First let me credit member 5Parker for posting, and e.e.cummings for the poetry:
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
....
First let me credit member 5Parker for posting, and e.e.cummings for the poetry:
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
....
From "a clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon":
a clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon
(where once good lips stalked or eyes firmly stirred)
my mirror gives me,on this afternoon;
i am a shape that can but eat and turd
ere with the dirt death shall him vastly gird,
a coward waiting clumsily to cease
whom every perfect thing meanwhile doth miss;
a hand's impression in an empty glove,
a soon forgotten tune,a house for lease.
I have never loved you dear as now i love
....
god's terrible face,brighter than a spoon,
collects the image of one fatal word;
so that my life(which liked the sun and the moon)
resembles something that has not occurred:
i am a birdcage without any bird,
a collar looking for a dog,a kiss
without lips;a prayer lacking any knees
but something beats within my shirt to prove
he is undead who,living,noone is.
I have never loved you dear as now i love.
Hell(by most humble me which shall increase)
open thy fire!for i have had some bliss
of one small lady upon earth above;
to whom i cry,remembering her face,
i have never loved you dear as now i love
e.e.cummings
From http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch....html?id=81323
(Part of an interesting critique of e.e.cummings) Other critics focused on the subjects of Cummings' poetry. Though his poetic language was uniquely his own, Cummings' poems were unusual because they unabashedly focused on such traditional and somewhat passe poetic themes as love, childhood, and flowers. What Cummings did with such subjects, according to Stephen E. Whicher in Twelve American Poets, was, "by verbal ingenuity, without the irony with which another modern poet would treat such a topic, create a sophisticated modern facsimile of the 'naive' lyricism of Campion or Blake." This resulted in what Whicher termed "the renewal of the cliche." Penberthy detected in Cummings a "nineteenth-century romantic reverence for natural order over man-made order, for intuition and imagination over routine-grounded perception. His exalted vision of life and love is served well by his linguistic agility. He was an unabashed lyricist, a modern cavalier love poet. But alongside his lyrical celebrations of nature, love, and the imagination are his satirical denouncements of tawdry, defiling, flat-footed, urban and political life—open terrain for invective and verbal inventiveness."
Wow, I would agree and disagree. There seems to be something terribly dark about cummings, more of a lament sometimes rather than a celebration, at least for me.
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
From "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
....
stand-
;Still)
e.e. cummings
From "i have found what you are like"
by e e cummings
i have found what you are like
the rain,
(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields
easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike
the air in utterable coolness
deeds of green thrilling light
with thinned
newfragile yellows
lurch and.press
-in the woods
which
stutter
and
sing
....
(This post serves only to illustrate how political e.e.cummings could be.)
From "kumrads die because they're told)"
kumrads die because they're told)
kumrads die before they're old
(kumrads aren't afraid to die
kumrads don't
and kumrads won't
believe in life)and death knows whie
....
every kumrad is a bit
of quite unmitigated hate
(travelling in a futile groove
god knows why)
and so do i
(because they are afraid to love
From http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/1...-prospero.html
"When you see the gravestones from the little necropolis of Cameirus . . . it is the so-often repeated single word -- the anonymous Xaipe-- which attracts you . . . . It is not the names of the rich or the worthy . . . but this single word, 'Be Happy,' serving both as a farewell and admonition, that goes to your heart with the whole impact of the Greek style of mind, the Greek orientation to life and death: so that you are shamed into . . . realizing how little you have fulfilled . . . a thought so simple yet so pregnant, and how even your native vocabulary lacks a word whose brevity and grace could paint upon the darkness of death the fading colors of such gaiety, love and truth as Xaipe does upon these modest gravestones."
(Exerpt from copyrighted travel writer Freya Stark) explanation of Xiape, the title of a collection of poems by e.e.cummings
From "in just-"
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
....
http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/mem...ngs/roomTC.htm The work is called "The Enormous Room"; kind of a memoir of his days in stir. quasimodo1
From "nothing false and possible is love... (XXXIV)" by E. E. Cummings
nothing false and possible is love
(who's imagined,therefore is limitless)
love's to giving as to keeping's give;
as yes is to if,love is to yes
must's a schoolroom in the month of may:
life's the deathboard where all now turns when
(love's a universe beyond obey
or command,reality or un-)
....
From "Doveglion" by E. E. Cummings"
he isn't looking at anything
he isn't looking for something
he isn't looking
he is seeing
what
not something outside himself
not anything inside himself
but himself
himself how
....
Oh, that is so lovely. *heart melts*Originally Posted by quasimodo1
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
From "gee i like to think of dead" by E. E. Cummings
gee i like to think of dead it means nearer because deeper firmer
since darker than little round water at one end of the well it's
too cool to be crooked and it's too firm to be hard but it's sharp
and thick and it loves, every old thing falls in rosebugs and
jackknives and kittens and pennies they all sit there looking at
each other having the fastest time because they've never met before
dead's more even than how many ways of sitting on your head your
unnatural hair has in the morning
dead's clever too like POF goes the alarm off and the little striker
having the best time tickling away everybody's brain so everybody
just puts out their finger and they stuff the poor thing all full
of fingers
dead has a smile like the nicest man you've never met who maybe winks
at you in a streetcar and you pretend you don't but really you do
see and you are My how glad he winked and hope he'll do it again
or if it talks about you somewhere behind your back it makes your neck
feel pleasant and stoopid and if dead says may i have this one and
was never introduced you say Yes because you know you want it to dance
with you and it wants to and it can dance and Whocares
....
From "as freedom is a breakfastfood" by E. E. Cummings
as freedom is a breakfastfood
or truth can live with right and wrong
or molehills are from mountains made
-long enough and just so long
will being pay the rent of seem
and genius please the talentgang
and water most encourage flame
as hatracks into peachtrees grow
or hopes dance best on bald men's hair
and every finger is a toe
and any courage is a fear
-long enough and just so long
will the impure think all things pure
and hornets wail by children stung
....
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