[the cocktail hour finally arrives: whether ending a day at the office],D.A. Powell

the cocktail hour finally arrives: whether ending a day at the office

or opening the orifice at 6am [legal again to pour in californica]: the time is always right



we need a little glamour and glamour arrives: plenty of chipped ice

a green jurassic palm tree planted. a yellow spastic monkey swinging



a pink classic flamingo impaled upon the exuberant red of cherries

dash of bitters. vermouth sweet. enough rye whiskey to kill



this longing: I take my drinks still and stuffed with plastic. like my lovers

my billfold full of rubbers. OPENs my mouth: its tiny neon lounge



From Cocktails by D. A. Powell. Copyright © 2004 by D. A. Powell. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. All rights reserved.

Spring and All by William Carlos Williams

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind-

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf


But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken



Copyright © 1962 by William Carlos Williams. Used with permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this poem may be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the publisher @ poets.org.