Name: is 5
Author: E. E. Cummings

by E. E. Cummings

is

NEW YORK

BONI & LIVERIGHT

1926

COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY BONI & LIVERIGHT

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED BY SAMUEL AIWAZ JACOBS

AT THE POLYTYPE PRESS

NEW YORK

FOREWORD

On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an introduction to this book.

At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. “Would you hit a woman with a child?—No, I’d hit her with a brick.” Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little—somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions, the Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interest in making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should prefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses. It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my “poems” are competing.

They are also competing with each other, with elephants, and with El Greco.

Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the merely undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in a purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon the title page of the present volume.)

E. E. Cummings.

A LIST OF WHERE
THESE POEMS

have been published

*

England France Italy
Austria and
America

*

TITLE IS V

FOREWORD vii

ONE I-XL 1-55

TWO I-XI 57-72

THREE I-X 73-86

FOUR I-XVIII 87-107

FIVE I-V 109-115

ONE

FIVE AMERICANS

I. LIZ

I

with breathing as (faithfully) her lownecked

dress a little topples and slightly expands

one square foot mired in silk wrinkling loth

stocking begins queerly to do a few

gestures to death,

the silent shoulders are both

slowly with pinkish ponderous arms bedecked

whose white thick wrists deliver promptly to

a deep lap enormous mindless hands.

and no one knows what (i am sure of this)

her blunt unslender, what her big unkeen

“Business is rotten” the face yawning said

what her mouth thinks of

(if it were a kiss

distinct entirely melting sinuous lean . . .

whereof this lady in some book had read

II. MAME

she puts down the handmirror. “Look at” arranging

before me a mellifluous idiot grin

(with what was nose upwrinkled into nothing

earthly, while the slippery eyes drown

in surging flesh). A thumblike index down-

dragging yanks back skin “see” (i, seeing, ceased

to breathe). The plump left fist opening

“wisdom.” Flicker of gold. “Yep. No gas. Flynn”

the words drizzle untidily from released

cheeks “I’ll tell duh woild; some noive all right.

Aint much on looks but how dat baby ached.”

and when i timidly hinted “novocaine?”

the eyes outstart, curl, bloat, are newly baked

and swaggering cookies of indignant light

III. GERT

joggle i think will do it although the glad

monosyllable jounce possibly can tell

better how the balloons move (as

her ghost lurks, a Beau Brummel sticking in its three-

cornered always moist mouth)—jazz,

for whose twitching lips, between you and me

almost succeeds while toddle rings the bell.

But if her tall corpsecoloured body seat

itself (with the uncouth habitual dull

jerk at garters) there’s no sharpest neat

word for the thing.

Her voice?

gruesome:a trull

leaps from the lungs “gimme uh swell fite

like up ter yknow, Rektuz, Toysday nite;

where uh guy gets gayn troze uh lobstersalad

IV. MARJ

“life?

Listen” the feline she with radishred

legs said (crossing them slowly)“I’m

asleep. Yep. Youse is asleep kid

and everybody is.” And i hazarded

“god” (blushing slightly)—“O damn

ginks like dis Gawd” opening slowlyslowly

them—then carefully the rolypoly

voice squatting on a mountain of gum did

something like a whisper, “even her.”

“The Madam?” I emitted; vaguely watching

that mountainous worthy in the fragile act

of doing her eyebrows.—Marj’s laughter smacked

me: pummeling the curtains, drooped to a purr . . .

i left her permanently smiling

V. FRAN

should i entirely ask of god why

on the alert neck of this brittle whore

delicately wobbles an improbably distinct face,

and how these wooden big two feet conclude

happeningly the unfirm drooping bloated

calves

i would receive the answer more

or less deserved, Young fellow go in peace.

which i do, being as Dick Mid once noted

lifting a Green River (here’s to youse)

“a bloke wot’s well behaved” . . . and always try

to not wonder how let’s say elation

causes the bent eyes thickly to protrude—

or why her tiniest whispered invitation

is like a clock striking in a dark house

POEM, OR BEAUTY HURTS MR. VINAL

II

take it from me kiddo

believe me

my country, ’tis of

you, land of the Cluett

Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint

Girl With The Wrigley Eyes(of you

land of the Arrow Ide

and Earl &

Wilson

Collars)of you i

sing:land of Abraham Lincoln and Lydia E. Pinkham,

land above all of Just Add Hot Water And Serve—

from every B. V. D.

let freedom ring

amen. i do however protest, anent the un

-spontaneous and otherwise scented merde which

greets one (Everywhere Why) as divine poesy per

that and this radically defunct periodical. i would

suggest that certain ideas gestures

rhymes, like Gillette Razor Blades

having been used and reused

to the mystical moment of dullness emphatically are

Not To Be Resharpened. (Case in point

if we are to believe these gently O sweetly

melancholy trillers amid the thrillers

these crepuscular violinists among my and your

skyscrapers—Helen&Cleopatra were Just Too Lovely,

The Snail’s On The Thorn enter Morn and God’s

In His andsoforth

do you get me? (according

to such supposedly indigenous

throstles Art is O World O Life

a formula:example, Turn Your Shirttails Into

Drawers and If It Isn’t An Eastman It Isn’t A

Kodak therefore my friends let

us now sing each and all fortissimo A-

mer

i

ca, I

love,

You. And there’re a

hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers, like

all of you successfully if

delicately gelded(or spaded)

gentlemen(and ladies)—pretty

littleliverpill-

hearted-Nujolneeding-There’s-A-Reason

americans(who tensetendoned and with

upward vacant eyes, painfully

perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the

sternly allotted sandpile

—how silently

emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance:Odor?

ono.

comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush

III

curtains part)

the peacockappareled

prodigy of Flo’’s midnight

Frolic dolores

small in the head keen chassised like a Rolls

Royce

swoops smoothly

outward(amid

tinkling-cheering-hammering

tables)

while softly along Kirkland Street

the infantile ghost of Professor

Royce rolls

remembering that it

has for

-gotten some-

thing ah

(my

necktie

IV

workingman with hand so hairy-sturdy

you may turn O turn that airy hurdysturdygurdy

but when will turn backward O backward Time in your no thy flight

and make me a child, a pretty dribbling child, a little child.

In thy your ear:

en amerique on ne boit que de Jingyale.

things are going rather kaka

over there, over there.

yet we scarcely fare much better—

what’s become of (if you please)

all the glory that or which was Greece

all the grandja

that was dada?

make me a child, stout hurdysturdygurdyman

waiter, make me a child. So this is Paris.

i will sit in the corner and drink thinks and think drinks,

in memory of the Grand and Old days:

of Amy Sandburg

of Algernon Carl Swinburned.

Waiter a drink waiter two or three drinks

what’s become of Mæterlink

now that April’s here?

(ask the man who owns one

ask Dad, He knows).

V

yonder deadfromtheneckup graduate of a

somewhat obscure to be sure university spends

her time looking picturesque under

the as it happens quite

erroneous impression that he

nascitur

VI

Jimmie’s got a goil

goil

goil,

Jimmie

’s got a goil and

she coitnly can shimmie

when you see her shake

shake

shake,

when

you see her shake a

shimmie how you wish that you was Jimmie.

Oh for such a gurl

gurl

gurl,

oh

for such a gurl to

be a fellow’s twistandtwirl

talk about your Sal-

Sal-

Sal-,

talk

about your Salo

-mes but gimmie Jimmie’s gal.

VII

the waddling

madam star

taps

taps. “ready girls”. the

unspontaneous streets

make bright their eyes

a

blind irisher fiddles a

scotch jig in a stinking

joyman bar

a cockney is

buying whiskies for a turk

a waiter intones:bloo-moo-n

sirkusricky

platzburg

hoppytoad yesmam. the

furious taximan

p(ee)ps

on his whistle somebody

says here’s luck

somebody else says down the hatch

the nigger smiles

the jew stands

besides his teddy-bears

the sailor shuffles the

night with Φυκινγ eyes

the great black preacher gargles jesus

the aesthete indulges

his soul for certain things which died

it is eighteen hundred

years. . . .

exactly

under the window

under the window walk

the unburied feet of

the little ladies more than dead

VIII

listen my children and you

shall hear the true

story of Mr Do

-nothing the wellknown parvenu

who

(having dreamed of a corkscrew)

studied with Freud a year or two

and when Freud got through

with Do-

nothing Do

-nothing could do

nothing which you

and i are accustomed to

accomplish two

or three times, and even a few

more depending on the remu-

nerativeness of the stimulus(eheu

fu

-gaces Postu-

me boo

who)

IX

even if all desires things moments be

murdered known photographed,ourselves yawning will ask ourselves

ou sont les neiges. . . . some

guys talks big

about Lundun Burlin an gay Paree an

some guys claims der never was

nutn like Nooer Leans Shikahgo Sain

Looey Noo York an San Fran dictaphones

wireless subways vacuum

cleaners pianolas funnygraphs skyscrapers an safetyrazors

sall right in its way kiddo

but as fer i gimme de good ole daze. . . .

in dem daze kid Christmas

meant sumpn youse knows wot

i refers ter Satter Nailyuh(comes but once er

year)i’ll tell de woild one swell bangup

time wen nobody wore no cloze

an went runnin aroun wid eachudder Hell

Bent fer election makin believe dey was chust born

X

death is more than

certain a hundred these

sounds crowds odours it

is in a hurry

beyond that any this

taxi smile or angle we do

not sell and buy

things so necessary as

is death and unlike shirts

neckties trousers

we cannot wear it out

no sir which is why

granted who discovered

America ether the movies

may claim general importance

to me to you nothing is

what particularly

matters hence in a

little sunlight and less

moonlight ourselves against the worms

hate laugh shimmy

XI

nobody loses all the time

i had an uncle named

Sol who was a born failure and

nearly everybody said he should have gone

into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could

sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which

may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle

Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable

of all to use a highfalootin phrase

luxuries that is or to

wit farming and be

it needlessly

added

my Uncle Sol’s farm

failed because the chickens

ate the vegetables so

my Uncle Sol had a

chicken farm till the

skunks ate the chickens when

my Uncle Sol

had a skunk farm but

the skunks caught cold and

died and so

my Uncle Sol imitated the

skunks in a subtle manner

or by drowning himself in the watertank

but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor

Victrola and records while he lived presented to

him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a

scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with

tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and

i remember we all cried like the Missouri

when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because

somebody pressed a button

(and down went

my Uncle

Sol

and started a worm farm)

XII

now dis “daughter” uv eve(who aint precisely slim )sim

ply don’t know duh meanin uv duh woid sin in

not disagreeable contras tuh dat not exacly fat

“father”(adjustin his robe)who now puts on his flat hat

XIII

(and i imagine

never mind Joe agreeably cheerfully remarked when

surrounded by fat stupid animals

the jewess shrieked

the messiah tumbled successfully into the world

the animals continued eating. And i imagine she, and

heard them slobber and

in the darkness)

stood sharp angels with faces like Jim Europe

XIV

it really must

be Nice, never to

have no imagination)or never

never to wonder about guys you used to(and them

slim hot queens with dam next to nothing

on)tangoing

(while a feller tries

to hold down the fifty bucks per

job with one foot and rock a

cradle with the other)it Must be

nice never to have no doubts about why you

put the ring

on(and watching her

face grow old and tired to which

you’re married and hands get red washing

things and dishes)and to never, never really wonder i

mean about the smell

of babies and how you

know the dam rent’s going to and everything and never, never

Never to stand at no window

because i can’t sleep(smoking sawdust

cigarettes in the

middle of the night

ITEM

XV

this man is o so

Waiter

this;woman is

please shut that

the pout And affectionate leer

interminable pyramidal,napkins

(this man is oh so tired of this

a door opens by itself

woman.) they so to speak were in

Love once?

now

her mouth opens too far

and:she attacks her Lobster without

feet mingle under the

mercy.

(exit the hors d’œures)

XVI

it started when Bill’s chip let on to

the bulls he’d bumped a bloke back in fifteen.

Then she came toward him on her knees across the locked

room. he knocked her cold and beat it for Chicago.

Eddie was waiting for him, and they cleaned up a few

times—before she got the info

from a broad that knew Eddie in Topeka, went clean

daffy, and which was very silly hocked

the diamond he gave her. Bill was put wise

that she was coming with his kid inside her.

He laughed. She came. he gave her a shove

and asked Eddie did he care to ride her?

. . . .she exactly lay, looking hunks of love

in The Chair he kept talking about eyes

XVII

IKEY(GOLDBERG)’S WORTH I’M

TOLD $ SEVERAL MILLION

FINKLESTEIN(FRITZ)LIVES

AT THE RITZ WEAR

earl & wilson COLLARS

?

XVIII

why are these pipples taking their hets off?

the king & queen

alighting from their limousine

inhabit the Hotel Meurice (whereas

i live in a garret and eat aspirine)

but who is this pale softish almost round

young man to whom headwaiters bow so?

hush—the author of Women By Night whose latest Seeds

Of Evil sold 69 carloads before

publication the girl who goes wrong you

know(whereas when i lie down i cough too

much). How did the traffic get so jammed?

bedad it is the famous doctor who inserts

monkeyglands in millionaires a cute idea n’est-ce pas?

(whereas, upon the other hand, myself)but let us next demand

wherefore yon mob

an accident? somebody got concus-

sion of the brain?—Not

a bit of it, my dears merely the prime

minister of Siam in native

costume, who

emerging from a pissoir

enters abruptly Notre Dame(whereas

de gustibus non disputandum est

my lady is tired of That sort of thing

XIX

this young question mark man

question mark

who suffers from

indigestion question

mark is a remarkably

charming person

personally they tell

me as for me

i only knows that

as far as

his pictures goes

he’s a wet dream

by Cézanne

XX

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

XXI

i was sitting in mcsorley’s. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing.

Inside snug and evil. the slobbering walls filthily push witless creases of screaming warmth chuck pil- lows are noise funnily swallows swallowing revolv- ingly pompous a the swallowed mottle with smooth or a but of rapidly goes gobs the and of flecks of and a chatter sobbings intersect with which distinct disks of graceful oath, upsoarings the break on ceiling- flatness

the Bar.tinking luscious jigs dint of ripe silver with warmlyish wetflat splurging smells waltz the glush of squirting taps plus slush of foam knocked off and a faint piddle-of-drops she says I ploc spittle what the lands thaz me kid in no sir hopping sawdust you kiddo he’s a palping wreaths of badly Yep cigars who jim him why gluey grins topple together eyes pout gestures stickily point made glints squinting who’s a wink bum-nothing and money fuzzily mouths take big wobbly foot-steps every goggle cent of it get out ears dribbles soft right old feller belch the chap hic sum- more eh chuckles skulch. . . .

and i was sitting in the din thinking drinking the ale, which never lets you grow old blinking at the low ceiling my being pleasantly was punctuated by the al- ways retchings of a worthless lamp.

when With a minute terrif iceffortone dirty squeal of soiling light yanKing from bushy obscurity a bald greenish foetal head established It suddenly upon the huge neck around whose unwashed sonorous muscle the filth of a collar hung gently.

(spattered)by this instant of semiluminous nausea A vast wordless nondescript genie of trunk trickled firm- ly in to one exactly-mutilated ghost of a chair,

a;domeshaped interval of complete plasticity,shoul- ders,sprouted the extraordinary arms through an an- gle of ridiculous velocity commenting upon an un- clean table.and,whose distended immense Both paws slowly loved a dinted mug

gone Darkness it was so near to me, i ask of shad- ow won’t you have a drink?

(the eternal perpetual question)

Inside snugandevil. i was sitting in mcsorley’s It,did not answer.

outside.(it was New York and beautifully,snowing. . . .

XXII

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 justas we turned the corner ofDivinity

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)

XXIII

slightly before the middle of Congressman Pudd

’s 4th of July oration, with a curse and a frown

Amy Lowell got up

and all the little schoolchildren sat down

XXIV

Dick Mid’s large bluish face without eyebrows

sits in the kitchen nights and chews a two-bit

cigar

waiting for the bulls to pull his joint.

Jimmie was a dude. Dark hair and nice hands.

with a little eye that rolled and made its point

Jimmie’s sister worked for Dick. And had some rows

over percent. The gang got shot up twice, it

operated in the hundred ands

All the chips would kid Jimmie to give them a kiss

but Jimmie lived regular. stewed three times a week.

and slept twice a week with a big toothless girl

in Yonkers.

Dick Mid’s green large three teeth leak

smoke:remembering, two pink big lips curl. . . .

how Jimmie was framed and got his

oDE

XXV

o

the sweet & aged people

who rule this world(and me and

you if we’re not very

careful)

O,

the darling benevolent mindless

He—and She—

shaped waxworks filled

with dead ideas(the oh

quintillions of incredible

dodderingly godly toothless

always-so-much-interested-

in-everybody-else’s-business

bipeds)OH

the bothering

dear unnecessary hairless

o

ld

XXVI

on the Madam’s best april the

twenty nellie

anyway and

it’s flutters everything

queer;does smells he smiles is

like Out of doors he’s a with

eyes and making twice the a week

you kind of,know(kind well of

A sort of the way he smile but

and her a I mean me a

Irish,cook but well oh don’t

you makes burst want to dear somehow

quickyes when(now,dark dear oh)

the iceman

how,luminously

oh how listens and,expands

my somewherealloverme heart my

the halfgloom coolish

of The what are

parks for wiggle yes has

are leap,which,anyway

give rapid lapfulls of

idiotic big hands

XXVII

(as that named Fred

-someBody:hippopotamus, scratch-

ing,one,knee with,its,

friend observes I

pass Mr Tom Larsen twirls among

pale lips the extinct

cigar)at

which

this(once flinger

of lariats lean exroper of

horned suddenly crashing things)man spits

quickly into the very bright spittoon

XXVIII

my uncle

Daniel fought in the civil

war band and can play the triangle

like the devil)my

uncle Frank has done nothing for many

years but fly kites and

when the

string breaks(or something)my uncle Frank breaks into

tears. my uncle Tom

knits and is a kewpie above the ears(but

my uncle Ed

that’s

dead from the neck

up is lead all over

Brattle Street by a castrated pup

XXIX

than(by yon sunset’s wintry glow

revealed)this tall strong stalwart youth,

what sight shall human optics know

more quite ennobling forsooth?

One wondrous fine sonofabitch

(to all purposes and intents)

in which distinct and rich

portrait should be included,gents

these(by the fire’s ruddy glow

united)not less than sixteen

children and of course you know

their mother,of his heart the queen

—incalculable bliss!

Picture it gents:our hero,Dan

who as you’ve guessed already is

the poorbuthonest workingman

(by that bright flame whose myriad tints

enrich a visage simple,terse,

seated like any king or prince

upon his uncorrupted arse

with all his hearty soul aglow)

his nightly supper sups

it isn’t snowing snow you know

it’s snowing buttercups

XXX

weazened Irrefutable unastonished

two,countenances seated in arranging;sunlight

with-ered unspea-king:tWeNtY,f i n g e r s, large

four gnarled lips totter

Therefore,approaching my twentysix selves

bulging in immortal Spring express a cry of

How do you find the sun,ladies?

(graduallyverygradually “there is not enough

of it” their,hands

minutely

answered

MEMORABILIA

XXXI

stop look &

listen Venezia: incline thine

ear you glassworks

of Murano;

pause

elevator nel

mezzo del cammin’ that means half-

way up the Campanile, believe

thou me cocodrillo—

mine eyes have seen

the glory of

the coming of

the Americans particularly the

brand of marriageable nymph which is

armed with large legs rancid

voices Baedekers Mothers and kodaks

—by night upon the Riva Schiavoni or in

the felicitous vicinity of the de l’Europe

Grand and Royal

Danielli their numbers

are like unto the stars of Heaven. . . .

i do signore

affirm that all gondola signore

day below me gondola signore gondola

and above me pass loudly and gondola

rapidly denizens of Omaha Altoona or what

not enthusiastic cohorts from Duluth God only,

gondola knows Cincingondolanati i gondola don’t

—the substantial dollarbringing virgins

“from the Loggia where

are we angels by O yes

beautiful we now pass through the look

girls in the style of that’s the

foliage what is it didn’t Ruskin

says about you got the haven’t Marjorie

isn’t this wellcurb simply darling”

—O Education:O

thos cook & son

(O to be a metope

now that triglyph’s here)

XXXII

a man who had fallen among thieves

lay by the roadside on his back

dressed in fifteenthrate ideas

wearing a round jeer for a hat

fate per a somewhat more than less

emancipated evening

had in return for consciousness

endowed him with a changeless grin

where a dozen staunch and leal

citizens did graze at pause

then fired by hypercivic zeal

sought newer pastures or because

swaddled with a frozen brook

of pinkest vomit out of eyes

which noticed nobody he looked

as if he did not care to rise

one hand did nothing on the vest

its wideflung friend clenched weakly dirt

while the mute trouserfly confessed

a button solemnly inert.

Brushing from whom the stiffened puke

i put him all into my arms

and staggered banged with terror through

a million billion trillion stars

XXXIII

Babylon slim

-ness of

evenslicing

eyes are chisels

scarlet Goes

with her

whitehot

face,gashed

by hair’s blue cold

jolts of

lovecrazed abrupt

flesh split “Pretty

Baby”

to

numb rhythm before christ

XXXIV

this evangelist

buttons with his big gollywog voice

the kingdomofheaven up behind and crazily

skating thither and hither in filthy sawdust

chucks and rolls

against the tent his thick joggling fists

he is persuasive

the editor cigarstinking hobgoblin swims

upward in hisswivelchair one fist dangling scandal while

rapidly through mist a defunct king as

linotypes gobblehobble

our lightheavy twic twoc ingly attacks

landing a onetwo

which doubles up suddenly his bunged hinging

victim against the

giving ropes amid

screams of deeply bulging thousands

i too omit one kelly

in response to howjedooze the candidate’s new silk

lid bounds gently from his baldness

a smile masturbates softly in the vacant

lot of his physiognomy

his scientifically pressed trousers ejaculate spats

a strikingly succulent getup

but

we knew a muffhunter and he said to us Kid.

daze nutn like it.

XXXV

(ponder,darling,these busted statues

of yon motheaten forum be aware

notice what hath remained

—the stone cringes

clinging to the stone,how obsolete

lips utter their extant smile. . . .

remark

a few deleted of texture

or meaning monuments and dolls

resist Them Greediest Paws of careful

time all of which is extremely

unimportant)whereas Life

matters if or

when the your- and my-

idle vertical worthless

self unite in a peculiarly

momentary

partnership(to instigate

constructive

Horizontal

business. . . .even so,let us make haste

—consider well this ruined aqueduct

lady,

which used to lead something into somewhere)

XXXVI

ta

ppin

g

toe

hip

popot

amus Back

gen

teel-ly

lugu-

bri ous

eyes

LOOPTHELOOP

as

fathandsbangrag

XXXVII

poets yeggs and thirsties

since we are spanked and put to sleep by dolls let

us not be continually astonished should

from their actions and speeches

sawdust perpetually leak

rather is it between such beddings and

bumpings of ourselves to be observed

how in this fundamental respect the well

recognised regime of childhood is reversed

meantime in dreams let us investigate

thoroughly each one his optima rerum first

having taken care to lie upon our

abdomens for greater privacy and lest

punished bottoms interrupt philosophy

XXXVIII

Will i ever forget that precarious moment?

As i was standing on the third rail waiting for the next train to grind me into lifeless atoms various ab- surd thoughts slyly crept into my highly sexed mind.

It seemed to me that i had first of all really made quite a mistake in being at all born, seeing that i was wifeless and only half awake, cursed with pimples, correctly dressed, cleanshaven above the nombril, and much to my astonishment much impressed by having once noticed ( as an infantile phenomenon ) George Washington almost incompletely surrounded by well- drawn icecakes beheld being too strong, in brief :an American, if you understand that i mean what i say i believe my most intimate friends would never have gathered.

A collarbutton which had always not nothurt me not much and in the same place.

Why according to tomorrow’s paper the proletariat will not rise yesterday.

Inexpressible itchings to be photographed with Lord Rothermere playing with Lord Rothermere billiards very well by moonlight with Lord Rothermere.

A crockodile eats a native, who in revenge beats it insensible with a banana, establishing meanwhile a re- ligious cult based on consubstantial intangibility.

Personne ne m’aime et j’ai les mains froides.

His Royal Highness said “peek-a-boo” and thirty tame fleas left the prettily embroidered howdah im- mediately.

Thumbprints of an angel named Frederick found on a lightning-rod, Boston, Mass.

such were the not unhurried reflections to which my organ of imperception gave birth to which i should or- dinarily have objected to which, considering the back- ground, it is hardly surprising if anyone hardly should call exactly extraordinary. We refer, of course, to my position. A bachelor incapable of occupation, he had long suppressed the desire to suppress the suppressed desire of shall we say: Idleness, while meaning its opposite? Nothing could be clearer to all concerned than that i am not a policeman.

Meanwhile the tea regressed.

Kipling again H. G. Wells, and Anatole France shook hands again and yet again shook again hands again, the former coachman with a pipewrench of the again latter then opening a box of newly without exaggeration shot with some difficulty sardines. Mr. Wiggin took Wrs. Miggin’s harm in is, extinguishing the spitoon by a candle furnished by courtesy of the management on Thursdays, opposite which a church stood perfectly upright but not piano item:a water- melon causes indigestion to William Cullen Longfel- low’s small negro son, Henry Wordsworth Bryant.

By this time,however,the flight of crows had ceased. I withdrew my hands from the tennisracket. All was over. One brief convulsive octopus, and then our hero folded his umbrella.

It seemed too beautiful.

Let us perhaps excuse me if i repeat himself:these,or nearly these,were the not unpainful thoughts which occupied the subject of our attention;to speak even less objectively,i was horribly scared i would actually fall off the rail before the really train after all arrived. If i should have made this perfectly clear,it entirely would have been not my fault.

XXXIX

voices to voices, lip to lip

i swear (to noone everyone) constitutes

undying; or whatever this and that petal confutes. . .

to exist being a peculiar form of sleep

what’s beyond logic happens beneath will;

nor can these moments be translated: i say

that even after April

by God there is no excuse for May

—bring forth your flowers and machinery:sculpture and prose

flowers guess and miss

machinery is the more accurate, yes

it delivers the goods, Heaven knows

(yet are we mindful, though not as yet awake,

of ourselves which shout and cling, being

for a little while and which easily break

in spite of the best overseeing)

i mean that the blond absence of any program

except last and always and first to live

makes unimportant what i and you believe;

not for philosophy does this rose give a damn. . .

bring on your fireworks, which are a mixed

splender of piston and of pistil; very well

provided an instant may be fixed

so that it will not rub, like any other pastel.

(While you and i have lips and voices which

are for kissing and to sing with

who cares if some oneeyed son of a bitch

invents an instrument to measure Spring with?

each dream nascitur,is not made. . .)

why then to Hell with that: the other; this,

since the thing perhaps is

to eat flowers and not to be afraid.

XL

life hurl my

yes,crumbles hand(ful released conarefetti)ev eryflitter,inga. where

mil(lions of aflickf)litter ing brightmillion ofS hurl;edindodg:ing

whom areEyes shy-dodge is bright cruMbshandful,quick-hurl edinwho

Is flittercrumbs,fluttercrimbs are floatfallin,g;allwhere:

a:crimbflitteringish is arefloatsis ingfallall!mil,shy milbrightlions

my(hurl flicker handful

in)dodging are shybrigHteyes is crum bs(alll)if,ey Es

TWO

I

the season ’tis, my lovely lambs,

of Sumner Volstead Christ and Co.

the epoch of Mann’s righteousness

the age of dollars and no sense.

Which being quite beyond dispute

as prove from Troy (N. Y.) to Cairo

(Egypt) the luminous dithyrambs

of large immaculate unmute

antibolshevistic gents

(each manufacturing word by word

his own unrivalled brand of pyro

-technic blurb anent the (hic)

hero dead that gladly (sic)

in far lands perished of unheard

of maladies including flu)

my little darlings, let us now

passionately remember how—

braving the worst, of peril heedless,

each braver than the other, each

(a typewriter within his reach)

upon his fearless derrière

sturdily seated—Colonel Needless

To Name and General You know who

a string of pretty medals drew

(while messrs jack james john and jim

in token of their country’s love

received my dears the order of

The Artificial Arm and Limb)

—or, since bloodshed and kindred questions

inhibit unprepared digestions,

come:let us mildly contemplate

beginning with his wellfilled pants

earth’s biggest grafter, nothing less;

the Honorable Mr. (guess)

who, breathing on the ear of fate,

landed a seat in the legislat-

ure whereas tommy so and so

(an erring child of circumstance

whom the bulls nabbed at 33rd)

pulled six months for selling snow

II

opening of the chambers close

quotes the microscopic pithicoid President

in a new frock

coat(scrambling all

up over the tribune dances crazily

& &)&

chatters about Peacepeacepeace(to

droppingly

descend amid thunderous anthropoid applause)pronounced

by the way Pay the

extremely artistic nevertobeextinguished fla

-me of the(very prettily indeed)arra-

nged souvenir of the in spite of himself fa

-mous soldier minus his na-

me(so as not to hurt the perspective of the(hei

-nous thought)otherwise immaculately tabulated vicinity)invei-

gles a few mildly curious rai

-ned on people(both male and female

created He

then, And every beast of the field

III

“next to of course god america i

love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh

say can you see by the dawn’s early my

country ’tis of centuries come and go

and are no more what of it we should worry

in every language even deafanddumb

thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry

by jingo by gee by gosh by gum

why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-

iful than these heroic happy dead

who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter

they did not stop to think they died instead

then shall the voices of liberty be mute?”

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

IV

it’s jolly

odd what pops into

your jolly tete when the

jolly shells begin dropping jolly fast you

hear the rrmp and

then nearerandnearerandNEARER

and before

you can

!

& we’re

NOT

(oh—

—i say

that’s jolly odd

old thing, jolly

odd, jolly

jolly odd isn’t

it jolly odd.

V

look at this)

a 75 done

this nobody would

have believed

would they no

kidding this was my particular

pal

funny aint

it we was

buddies

i used to

know

him lift the

poor cuss

tenderly this side up handle

with care

fragile

and send him home

to his old mother in

a new nice pine box

(collect

VI

first Jock he

was kilt a handsome

man and James and

next let me

see yes Will that was

cleverest

he was kilt and my youngest

boy was kilt last with

the big eyes i loved like you can’t

imagine Harry was o

god kilt he was kilt everybody was kilt

they called them the kilties

VII

lis

-ten

you know what i mean when

the first guy drops you know

everybody feels sick or

when they throw in a few gas

and the oh baby shrapnel

or my feet getting dim freezing or

up to your you know what in water or

with the bugs crawling right all up

all everywhere over you all me everyone

that’s been there knows what

i mean a god damned lot of

people don’t and never

never

will know,

they don’t want

to

no

VIII

come, gaze with me upon this dome

of many coloured glass, and see

his mother’s pride, his father’s joy,

unto whom duty whispers low

“thou must!” and who replies “I can!”

—yon clean upstanding well dressed boy

that with his peers full oft hath quaffed

the wine of life and found it sweet—

a tear within his stern blue eye,

upon his firm white lips a smile,

one thought alone: to do or die

for God for country and for Yale

above his blond determined head

the sacred flag of truth unfurled,

in the bright heyday of his youth

the upper class American

unsullied stands, before the world:

with manly heart and conscience free,

upon the front steps of her home

by the high minded pure young girl

much kissed, by loving relatives

well fed, and fully photographed

the son of man goes forth to war

with trumpets clap and syphilis

IX

little ladies more

than dead exactly dance

in my head, precisely

dance where danced la guerre.

Mimi a

la voix fragile

qui chatouille Des

Italiens

the putain with the ivory throat

Marie Louise Lallemand

n’es-ce pas que je suis belle

cheri? les anglais m’aiment

tous, les americains

aussi. . . .“bon dos, bon cul de Paris” (Marie

Vierge

Priez

Pour

Nous)

with the

long lips of

Lucienne which dangle

the old men and hot

men se promenent

doucement le soir(ladies

accurately dead les anglais

sont gentils et les americains

aussi, ils payent bien les americains dance

exactly in my brain voulez

vous coucher avec

moi? Non? pourquoi?

ladies skilfully

dead precisely dance

where has danced la

guerre j’m’appelle

Manon, cinq rue Henri Mounier

voulez vous coucher avec moi?

te ferai Mimi

te ferai Minette,

dead exactly dance

si vous voulez

chatouiller

mon lezard ladies suddenly

j’m’en fout de negres

(in the twilight of Paris

Marie Louise with queenly

legs cinq rue Henri

Mounier a little love

begs, Mimi with the body

like une boite a joujoux, want nice sleep?

toutes les petites femmes exactes

qui dansent toujours in my

head dis-donc,Paris

ta gorge mysterieuse

pourquoi se promene-t-elle, pourquoi

eclate ta voix

fragile couleur de pivoine?)

with the

long lips of Lucienne which

dangle the old men and hot men

precisely dance in my head

ladies carefully dead

X

16 heures

l’Etoile

the communists have fine Eyes

some are young some old none

look alike the flics rush

batter the crowd sprawls collapses

singing knocked down trampled the kicked by

flics rush(the

Flics, tidiyum, are

very tidiyum reassuringly similar,

they all have very tidiyum

mustaches, and very

tidiyum chins, and just above

their very tidiyum ears their

very tidiyum necks begin)

let us add

that there are 50(fifty)flics for every

one(1)communist and

all the flics are very organically

arranged

and their nucleus(composed

of captains in freshly-creased

-uniforms with only-just-

shined buttons

tidiyum

before and behind)has a nucleolus:

the Prefect of Police

(a dapper derbied

creature, swaggers daintily

twiddling

his tiny cane

and, mazurkas about tweak-

ing his wing collar pecking at his im

-peccable cravat directing being

shooting his cuffs

saluted everywhere saluting

reviewing processions of minions

tappingpeopleontheback

“allezcirculez”)

—my he’s brave. . . .

the

communists pick

up themselves friends

& their hats legs &

arms brush dirt coats

smile looking hands

spit blood teeth

the Communists have(very)fine eyes

(which stroll hither and thither through the

evening in bruised narrow questioning faces)

XI

my sweet old etcetera

aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what

is more did tell you just

what everybody was fighting

for,

my sister

isabel created hundreds

(and

hundreds)of socks not to

mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my

mother hoped that

i would die etcetera

bravely of course my father used

to become hoarse talking about how it was

a privilege and if only he

could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly

in the deep mud et

cetera

(dreaming,

et

cetera, of

Your smile

eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

THREE

I

now that fierce few

flowers(stealthily)

in the alive west

begin

requiescat this six

feet of Breton big good

body, which terminated

in fists hair wood

erect cursing hatless who

(bent by wind)slammed hard—

over the tiller;clattered

forward skidding in outrageous

sabots language trickling

pried his black

mouth with fat jibing

lips,

once upon a

(that is

over: and the sea heaving

indolent colourless forgets)time

Requiescat.

carry

carefully the blessed large silent him

into nibbling final worms

II

Among

these

red pieces of

day(against which and

quite silently hills

made of blueandgreen paper

scorchbend ingthem

-selves-U

pcurv E,into:

anguish(clim

b)ing

s-p-i-r-a-

l

and,disappear)

Satanic and blasé

a black goat lookingly wanders

There is nothing left of the world but

into this noth

ing il trene per

Roma si-gnori?

jerk.

ilyr,ushes

III

it is winter a moon in the afternoon

and warm air turning into January darkness up

through which sprouting gently, the cathedral

leans its dreamy spine against thick sunset

i perceive in front of our lady a ring of people

a brittle swoon of centrifugally expecting

faces clumsily which devours a man, three cats,

five white mice, and a baboon.

O a monkey with a sharp face waddling carefully

the length of this padded pole;a monkey attached

by a chain securely to this always talking

individual, mysterious witty hatless.

Cats which move smoothly from neck to neck of bottles,cats

smoothly willowing out and in between bottles,who step smoothly

and rapidly along this pole over five squirming

mice; or leap through hoops of fire,creating smoothness.

People stare, the drunker applaud

while twilight takes the sting out of the vermilion

jacket of nodding hairy Jaqueline who is given a mouse

to hold lovingly,

our lady what do you think of this? Do your proud fingers and

your arms tremble remembering something fragile

and which had been presented unto you by a mystery?

. . . the cathedral recedes into weather without answering

IV

impossibly

motivated by midnight

the flyspecked abdominous female

indubitably tellurian

strolls

emitting minute grins

each an intaglio.

Nothing

has also carved upon her much

too white forehead a pair of

eyes which mutter thickly(as one merely

terriculous American an instant doubts

the authenticity

of these antiquities—relaxing

hurries

elsewhere;to blow

incredible wampum

V

inthe,exquisite;

morning sure lyHer eye s exactly sit,ata little roundtable

among otherlittle roundtables Her,eyes count slow(ly

obstre poroustimidi ties surElyfl)oat iNg,the

ofpieces ofof sunligh tof fa l l in gof throughof treesOf.

(Fields Elysian

the like,a)slEEping neck a breathing a ,lies

(slo wlythe wom an pa)ris her

flesh:wakes

in little streets

while exactlygir lisHlegs;play;ing;nake;D

and

chairs wait under the trees

Fields slowly Elysian in

a firmcool-Ness taxis,s.QuirM

and, b etw ee nch air st ott er s thesillyold

WomanSellingBaloonS

In theex qui site

morning,

her sureLyeye s sit-ex actly her sitat a surely!little,

roundtable amongother;littleexactly round. tables,

Her

.eyes

VI

candles and

Here Comes a glass box

which the exhumed

hand of Saint Ignatz miraculously

inhabits. (people tumble

down. people crumble to their

knees. people

begin crossing people)and

hErE cOmEs a glass box:

surrounded by priests

moving in fifty colours

, sensuously

(the crowd

howls faintly

blubbering pointing

see

yes)

It

here

comes

A Glass

Box and incense with

and oh sunlight—

the crash of the

colours(of the oh

silently

striding)priests-and-

slowly,al,ways;procession:and

Enters

this

church.

toward which The

Expectant stutter(upon artificial limbs,

with faces like defunct geraniums)

VII

Paris;this April sunset completely utters

utters serenely silently a cathedral

before whose upward lean magnificent face

the streets turn young with rain,

spiral acres of bloated rose

coiled within cobalt miles of sky

yield to and heed

the mauve

of twilight(who slenderly descends,

daintily carrying in her eyes the dangerous first stars)

people move love hurry in a gently

arriving gloom and

see!(the new moon

fills abruptly with sudden silver

these torn pockets of lame and begging colour)while

there and here the lithe indolent prostitute

Night,argues

with certain houses

VIII

will out of the kindness of their hearts a few philosophers tell me

what am i doing on top of this hill at Calchidas, in the sunlight?

down ever so far on the beach below me a little girl in white spins,tumbles;rolling in sand.

across this water,crowding tints:browns and whites showing,the dotting millions of windows of thousands of houses—Lisboa. Like the crackle of a typewriter,in the afternoon sky.

goats and sheep are driven by somebody along a curve of road which eats into a pink cliff back and up leaning out of yellowgreen water.

they are building a house down there by the sea,in the afternoon.

rapidly a reddish ant travels my fifth finger.

a bird chirps in a tree,somewhere nowhere

and a little girl in white is tumbling

in sand

Clouds over

me are like bridegrooms

Naked and luminous

(here the absurd I; life, to peer and wear clothes. i am altogether foolish, i suddenly make a fist out of ten fingers

voices rise from down ever so far—

hush.

Sunlight,

there are old men behind me I tell

you;several,incredible,sleepy

IX

but observe;although

once is never the beginning of

enough, is it(i do not pretend

to know the reason any more than.)But look:up—

raising, hoisting, a little

perhaps that and this, deftly

propping on smallest hands

the slim hinging you

—because

it’s five o’clock

and these(i notice)trees winterbrief surly old

gurgle a nonsense of sparrows, the cathedral

shudders blackening;

the sky is washed with tone

now for a moon

to squat in first darkness

—a little moon thinner than

memory

faint

-er

than all the whys

which lurk

between your naked shoulderblades.—Here

comes a stout fellow in a blouse

just outside this window, touching the glass

boxes one by one with his magic

stick(in which a willing

bulb of flame bubbles)

see

here and here they explode

silently into crocuses of brightness. (That is enough

of life, for you. I understand. Once

again. . . .)sliding

a little downward,embrace me with your body’s suddenly

curving entire warm questions

X

sunlight was over

our mouths fears hearts lungs arms hopes feet hands

under us the unspeaking Mediterranean bluer

than we had imagined

a few cries drifting through

high air

a sail a fishing boat somebody an invisible spectator,

maybe certain nobodies laughing faintly

playing moving far below us

perhaps one villa caught like pieces

of a kite in the trees, here

and here reflecting

sunlight

(everywhere sunlight keen complete

silent

and everywhere you your kisses your flesh mind breathing

beside under around myself)

by and by

a fat colour reared itself against the sky and the sea

. . . finally your eyes knew

me, we smiled to each other, releasing lay, watching

(sprawling, in

grass upon a

cliff) what had been something

else carefully slowly fatally turning into ourselves . . .

while in the very middle of fire all

the world becoming bright and little melted.

FOUR

I

the moon looked into my window

it touched me with its small hands

and with curling infantile

fingers it understood my eyes cheeks mouth

its hands(slipping)felt of my necktie wandered

against my shirt and into my body the

sharp things fingered tinily my heart life

the little hands withdrew, jerkily, themselves

quietly they began playing with a button

the moon smiled she

let go my vest and crept

through the window

she did not fall

she went creeping along the air

over houses

roofs

And out of the east toward

her a fragile light bent gatheringly

II

if being morticed with a dream

myself speaks

(whispering,

suggesting that our souls

inhabit whatever is between them)

knowing my lips hands the way i move

my habits laughter

i say

you will perhaps pardon,

possibly you will comprehend. and how

this has arrived your mind may guess

if at sunset

it should, leaning against me, smile;

or(between dawn and twilight)giving

your eyes, present me also

with the terror of shrines

which noone has suspected(but

wherein silently

always

are kneeling the various deaths

which are your lover lady:together with what keen

innumerable lives he has not lived.

III

here’s a little mouse)and

what does he think about, i

wonder as over this

floor(quietly with

bright eyes)drifts(nobody

can tell because

Nobody knows, or why

jerks Here &, here,

gr(oo)ving the room’s Silence)this like

a littlest

poem a

(with wee ears and see?

tail frisks)

(gonE)

“mouse”,

We are not the same you and

i, since here’s a little he

or is

it It

? (or was something we saw in the mirror)?

therefore we’ll kiss;for maybe

what was Disappeared

into ourselves

who (look). ,startled

IV

but if i should say

goodmorning trouble adds

up all sorts of quickly

things on the slate of that

nigger’s

face(but

If i should say thankyouverymuch

mr rosenbloom picks strawberries

with beringed hands)but if

i Should say solong my

tailor

chuckles

like a woman in a dream(but if i

should say

Now the all saucers

but cups if begin to spoons dance every-

should where say over the damned table and we

hold lips Eyes everything

hands you know what

happens)but if i should,

Say,

V

in spite of everything

which breathes and moves, since Doom

(with white longest hands

neatening each crease)

will smooth entirely our minds

—before leaving my room

i turn, and(stooping

through the morning)kiss

this pillow, dear

where our heads lived and were.

VI

you are not going to, dear. You are not going to and

i but that doesn’t in the least matter. The big

fear Who held us deeply in His fist is

no longer, can you imagine it

i can’t which doesn’t matter

and what does is possibly this dear, that we may resume

impact with the inutile collide

once more with the imaginable,love,and eat sunlight(do

you believe it? i begin to and that doesn’t matter)which

i suggest teach us a new terror always

which shall brighten

carefully these things we consider life.

Dear i put my eyes into you but that doesn’t matter

further than of old

because you fooled the doctors,i touch you with hopesand

words and with so and so: we are together, we will

kiss or smile or move. It’s different too isn’t it

different dear from moving as we, you

and i,used to move when i thought you were going to(but

that doesn’t matter)

when you thought you were going to America.

Then

moving was a matter of not keeping still;we were

two alert lice in the blond hair of nothing

VII

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

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry

—the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

VIII

some ask praise of their fellows

but i being otherwise

made compose curves

and yellows, angles or silences

to a less erring end)

myself is sculptor of

your body’s idiom:

the musician of your wrists;

the poet who is afraid

only to mistranslate

a rhythm in your hair,

(your fingertips

the way you move)

the

painter of your voice—

beyond these elements

remarkably nothing is. . . . therefore,lady

am i content should any

by me carven thing provoke

your gesture possibly or

any painting(for its own

reason)in your lips

slenderly should create one least smile

(shyly

if a poem should lift to

me the distinct country of your

eyes, gifted with green twilight)

IX

supposing i dreamed this)

only imagine, when day has thrilled

you are a house around which

i am a wind—

your walls will not reckon how

strangely my life is curved

since the best he can do

is to peer through windows, unobserved

—listen, for(out of all

things)dream is noone’s fool;

if this wind who i am prowls

carefully around this house of you

love being such, or such,

the normal corners of your heart

will never guess how much

my wonderful jealousy is dark

if light should flower:

or laughing sparkle from

the shut house(around and around

which a poor wind will roam

X

you are like the snow only

purer fleeter, like the rain

only sweeter frailer you

whom certain

flowers ressemble but trembling(cowards

which fear

to miss within your least gesture the hurting

skill which lives)and since

nothing lingers

beyond a little instant,

along with rhyme and with laughter

O my lady

(and every brittle marvelous breathing thing)

since i and you are on our ways to dust

of your fragility

(but chiefly of your smile,

most suddenly which is

of love and death a marriage)you give me

courage

so that against myself

the sharp days slobber in vain:

Nor am i afraid that

this, which we call autumn, cleverly

dies and over the ripe world wanders with

a near and careful

smile in his mouth(making

everything suddenly old and with his awkward eyes

pushing

sleep under and thoroughly

into all beautiful things)

winter, whom Spring shall kill

XI

because

you go away i give roses who

will advise even yourself, lady

in the most certainly(of what we

everywhere do not touch)deep

things;

remembering ever so

tinily these, your crisp

eyes actually shall contain new faeries

(and if your slim lips are amused, no wisest

painter of fragile

Marys will understand

how smiling may be made as

skilfully.) But carry

also, with that indolent and with

this flower wholly whom you do

not ever fear,

me in your heart

softly;not all

but the beginning

of mySelf

XII

you being in love

will tell who softly asks in love,

am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely

to become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean:

entirely having in my careful how

careful arms created this at length

inexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure—you go from several

persons:believe me that strangers arrive

when i have kissed you into a memory

slowly, oh seriously

—that since and if you disappear

solemnly

myselves

ask “life, the question how do i drink dream smile

and how do i prefer this face to another and

why do i weep eat sleep—what does the whole intend”

they wonder. ohandthey cry “to be,being,thatiamalive

this absurd fraction in its lowest terms

with everything cancelled

but shadows

—what does it all come down to? love? Love

if you like and i like, for the reason that i

hate people and lean out of this window is love,love

and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason

that i do not fall into this street is love.”

XIII

Nobody wears a yellow

flower in his buttonhole

he is altogether a queer fellow

as young as he is old

when autumn comes,

who twiddles his white thumbs

and frisks down the boulevards

without his coat and hat

—(and i wonder just why that

should please him or i wonder what he does)

and why(at the bottom of this trunk,

under some dirty collars)only a

moment

(or

was it perhaps a year)ago i found staring

me in the face a dead yellow small rose

XIV

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

shut by our mingling arms through

a darkness where new lights begin and

increase,

since your mind has walked into

my kiss as a stranger

into the streets and colours of a town—

that i have perhaps forgotten

how, always(from

these hurrying crudities

of blood and flesh)Love

coins His most gradual gesture,

and whittles life to eternity

—after which our separating selves become museums

filled with skilfully stuffed memories

XV

i am a beggar always

who begs in your mind

(slightly smiling, patient, unspeaking

with a sign on his

breast

BLIND)yes i

am this person of whom somehow

you are never wholly rid(and who

does not ask for more than

just enough dreams to

live on)

after all, kid

you might as well

toss him a few thoughts

a little love preferably,

anything which you can’t

pass off on other people: for

instance a

plugged promise—

then he will maybe(hearing something

fall into his hat)go wandering

after it with fingers;till having

found

what was thrown away

himself

taptaptaps out of your brain, hopes, life

to(carefully turning a

corner)never bother you any more.

XVI

if within tonight’s erect

everywhere of black muscles feels

a weightless slowness(deftly

muting the world’s texture with drifted

gifts of featheriest slenderness and

how gradually which descending are suddenly

received)or by doomfull connivance

accurately thither and hither myself

struts unremembered(rememberingly

with in both pockets curled hands moves)

why then toward morning he is a ghost whom

assault these whispering fists of hail

(and a few windows awaken certain faces

busily horribly blunder through new light

hush we are made of the same thing as perhaps

nothing, he murmurs carefully lying down)

XVII

how this uncouth enchanted

person, arising from a

restaurant, looks breathes or moves

—climbing(past light after

light)to turn, disappears

the very swift and

invisibly living

rhythm of your Heart possibly

will understand;

or why(in

this most exquisite of cities)all

of the long night a fragile imitation of

(perhaps)myself carefully wanders

streets dark and, deep

with rain. . . .

(he, slightly whom or

cautiously this person

and this imitation resemble,

descends into the earth with the year

a cigarette between his ghost-lips

gradually)

remembering badly, softly

your

kissed thrice suddenly smile

XVIII

i go to this window

just as day dissolves

when it is twilight(and

looking up in fear

i see the new moon

thinner than a hair)

making me feel

how myself has been coarse and dull

compared with you, silently who are

and cling

to my mind always

But now she sharpens and becomes crisper

until i smile with knowing

—and all about

herself

the sprouting largest final air

plunges

inward with hurled

downward thousands of enormous dreams

FIVE

I

after all white horses are in bed

will you walking beside me, my very lady,

if scarcely the somewhat city

wiggles in considerable twilight

touch (now) with a suddenly unsaid

gesture lightly my eyes?

And send life out of me and the night

absolutely into me. . . . a wise

and puerile moving of your arm will

do suddenly that

will do

more than heroes beautifully in shrill

armour colliding on huge blue horses,

and the poets looked at them, and made verses,

through the sharp light cryingly as the knights flew.

II

touching you i say (it being Spring

and night) “let us go a very little beyond

the last road—there’s something to be found”

and smiling you answer “everything

turns into something else, and slips away. . . .

(these leaves are Thingish with moondrool

and i’m ever so very little afraid”)

i say

“along this particular road the moon if you’ll

notice follows us like a big yellow dog. You

don’t believe? look back. (Along the sand

behind us, a big yellow dog that’s . . . . now it’s red

a big red dog that may be owned by who

knows)

only turn a little your. so. And

there’s the moon,there is something faithful and mad”

III

along the brittle treacherous bright streets

of memory comes my heart,singing like

an idiot, whispering like a drunken man

who(at a certain corner, suddenly)meets

the tall policeman of my mind.

awake

being not asleep, elsewhere our dreams began

which now are folded:but the year completes

his life as a forgotten prisoner

—“Ici?”—“Ah non, mon cheri; il fait trop froid”—

they are gone:along these gardens moves a wind bringing

rain and leaves, filling the air with fear

and sweetness. . . .pauses. (Halfwhispering. . . .halfsinging

stirs the always smiling chevaux de bois)

when you were in Paris we met here

IV

our touching hearts slenderly comprehend

(clinging as fingers, loving one another

gradually into hands) and bend

into the huge disaster of the year:

like this most early single star which tugs

weakly at twilight, caught in thickening fear

our slightly fingering spirits starve and smother;

until autumn abruptly wholly hugs

our dying silent minds, which hand in hand

at some window try to understand

the

(through pale miles of perishing air, haunted

with huddling infinite wishless melancholy,

suddenly looming) accurate undaunted

moon’s bright third tumbling slowly

V

if i have made,my lady,intricate

imperfect various things chiefly which wrong

your eyes (frailer than most deep dreams are frail)

songs less firm than your body’s whitest song

upon my mind—if i have failed to snare

the glance too shy—if through my singing slips

the very skillful strangeness of your smile

the keen primeval silence of your hair

—let the world say “his most wise music stole

nothing from death”—

you only will create

(who are so perfectly alive)my shame:

lady through whose profound and fragile lips

the sweet small clumsy feet of April came

into the ragged meadow of my soul.

Transcriber’s note

Non-standard spelling retained.

In the original on Page 46, the poem “this evangelist” is missing a line from the third stanza. That stanza in other editions is:

the editor cigarstinking hobgoblin swims

upward in hisswivelchair one fist dangling scandal while

five other fingers snitch

rapidly through mist a defunct king as

Also in the original on Page 55, the poem “life hurl my” was placed landscape on the page.

IS FIVE

FOREWORD

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

Transcriber’s note