William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

First he said:
It is the woman in
That makes us write—Let us acknowledge it—Men would be silent.
We are not

Flowers through the windowlavender and yellowchanged by white curtains –Smell of cleanliness – Sunshine of late afternoon –On the glass traya glass pitcher, the tumblerturned down, by whicha key is lying – And the immaculate white bed

The little sparrows hop ingenuously about the pavement quarreling with sharp voices over those things that interest them.
But we who are wiser shut ourselves in on either hand and no one knows whether we think good or evil.
Meanwhile,…

Я съел
тот изюм
из нашего
холодильника

The birches are mad with green points the wood's edge is burning with their green, burning, seething—No, no, no.
The birches are opening their leaves one by one.
Their delicate leaves unfold cold and separate, one by one.
Slender…

По дороге в инфекционную больницу
под этим океаном голубизны
пестрящим облаками гонимыми с северо-востока —
холодный ветер. По сторонам дороги —

Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
like a buttercup
upon its branching stem-save that it's green and wooden-
I come, my sweet

The Archer is wake!
The Swan is flying!
Gold against blue An Arrow is lying.
There is hunting in heaven— Sleep safe till tomorrow.

All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold.

By the road to the contagious hospitalunder the surge of the bluemottled clouds driven from thenortheast — a cold wind.
Beyond, thewaste of broad, muddy fieldsbrown with dried weeds, standing and fallenpatches of standing waterthe scattering…

Sorrow is my own yardwhere the new grassflames as it has flamedoften before but notwith the cold firethat closes round me this year.
Thirtyfive yearsI lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white todaywith masses of flowers.
Masses…

When over the flowery, sharp pasture'sedge, unseen, the salt oceanlifts its form—chicory and daisiestied, released, seem hardly flowers alonebut color and the movement—or the shapeperhaps—of restlessness, whereasthe sea is circled and…

As the catclimbed overthe top ofthe jamclosetfirst the rightforefootcarefullythen the hindstepped downinto the pit ofthe emptyflowerpot

Gagarin says, in ecstasy, he could have gone on forever he floated at and sang and when he emerged from that one hundred eight minutes off the surface of the earth he was smiling.
Then he returned to take his place among the rest of us from…

Snow falls:
years of anger followinghours that float idly down —the blizzarddrifts its weightdeeper and deeper for three daysor sixty years, eh?
Thenthe sun! a clutter ofyellow and blue flakes —Hairy looking trees stand outin long…

Her body is not so white as anemone petals nor so smooth—nor so remote a thing.
It is a field of the wild carrot taking the field by force; the grass does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness, white as can be, with a…

Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?
What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose, always indiscriminate, always unashamed, and now it is the souring flowers of the bedreggled poplars: a…

То был морозный день.
Мы схоронили нашу кошку,
а после взяли ее коробку
и подожгли ее

Old age isa flight of smallcheeping birdsskimmingbare treesabove a snow glaze.
Gaining and failingthey are buffetedby a dark wind —But what?
On harsh weedstalksthe flock has rested —the snowis covered with brokenseed husksand the wind…

Constantly near you,
I never in my entiresixty-four years knew you so well as yesterdayor half so well.
We talked. you were never so lucid, so disengaged from all exigenciesof place and time.
We talked of ourselves

I must tell you this young treewhose round and firm trunkbetween the wetpavement and the gutter(where wateris trickling) risesbodilyinto the air withone undulantthrust half its height-and thendividing and waningsending outyoung branches onall…

Я расскажу вам, мои горожане,
как нужно устраивать похороны—
вам понадобится целая труппа
актеров—

Soft as the bed in the earth Where a stone has lain— So soft, so smooth and so cool, Spring closes me in With her arms and her hands.
Rich as the smell Of new earth on a stone, That has lain, breathing The damp through its pores— Spring…