After some years of varied experience with the bodies of the rich and the poor a man finds little to distinguish between them, bulks them as one and bases his working judgements on other matters.

Love without shadows stirs now beginning to waken as night advances. The descent made up of despairs and without accomplishment realizes a new awakening : which is a reversal of despair. For what we cannot accomplish, what is denied to love, what we have lost in the anticipation — a descent follows, endless and indestructible . Listen! — the pouring water! The dogs and trees conspire to invent a world — gone!

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless. — through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

In the mind there is a continual play of obscure images which coming between the eyes and their prey seem pictures on the screen at the movies. Sometimes there appears to be a maladjustment. The wish would be to see not floating visions of unknown purport but the imaginative qualities of the actual things being perceived accompany their gross vision in a slow dance, interpreting as they go. But inasmuch as this will not always be the case one must dance nevertheless as he can.

Unleashed! Alone, watching the May moon above the trees . At nine o’clock the park closes. You must be out of the lake, dressed, in your cars and going: they change into their street clothes in the back seats and move out among the trees . The “great beast” all removed before the plunging night, the crickets’ black wings and hylas wake .

But the sea
which no one tends
is also a garden

Black wind, I have poured my heart out
to you until I am sick of it-

Now I run my hand over you feeling
the play of your body - the quiver
of it's strength-

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.