Friday, April 2, 2010

The Morning Reading:"Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household?"

On his blog, poet Ron Silliman points out that "some great photos of William Carlos Williams in Yale’s Beinecke collection are coming online" - including the one below which inspired today's choice of poem.


Danse Russe
by William Carlos Williams

If 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
against the yellow drawn shades,—


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

~

2 comments:

Lou said...

LOVE that photo. A whole other side of WCW.

Robbi N. said...

Absolutely. I never thought of him that Whitmanesque way.

 
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