{"id":599,"date":"2010-10-14T13:00:29","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/?p=599"},"modified":"2010-10-13T08:50:03","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T12:50:03","slug":"no-one-to-drive-the-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/14\/no-one-to-drive-the-car\/","title":{"rendered":"No One to Drive the Car"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pure products of America
\ngo crazy—
\nmountain folk from Kentucky<\/p>\n
or the ribbed north end of
\nJersey
\nwith its isolate lakes and<\/p>\n
valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves
\nold names
\nand promiscuity between<\/p>\n
devil-may-care men who have taken
\nto railroading
\nout of sheer lust of adventure—<\/p>\n
and young slatterns, bathed
\nin filth
\nfrom Monday to Saturday<\/p>\n
to be tricked out that night
\nwith gauds
\nfrom imaginations which have no<\/p>\n
peasant traditions to give them
\ncharacter
\nbut flutter and flaunt<\/p>\n
sheer rags—succumbing without
\nemotion
\nsave numbed terror<\/p>\n
under some hedge of choke-cherry
\nor viburnum—
\nwhich they cannot express—<\/p>\n
Unless it be that marriage
\nperhaps
\nwith a dash of Indian blood<\/p>\n
will throw up a girl so desolate
\nso hemmed round
\nwith disease or murder<\/p>\n
that she’ll be rescued by an
\nagent—
\nreared by the state and<\/p>\n
sent out at fifteen to work in
\nsome hard-pressed
\nhouse in the suburbs—<\/p>\n
some doctor’s family, some Elsie—
\nvoluptuous water
\nexpressing with broken<\/p>\n
brain the truth about us—
\nher great
\nungainly hips and flopping breasts<\/p>\n
addressed to cheap
\njewelry
\nand rich young men with fine eyes<\/p>\n
as if the earth under our feet
\nwere
\nan excrement of some sky<\/p>\n
and we degraded prisoners
\ndestined
\nto hunger until we eat filth<\/p>\n
while the imagination strains
\nafter deer
\ngoing by fields of goldenrod in<\/p>\n
the stifling heat of September
\nSomehow
\nit seems to destroy us<\/p>\n
It is only in isolate flecks that
\nsomething
\nis given off<\/p>\n
No one
\nto witness
\nand adjust, no one to drive the car<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
—William Carlos Williams, To Elsie<\/em><\/p>\n
The author reading his poem.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The pure products of America go crazy— mountain folk from Kentucky or the ribbed north end of Jersey with its isolate lakes and valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves old names and promiscuity between devil-may-care men who have taken to railroading out of sheer lust of adventure— and young slatterns, bathed in filth from Monday to Saturday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[501,497,2549],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-further-reasons-to-work-the-clinic","tag-poet-physician","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulboccaccio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}