{"id":575,"date":"2010-04-27T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T04:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/27\/c-k-william-wasp\/"},"modified":"2010-04-27T08:00:33","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T12:00:33","slug":"c-k-william-wasp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/27\/c-k-william-wasp\/","title":{"rendered":"C.K. Williams, “Wasp”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ck-williams.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\n

Hammer, hammer, hammer, the wasp
\nhas been banging his head on the window for hours;
\nyou’d think by now he’d be brain-dead, but no,
\nhe flings himself at the pane: hammer, hammer again.<\/p>\n

I ease around him to open the sash, hoping
\nhe doesn’t sting me because then I’d be sorry
\nI didn’t kill him, but he pays me no mind:
\nit’s still fling, hammer, fling, hammer again.<\/p>\n

I’m sure his brain’s safe, his bones are outside,
\nbut up there mine are, too, so why does it hurt
\nso much to keep thinking—hammer, hammer—
\nthe same things again and, hammer, again?<\/p>\n

That invisible barrier between you and the world,
\nbetween you and your truth… Stinger blunted,
\nwings frayed, only the battering, battered brain,
\nonly the hammer, hammer, hammer again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

C.K. Williams<\/a> will be reading from his latest collection, Wait<\/i><\/a>, tonight at the Free Library in Philadelphia. Other poems in this book include “We<\/a>” (published in Slate<\/i>), “Dust<\/a>” (The New Yorker<\/i>), “I Hate<\/a>,” and “Zebra<\/a>” (both from Poetry<\/i>).<\/p>\n

Then there’s “Rats,” which Williams recited for a Big Think<\/i> interview<\/a>, after sharing his thoughts about global warming and the Bush administration…<\/p>\n


\n<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hammer, hammer, hammer, the wasp has been banging his head on the window for hours; you’d think by now he’d be brain-dead, but no, he flings himself at the pane: hammer, hammer again. I ease around him to open the sash, hoping he doesn’t sting me because then I’d be sorry I didn’t kill him, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}