What Is Found There

If I 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
again the yellow drawn shades,–

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

www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/wcw-danse-russe.html

William Carlos Williams

There are several dozen poetry books on my shelves,
Many with sticky notes, turned-down pages, or
citations jotted in the endpapers.

So I thought it would be useful
to gather - over time - a certain number
of those poems in one place
where they can be easily found
and read together.

Poets and publishers: don’t sue me—
this is homage, and good publicity besides.

  —Fred Murphy

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there

  —from “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower” by William Carlos Williams

Fred Murphy, William Carlos Williams