Stephen J. Williams

Tag: poetry

  • Protected: We hope, we hope

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  • Would-be oligarch falls to death from sky

    “If only things had turned out differently, 
    this time,” he thinks, undone now by flying.
    His mind’s archives change to melody. They 
    scream a vapid, sentimental song of 
    mayhem in the air that, from down here,
    is just a smudge and smoky curlicue. 
    The old, Austrian seer foretold that death 
    is the subjunctive of our very being. 
    Our birdman, he grasps it now and succumbs 
    to that truth’s sting—his personal pain. 
    In chapels spanning every longitude 
    of its vast motherland, his public hear 
    the solemn knell that tolls his passing hour. 

    Peasants, scholars, drivers on the roads begin 
    to capture his descent on mobile phones. 
    They see it for what it is … proof of life,
    descending earthward, flames. They take a pause.
    The savage boar and all his clan are dead.
    These simple folk believe this life’s no more 
    than a trip to a zoo, where animals 
    root in the dirt and fling their shit about. 
    They thought there was no end to their decline, 
    no respite. Then, a man falls from the sky
    into his grave, and proves the zoo is ours 
    to leave. And governments, disasters, wars, 
    simply, but sometimes by chance, always end.

    Firefighters in Russia (watercolor and acrylic on paper, 20230414) Stephen J. Williams
    Firefighters in Russia (watercolor and acrylic on paper, 20230414) Stephen J. Williams

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  • Love-slide

    Color-changed and juices spent your average tree 
abandons hope of saving its riches and begins 
a fall that resembles economic collapse. One thing 
leads to another. Moisture accumulating in the sky … 
A boulder balancing against gravity over 
the mountain path … An old gasket no longer 
able to hold its own for the safety of a cook … 
The moment arrives like a mob in the street. Some 
sweet souls just want to kiss the new year in
and others have an urge to kill. The monkey's 
grip lets go. Everyone is soaking wet with ‘love.’ 
Music scores are marked crescendo. A Tolstoyan 
force of history relieves us of responsibility 
for the deaths of shopkeepers and of friends 
before the final peace sets in, the end of ends.

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  • Attack of the Nabokovs

    Look! From out of history’s darkening skies
A kaleidoscope of amorous, witty butterflies
Comes to save us—from fatuous liars
And deceivers, from ‘fake news’ and perdition’s fires.

Welcome them, friend. Let them land
Their gaudy wings upon your hand,
Or head, or nose, or knee, or bum.
Let them flit and ‘do their thing’ until the job is done!
    Attack of the Nabokovs (pencil, 20220220) Stephen J. Williams

  • Ideology of the horse

    The horse moved quietly among us in the street
 The giant head of this horse did not whinny
 There were no thoughts behind its dark eyes when I looked into them
 We talked about such horses being noble creatures but what is a virtuous horse?
 It was bred to be a working animal and therefore we imagined it was like us
 The horse moved away and climbed a hill on which there was a plinth
 When it arrived there it adopted a fighting pose
 Both forelegs tore at the grey sky
 The halo of the sun shone behind the horse’s head
 Immediately, the self-sacrificing horse jumped high into the light
 It seemed to reach a very great height
 Then, I admit I felt for a moment both sickness and fear
 (I did not want to look
 But look we all did, just in a glance)
 The horse’s thick neck broke awkwardly underneath its fallen body
 What was the ideology of the horse?
 What was it thinking?!
 It was tough then to look into its dead eyes