*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77021 ***
OF THIS BOOK
there is also
a special limited edition
consisting of seventy-seven
copies on special paper
specially bound
numbered
and
autographed
of which seventy copies are for sale
IS FIVE
FIVE BOOKS
by E. E. Cummings
The Enormous Room
Tulips and Chimneys
&
Xli Poems
Is Five ¶
by E. E. Cummings
is
5
NEW YORK
BONI & LIVERIGHT
1926
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY BONI & LIVERIGHT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED BY SAMUEL AIWAZ JACOBS
AT THE POLYTYPE PRESS
NEW YORK
[Pg vii]
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.)
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
[Pg 5]
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
[Pg 6]
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
[Pg 7]
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
[Pg 8]
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,
[Pg 9]
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
[Pg 10]
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
[Pg 11]
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).
[Pg 12]
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
[Pg 13]
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.
[Pg 14]
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[Pg 15]
his soul for certain things which died
it is eighteen hundred
years. . . .
exactly
under the window
under the window
under the window walk
the unburied feet of
the little ladies more than dead
[Pg 16]
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)
[Pg 17]
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
[Pg 18]
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
[Pg 19]
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
[Pg 20]
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)
[Pg 21]
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
[Pg 22]
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
[Pg 23]
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
[Pg 24]
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)
[Pg 25]
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
[Pg 26]
XVII
IKEY(GOLDBERG)’S WORTH I’M
TOLD $ SEVERAL MILLION
FINKLESTEIN(FRITZ)LIVES
AT THE RITZ WEAR
earl & wilson COLLARS
[Pg 27]
?
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
[Pg 28]
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
[Pg 29]
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
[Pg 30]
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
[Pg 31]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. . . .
[Pg 32]
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
[Pg 33]
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)
[Pg 34]
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
[Pg 35]
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
[Pg 36]
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
[Pg 37]
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
[Pg 38]
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
[Pg 39]
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
[Pg 40]
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
[Pg 41]
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
[Pg 42]
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
[Pg 43]
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)
[Pg 44]
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
[Pg 45]
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
[Pg 46]
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.
[Pg 47]
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)
[Pg 48]
XXXVI
ta
ppin
g
toe
hip
popot
amus Back
gen
teel-ly
lugu-
bri ous
eyes
LOOPTHELOOP
as
fathandsbangrag
[Pg 49]
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
[Pg 50]
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.
[Pg 51]
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
[Pg 52]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.
[Pg 53]
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?
[Pg 54]
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.
[Pg 55]
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
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
[Pg 83]
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
[Pg 84]
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
[Pg 85]
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
