The brothers’ related banter…
J: …Hank should we answer some people’s questions?
H: No, but John, wait! Don’t you have to read us a poem?
J: So Hank you’ll recall last week’s short poem was by William Carlos Williams who was a physician, often wrote very short poems on the back of prescription pads, This Is Just To Say “I have eaten the plums that were in the ice box” et cetera? Well this is a slightly longer poem that I really enjoy, it’s by Kenneth Koch often associated with the Beat movement, somewhat unfairly I think, but anyway, moving on, it’s called Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams.
(Reads poem)
H: (Laughs) That’s nice, John, I liked it.
J: I knew I could find a poem you would like if I tried hard enough!
H: I’m coming around, I’m coming around. I don’t know that you’re gonna sway me into becoming a hardcore AFC Wimbledon fan but you may yet make me enjoy poetry.
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Click to read poem
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
And its wooden beams were so inviting.
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
And then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do no know what I am doing.
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
And the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
John Green Reads Poetry 