The Online Workshop Rewrites “Stopping by Woods”
i. (Posted by W. C. Williams)
so much depends
upon
the brass bells
plated
glazed with downy
flake
beside the frayed
harness.
ii. (Posted by John Berryman)
Aw, Mr. Bones, come on!
Why leave me here—
so tired & so late, & miles to go before I sleep?
You do yourself better, stopping near.
Like everybody & sure,
Henry failed, did not any promises keep.
Henry’s head in trouble do feel queer.
It’s just the woods he say,
and the farmhouse near—
for the girls are lovely dark and deep—
once upon a time & ‘tis all a mistake
for he had once his house in his village.
Pussy-cat, watch woods fill up with snow
all easy wind and flake.
iii. (Posted by Bob Dylan)
How many homes in the village must a man have
Before he’s a man you would know?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the horse’s bells shake
Before they’d forever slow?
Yes, ‘n’ how many woods must a man walk through
before he sleeps in the snow?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
How many times must a horse look up
Before he can see what is queer?
Yes, ‘n’ how many eyes must one man have
Before he can see a lake near?
Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
‘tis the darkest evening of the year?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
How many years can a forest exist
Before it’s lovely, dark and deep?
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist
Before promises are allowed to keep?
Yes, ‘n’ how many miles must a man have to go,
pretending he just doesn’t sleep?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
Paul Dickey won the $5,000 2015 Master Poet award from the Nebraska Arts Council. His first full-length poetry manuscript, They Say This is How Death Came Into the World, was published by Mayapple Press in January, 2011. His poetry and flash have appeared in Verse Daily, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Southern Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Pleaides, 32Poems, Bellevue Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, and online at Linebreak, among other online and print publications. A second book, Wires Over the Homeplace, was published by Pinyon Publishing in October, 2013. More information about Paul can be found here.