Children's Games

William Carlos Williams 1883 (Rutherford) – 1963 (Rutherford)



I
This is a schoolyard
crowded
with children

of all ages near a village
on a small stream
meandering by

where some boys
are swimming
bare-ass

or climbing a tree in leaf
everything
is motion

elder women are looking
after the small
fry

a play wedding a
christening
nearby one leans

hollering
into
an empty hogshead

II

Little girls
whirling their skirts about
until they stand out flat

tops pinwheels
to run in the wind with
or a toy in 3 tiers to spin

with a piece
of twine to make it go
blindman's-buff follow the

leader stilts
high and low tipcat jacks
bowls hanging by the knees

standing on your head
run the gauntlet
a dozen on their backs

feet together kicking
through which a boy must pass
roll the hoop or a

construction
made of bricks
some mason has abandoned

III

The desperate toys
of children
their

imagination equilibrium
and rocks
which are to be

found
everywhere
and games to drag

the other down
blindfold
to make use of

a swinging
weight
with which

at random
to bash in the
heads about

them
Brueghel saw it all
and with his grim

humor faithfully
recorded
it.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 04, 2023

1:00 min read
242

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCD XXA EFG XFD FHA IFX FXB XJX EXX XXI XKX XXK FGI DXX EDL MXN XLX XXX FXX MIJ XHX NCX
Closest metre Iambic dimeter
Characters 1,010
Words 199
Stanzas 22
Stanza Lengths 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was a Latino-American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. more…

All William Carlos Williams poems | William Carlos Williams Books

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