On poetry

I have never had such a reaction to a poem before until I read
William Carlos Williams "Death". Each new stanza swelled into the next until I my heart was pounding and I wanted to cry.
My heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to stop beating at any moment. So hard that everyone should have felt it. It hurt my heart to hear the words, and yet I couldn't escape. Didn't want to escape. I have never felt something such a strong pull from a poem before. Never felt the meaning so deep down in my bones. Knew exactly what emotion every line was referring to. I never understood a poem the first time I heard it. But this one.. I got. The very marrow of my bones felt the sorrow in his words. The anguish. The angry.

William Carlos Williams "Death" (Williams refers to his father's death in 1918)

He's dead
the dog won't have to
sleep on his potatoes
any more to keep them
from freezing

he's dead
the old bastard -
he's a bastard because

there's nothing
legitimate in him any
more
he's dead
he's sick-dead

he's
a godforsaken curio
without
any breath in it

he's nothing at all
he's dead
shrunken up to skin

Put his head on
one chair and his
feet on another and
he'll lie there
like an acrobat -

Love's beaten. He
beat it. That's why
he's insufferable -

because
he's here needing a
shave and making love
an inside howl
of anguish and defeat -

he's come out of the man
and he's let
the man go -
the liar

Dead
his eyes
rolled up out of
the light - a mockery

which
love cannot touch -

just bury it
and hide its face
for shame.