Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SUB TERRA, by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SUB TERRA, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Where shall I find you
Last Line: Nostrils lipping the wind!


Where shall I find you,
you my grotesque fellows
that I seek everywhere
to make up my band?
None, not one
with the earthy tastes I require;
the burrowing pride that rises
subtly as on a bush in May.

Where are you this day,
you my seven year locusts
with cased wings?
Ah my beauties how I long -- !
That harvest
that shall be your advent --
thrusting up through the grass,
up under the weeds
answering me,
that will be satisfying!
The light shall leap and snap
that day as with a million lashes!

Oh, I have you; yes
you are about me in a sense:
playing under the blue pools
that are my windows, --
but they shut you out still,
there in the half light.
For the simple truth is
that though I see you clear enough
you are not there!

It is not that -- it is you,
you I want!
-- God, if I could fathom
the guts of shadows!

You to come with me
poking into negro houses
with their gloom and smell!
in among children
leaping around a dead dog!
Mimicking
onto the lawns of the rich!
You!
to go with me a-tip-toe,
head down under heaven,
nostrils lipping the wind!





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