Poem - Song

Comparing and contrasting one of William's poems to a song

Both this song and this poem share a lot of similarities mainly having to do with losing someone close. The song and the poem are about helping the people close to them, but the song is more about saving the person, while the poem by Williams is more about trying to help the grandmother. Either way, both the poem and the song is showing care and concern to the person who’s on the verge of death or is already dead.

I think the poem concentrates more on doing what’s right for the well being of the grandmother. Even though the grandson is trying to help, the grandmother doesn’t appreciate it because she’s being taken away from her home and specifically told the grandson that she doesn’t want to go to the hospital, but she didn’t have much of a choice. On the way to the hospital, you can see she isn’t well and the grandson was only trying to save her.

On another note, the song reflects on someone who has already passed away. More importantly, this song is about doing everything he can for this person even by lending a hand although it’s too late. Though he can’t save his friend/family, the song continues on that he will sing for his deceased friend/family.

Overall, they are similar in a way that the song and the poem are about someone close to them and trying to help that person out in whatever way possible.

At Your Funeral

Saves the Day

This song will become
the anthem of
your underground

You're two floors down
getting high in the back room

If I flooded out your house
do you think you'd make it out
or would you burn up before the water filled your lungs?

And at your funeral
I will sing the requiem

This song will become
the anthem of
your underground

You're two floors down
getting high in the back room

If I flooded out your house
do you think you'd make it out
or would you burn up before the water filled your lungs?

And at your funeral
I will sing the requiem

I'd offer you my hand
it would hurt to much to watch you die

And you can bet
when we mourn the death of you that night
of you that night

They'll lay me on the dinner table
I will be the pig
with the apple in my mouth
the food that celebrates your end

And at your funeral
I will sing the requiem
I'd offer you my hand
it would hurt to much to watch you die

And at your funeral
I will sing the requiem
I'd offer you my hand
it would hurt to much to watch you die

The Last Words of My English Grandmother

William Carlos Williams

There were some dirty plates
and a glass of milk
beside her small table
near the rank, disheveled bed---

Wrinkled and nearly blind
she lay and snored
rousing with anger in her tones
to cry for food,

Gimme something to eat---
They're starving me---
I'm all right I won't go
to the hospital. No, no, no

you can do as you please.
She smiled, Yes
you do what you please first
then I can do what I please---

Oh, oh, oh! she cried
as the ambulance men lifted
her to the stretcher---
Is this what you call

making me comfortable?
By now her mind was clear---
Oh you think you're smart
you young people,

she said, but I'll tell you
you don't know anything.
Then we started.
On the way

we passed a long row
of elms. She looked at them
awhile out of
the ambulance window and said,

What are all those
fuzzy--looking things out there?
Trees? Well, I'm tired
of them and rolled her head away.