Writing Wellington: Twenty Years of Victoria University Writing Fellows
Setting it right
Setting it right
Dr W.C. Williams couldn't think less
of those high-falutin' cherubs
slopped across human sky—space,
mafiosi with the monikers
of classic hoods elbowing
every bar minute a book's
mentioned. Cut loose, the doctor
said. How Columbus, C. (capitano)
didn't plot out West for a propped
Louis Quatorze mirror. It was black
plug, cowboy movies, that's what
he was after, 'poetry for cats and dogs',
wasn't that New Jersey?
The zebras, the gazelles, who's got
them out back? Dr Williams
couldn't bandage a finger without
thinking, say it simpler, it's not
vaticano brushwork makes
it a joint worth saving, worth
setting right. Contented, he leaned
on his icebox and wrote a note
and walked out on the stoop
to watch a late sky burl in
from the Atlantic, god-damned
sure things were on the mend.
To let puss know for one thing
fat drops like flattened dimes
fell for cats as far as Frisco.