william carlos williams (1883-1963)
He lived on to see the fester
inch down his own seaboard,
like the first rotten dot
of gangrene spreading.
Behind the clapboard planks
he saw the Babbitts slide in their grease.
Boomtown physician
healing the grafting sick,
he tried to heal himself
on poetry, on common things
and people - that vast sprawling
visionscope of Paterson
loose and free, incapable of marshaling
or the tidy slot.
Still the bourbons mount,
the voices break
and the intentions crack
through Paterson, the Whitman visions
haunt his followers. Hick-disciples
pour out of the foothills
and bored mimics from the townships.
The nettled railtracks beckon, still,
westward and south,
they thrust out to the good place
beyond his monument ....
inch down his own seaboard,
like the first rotten dot
of gangrene spreading.
Behind the clapboard planks
he saw the Babbitts slide in their grease.
Boomtown physician
healing the grafting sick,
he tried to heal himself
on poetry, on common things
and people - that vast sprawling
visionscope of Paterson
loose and free, incapable of marshaling
or the tidy slot.
Still the bourbons mount,
the voices break
and the intentions crack
through Paterson, the Whitman visions
haunt his followers. Hick-disciples
pour out of the foothills
and bored mimics from the townships.
The nettled railtracks beckon, still,
westward and south,
they thrust out to the good place
beyond his monument ....
Page(s) 74
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