e.e. cummings

"1(a"

1(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

"i like my body when it is with your"

i like my body when it is with your
body.  It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body.  i like what it does,
i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss,  i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

"mr youse needn't be so spry"

mr youse needn't be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man's solid bliss
for youse ideas i'll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues

"my mind is"

my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.

"she being Brand"

she being Brand

-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg.  ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

			      (it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on

the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)

"suppose"

suppose
Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.

young death sits in a cafe
smiling, a piece of money held between
his thumb and first finger

(i say "will he buy flowers" to you
and "Death is young
life wears velour trousers
life totters, life has a beard" i

say to you who are silent. - "Do you see
Life? he is there and here,
or that, or this
or nothing or an old man 3 thirds
asleep, on his head
flowers, always crying
to nobody something about les
roses les bluets
                 yes,
                     will He buy?
Les belles bottes - oh hear
, pas cheres")

and my love slowly answered I think so. But
I think I see someone else

there is a lady, whose name is Afterwards
she is sitting beside young death, is slender;
likes flowers.

"when man determined to destroy"

when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because

Robinson Jeffers

"The Answer"

Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams. 
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence, 
     and their tyrants come, many times before. 
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose 
     the least ugly faction; these evils are essential. 
To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted 
     and not wish for evil; and not be duped 
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will 
     not be fulfilled. 
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear 
     the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand 
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars 
     and his history... for contemplation or in fact... 
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness, 
     the greatest beauty is 
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty 
     of the universe. Love that, not man 
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions, 
     or drown in despair when his days darken.

"Ave Caesar"

No bitterness: our ancestors did it.
They were only ignorant and hopeful, they wanted freedom but wealth too.
Their children will learn to hope for a Caesar.
Or rather--for we are not aquiline Romans but soft mixed colonists--
Some kindly Sicilian tyrant who'll keep
Poverty and Carthage off until the Romans arrive,
We are easy to manage, a gregarious people,
Full of sentiment, clever at mechanics, and we love our luxuries. 

"Be Angry at the Sun"

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

"Contemplation of the Sword"

Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel, 
        formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms 
        and counter-storms of general destruction; killing 
        of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or 
        less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice, 
        the innocent air
Perverted into assasin and poisoner.

The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible 
        baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement, 
        mass-tourture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man's forhead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for 
        happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.

Dear God, who are the whole splendor of things and the sacred 
        stars, but also the cruelty and greed, the treacheries
And vileness, insanities and filth and anguish: now that this 
        thing comes near us again I am finding it hard
To praise you with a whole heart.
I know what pain is, but pain can shine. I know what death is, 
        I have sometimes
Longed for it. But cruelty and slavery and degredation, 
        pestilence, filth, the pitifulness
Of men like hurt little birds and animals . . . if you were 
        only
Waves beating rock, the wind and the iron-cored earth,
With what a heart I could praise your beauty.
You will not repent, nor cancel life, nor free man from anguish
For many ages to come. You are the one that tortures himself to 
        discover himself: I am
One that watches you and discovers you, and praises you in little 
        parables, idyl or tragedy, beautiful
Intolerable God.
The sword: that is:
I have two sons whom I love. They are twins, they were born 
        in nineteen sixteen, which seemed to us a dark year
Of a great war, and they are now of the age
That war prefers. The first-born is like his mother, he is so 
        beautiful
That persons I hardly know have stopped me on the street to 
        speak of the grave beauty of the boy's face.
The second-born has strength for his beauty; when he strips 
        for swimming the hero shoulders and wrestler loins
Make him seem clothed. The sword: that is: loathsome disfigurements, 
        blindness, mutilation, locked lips of boys
Too proud to scream.
Reason will not decide at last: the sword will decide.

"The Excesses Of God"
 
Is it not by his high superfluousness we know
Our God? For to be equal a need
Is natural, animal, mineral: but to fling
Rainbows over the rain
And beauty above the moon, and secret rainbows
On the domes of deep sea-shells,
And make the necessary embrace of breeding
Beautiful also as fire,
Not even the weeds to multiply without blossom
Nor the birds without music:
There is the great humaneness at the heart of things,
The extravagant kindness, the fountain
Humanity can understand, and would flow likewise
If power and desire were perch-mates. 

"The Great Explosion"

The universe expands and contracts like a great heart.
It is expanding, the farthest nebulae
Rush with the speed of light into empty space.
It will contract, the immense navies of stars and galaxies,
            dust clouds and nebulae
Are recalled home, they crush against each other in one
            harbor, they stick in one lump
And then explode it, nothing can hold them down; there is no
            way to express that explosion; all that exists
Roars into flame, the tortured fragments rush away from each 
            other into all the sky, new universes
Jewel the black breast of night; and far off the outer nebulae 
            like charging spearmen again
Invade emptiness.
No wonder we are so fascinated with 
        fireworks
And our huge bombs: it is a kind of homesickness perhaps for
        the howling fireblast that we were born from.

But the whole sum of the energies
That made and contain the giant atom survives. It will 
        gather again and pile up, the power and the glory--
And no doubt it will burst again; diastole and systole: the 
        whole universe beats like a heart.
Peace in our time was never one of God's promises; but back 
        and forth, live and die, burn and be damned,
The great heart beating, pumping into our arteries His 
        terrible life.
He is beautiful beyond belief.
And we, God's apes--or tragic children--share in the beauty.
        We see it above our torment, that's what life's for.
He is no God of love, no justice of a little city like Dante's
        Florence, no anthropoid God
Making commandments,: this is the God who does not care
        and will never cease. Look at the seas there
Flashing against this rock in the darkness--look at the
        tide-stream stars--and the fall of nations--and dawn
Wandering with wet white feet down the Caramel Valley to
        meet the sea. These are real and we see their beauty.
The great explosion is probably only a metaphor--I know not
        --of faceless violence, the root of all things.

"Hurt Hawks"

I

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder, 
The wing trails like a banner in defeat, 
No more to use the sky forever but live with famine 
And pain a few days; cat nor coyote 
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game 
    without talons. 
He stands under the oak-bush and waits 
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom 
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it. 
He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is 
    worse. 
The curs of the day come and torment him 
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that 
    head, 
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes. 
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those 
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant. 
You do not know him, you communal people, or you have 
    forgotten him; 
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him; 
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, 
    remember him. 

II

I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but 
    the great redtail 
Had nothing left but unable misery 
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed 
    under his talons when he moved. 
We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom, 
He wandered over the forland hill and returned in the evening, 
    asking for death, 
Not like a begger, still-eyed with the old 
Implacable arrogance. I gave him the lead gift in the 
    twilight, 
    What fell was relaxed, 
Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what 
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river 
    cried fear at its rising 
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.

"Shine, Perishing Republic"

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily
    thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out,
    and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the
    fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness
    and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste, haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good,
    be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
    shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the
    thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's
    feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever
    servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught -- they
    say -- God, when he walked on earth.

"Shiva"
 
There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.
She loads the arts with nonsense, she is very cunning
Science with dreams and the state with powers to catch them at last.
Nothing will escape her at last, flying nor running.
This is the hawk that picks out the star's eyes.
This is the only hunter that will ever catch the wild swan;
The prey she will take last is the wild white swan of the beauty of things.
Then she will be alone, pure destruction, achieved and supreme,
Empty darkness under the death-tent wings.
She will build a nest of the swan's bones and hatch a new brood,
Hang new heavens with new birds, all be renewed.

Piet Hein

"Atomyriades"

Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards.

"The Egocentrics"

People are self-centered
to a nauseous degree.
They will keep on about themselves
while I'm explaining me.

"An Ethical Grook"

I see
    and I hear
       and I speak no evil;
I carry
    no malice
       within my breast;
yet quite without
    wishing
       a man to the Devil
one may be
    permitted
       to hope for the best.

"Hint and Suggestion"

The human spirit sublimates
the impulses it thwarts:
a healthy sex life mitigates
the lust for other sports.

"Last Things First"

Solutions to problems
 are easy to find:
the problem's a great
 contribution.
What's truly an art
 is to wring from your mind
a problem to fit
 a solution.

"Living Is"

Living is
      a thing you do
now or never -
      which do you?

"Meeting the Eye"

You'll probably find
      that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
      than you look.

Observe that the easiest
      method by far
is to look a bit stupider
      than you are.

"Naive"

Naive you are
if you believe
life favours those
who aren't naive.

"The Opposite View"

For many system shoppers it's
 a good-for-nothing system
that classifies as opposites
 stupidity and wisdom. 

because by logic-choppers it's
 accepted with avidity:
stupidity's true opposite's
 the opposite stupidity.

"Small Things and Great"

He that lets
the small things bind him
leaves the great
undone behind him.

"Those Who Know"

Those who always
know what’s best
are
a universal pest.

"A Toast"

The soul may be a mere pretence,
the mind makes very little sense.
So let us value the appeal
of that which we can taste and feel.

"Two Passivists"

Eradicate the optimist
that human values will persist
no matter what we do. 

Annihilate the pessimist
whose ineffectual cry
is that the goal's already missed
however hard we try.

"The Ultimate Wisdom"

Philosophers
must ultimately find
their true perfection
in knowing all
the follies of mankind
-- by introspection.

Dorothy Parker

"Anecdote"

So silent I when Love was by
He yawned, and turned away;
But Sorrow clings to my apron-strings,
I have so much to say.

"Bohemia"

Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses' necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!

"A Certain Lady"

Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head, 
    And drink your rushing words with eager lips, 
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red, 
    And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips. 
When you rehearse your list of loves to me, 
    Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed. 
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
    The thousand little deaths my heart has died. 
And you believe, so well I know my part, 
    That I am gay as morning, light as snow, 
And all the straining things within my heart 
    You'll never know. 

Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet, 
    And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, -- 
Of ladies delicately indiscreet, 
    Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things. 
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew 
    To sing me sagas of your late delights. 
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true, 
    Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights. 
And when, in search of novelty, you stray, 
    Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go .... 
And what goes on, my love, while you're away, 
    You'll never know.

"Cherry White"

I never see that prettiest thing-
A cherry bough gone white with Spring-
But what I think, "How gay 'twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree."

"Condolence"

They hurried here, as soon as you had died,
Their faces damp with haste and sympathy,
And pressed my hand in theirs, and smoothed my knee,
And clicked their tongues, and watched me, mournful-eyed.
Gently they told me of that Other Side-
How, even then, you waited there for me,
And what ecstatic meeting ours would be.
Moved by the lovely tale, they broke, and cried.

And when I smiled, they told me I was brave,
And they rejoiced that I was comforted,
And left to tell of all the help they gave.
But I had smiled to think how you, the dead,
So curiously preoccupied and grave,
Would laugh, could you have heard the things they said.

"The Danger of Defiant Verse"

And now I have another lad!
 No longer need you tell
How all my nights are slow and sad
 For loving you too well.

His ways are not your wicked ways,
 He's not the like of you.
He treads his path of reckoned days,
 A sober man, and true.

They'll never see him in the town,
 Another on his knee.
He'd cut his laden orchards down,
 If that would pleasure me.

He'd give his blood to paint my lips
 If I should wish them red.
He prays to touch my finger-tips
 Or stroke my prideful head.

He never weaves a glinting lie,
 Or brags the hearts he'll keep.
I have forgotten how to sigh-
 Remembered how to sleep.

He's none to kiss away my mind-
 A slower way is his.
Oh, Lord! On reading this, I find
 A silly lot he is.

"A Fairly Sad Tale"

I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic-
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?

"The False Friends"

They laid their hands upon my head,
They stroked my cheek and brow;
And time could heal a hurt, they said,
And time could dim a vow.
And they were pitiful and mild
Who whispered to me then,
"The heart that breaks in April, child,
Will mend in May again."

Oh, many a mended heart they knew.
So old they were, and wise.
And little did they have to do
To come to me with lies!

Who flings me silly talk of May
Shall meet a bitter soul;
For June was nearly spent away
Before my heart was whole.

"Fighting Words"

Say my love is easy had,
  Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad-
  Still behold me at your side.

Say I'm neither brave nor young,
  Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue-
  Still you have my heart to wear.

But say my verses do not scan,
  And I get me another man!

"From A Letter From Lesbia"

... So, praise the gods, Catullus is away!
And let me tend you this advice, my dear:
Take any lover that you will, or may,
Except a poet. All of them are queer.

It's just the same -- a quarrel or a kiss
Is but a tune to play upon his pipe.
He's always hymning that or wailing this;
Myself, I much prefer the business type.

That thing he wrote, the time the sparrow died --
(Oh, most unpleasant -- gloomy, tedious words!)
I called it sweet, and made believe I cried;
The stupid fool! I've always hated birds ...

"Frustration"

If I had a shiny gun,
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon-
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

"I Know I Have Been Happiest"

I know I have been happiest at your side;
But what is done, is done, and all's to be.
And small the good, to linger dolefully-
Gayly it lived, and gallantly it died.
I will not make you songs of hearts denied,
And you, being man, would have no tears of me,
And should I offer you fidelity,
You'd be, I think, a little terrified.

Yet this the need of woman, this her curse:
To range her little gifts, and give, and give,
Because the throb of giving's sweet to bear.
To you, who never begged me vows or verse,
My gift shall be my absence, while I live;
But after that, my dear, I cannot swear.

"Incurable"

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new-
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what's a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?
Though he be tried and he be bold,
And swearing death should he be cold,
He'll run the path the others went....
But you, my sweet, are different.

"Interior"

Her mind lives in a quiet room,
  A narrow room, and tall,
With pretty lamps to quench the gloom  
  And mottoes on the wall.

There all the things are waxen neat
  And set in decorous lines;
And there are posies, round and sweet,
  And little, straightened vines.

Her mind lives tidily, apart
  From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
  Out wailing in the rain.

"Interview"

The ladies men admire, I've heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They'd rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints.
So far, I have had no complaints.

"Observation"

If I don't drive around the park, 
I'm pretty sure to make my mark. 
If I'm in bed each night by ten, 
I may get back my looks again, 
If I abstain from fun and such, 
I'll probably amount to much, 
But I shall stay the way I am, 
Because I do not give a damn. 

"Men"

They hail you as their morning star
Because you are the way you are.
If you return the sentiment,
They'll try to make you different;
And once they have you, safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on;
They'd make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They'd alter all that they admired.
They make me sick, they make me tired.

"Parable for a Certain Virgin"

Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine;
  Refresh your recollection,
And sit a moment, to define 
  His means of self-protection.

How truly fortified is he!
  Where is the beast his double
In forethought of emergency
  And readiness for trouble?

Recall his figure, and his shade-
  How deftly planned and clearly
For slithering through the dappled glade
  Unseen, or pretty nearly.

Yet should an alien eye discern
  His presence in the woodland,
How little has he left to learn
  Of self-defense! My good land!

For he can run, as swift as sound,
  To where his goose may hang high-
Or thrust his head against the ground  
  And tunnel half to Shanghai;

Or he can climb the dizziest bough-
  Unhesitant, mechanic-
And, resting, dash from off his brow
  The bitter beads of panic;

Or should pursuers press him hot,
  One scarcely needs to mention
His quick and cruel barbs, that got
  Shakespearean attention;

Or driven to his final ditch,
  To his extremest thicket,
He'll fight with claws and molars (which
  Is not considered cricket).

How amply armored, he, to fend
  The fear of chase that haunts him!
How well prepared our little friend!-
  And who the devil wants him?

"Resume"

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

"Symptom Recital"

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men....
I'm due to fall in love again.

"Unfortunate Coincidence"

By the time you swear you're his,
  Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
  Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
  One of you is lying.

"Wail"

Love has gone a-rocketing.
  That is not the worst;
I could do without the thing,
  And not be the first.

Joy has gone the way it came.
  That is nothing new;
I could get along the same-
  Many people do.

Dig for me the narrow bed.
  Now I am bereft.
All my pretty hates are dead,
  And what have I left?