Inside A Letter Box

Charles Demuth.  I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (To W.C.W.). 1928. Oil on cardboard, 90.2 x 76.2 cm. (inspired by the poem below)

The Great Figure, William Carlos Williams (1921)

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

Source:The Poetry Foundation.

Asphodelus luteus L.,* from the Linnean herbarium. 

William Carlos Williams: Of Asphodel 

When I was a boy
            I kept a book
                        to which, from time
to time,
            I added pressed flowers
                        until, after a time,
I had a good collection.
            The asphodel,
                        forebodingly,
among them.

(l. 69-78)

* [T]he Fields of Asphodel [are] where the dead, the burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home.  Odyssey 24.5-9, trans. Robert Fagles

(Source: linnaeus.nrm.se)

William Carlos Williams, a draft of Brueghel I (Death of Icarus). 

Peter Brueghel (attributed to), Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.  c. 1560. Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 112 cm. 

On the verso of William Carlos Williams’ business card:

Gadding about as usual

Sorry we can’t amuse you all

The business card of William Carlos Williams (with autographed note and illustration on verso).