Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

William Carlos Williams

Pink confused with white
flowers and flowers reversed
take and spill the shaded flame
darting it back
into the lamp’s horn

petals aslant darkened with mauve

red where in whorls
petal lays its glow upon petal
round flamegreen throats

petals radiant with transpiercing light
contending
              above
the leaves
reaching up their modest green
from the pot’s rim

and there, wholly dark, the pot
gay with rough moss.

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Spring and All | Contact, 1923

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Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

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