William Morris Meredith Jr. Poems

We say the sea is lonely; better say
Ourselves are lonesome creatures whom the sea
Gives neither yes or no for company.
...

I stand on the ledge where rock runs into the river
As the night turns brackish with morning, and mourn the drowned.
Here the sea is diluted with river; I watch it slaver
Like a dog curing of rabies. Its ravening over,
...

Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Who turns a letter over in his hand
And you might think this was because the hand
was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man
...

Go, little book. If anybody asks
Why I add poems to a time like this,
Tell how the comeliness I can't take in
Of ships and other figures of content
...

on their own, I call that willful, John,
but that's not judgement, only argument
such as we've had before.
I watch a shaky man climb
...

The alternative to flying is cowardice,
And what is said against it excuses, excuses;
Its want was always heavy in those men’s bodies
Who foresaw it in some detail; and failing that,
...

reader my friend, is in the words here, somewhere.
Frankly, I'd like to make you smile.
Words addresssing evil won't turn evil back
but they can give heart.
...

When they needed a foreign part,
a valve which was not to be found
or spared elsewhere in his ample,
useful body, they chose a pig's valve.
...

Do not embrace your mind’s new negro friend
Or embarrass the blackballed jew with memberships:
There must be years of atonement first, and even then
You may still be the blundering raconteur
...

Tonight Hazard’s father and stepmother are having
jazz for McGovern. In the old game-room
the old liberals listen as the quintet builds
crazy houses out of skin and brass, crumbling
...