Driving in to work this morning, I caught a portion of the "Summer Reading" report on NPR, one bright spot of which was hearing Robert Pinsky read William Carlos Williams's "Danse Russe," from which I drew my little tagline at the top of this blog. I love WCW and this poem's silliness and melancholy and defiance. I also love "disc in silken mists." Whoo.
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?
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