100 Selected Poems

by e. e. cummings

  then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

  He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

  25

  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)

  26

  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

  27

  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.

  28

  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

  29

  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.

  30

  i sing of Olaf glad and big

  whose warmest heart recoiled at war:

  a conscientious object-or

  his wellbelovéd colonel(trig

  westpointer most succinctly bred)

  took erring Olaf soon in hand;

  but—though an host of overjoyed

  noncoms(first knocking on the head

  him)do through icy waters roll

  that helplessness which others stroke

  with brushes recently employed

  anent this muddy toiletbowl,

  while kindred intellects evoke

  allegiance per blunt instruments—

  Olaf(being to all intents

  a corpse and wanting any rag

  upon what God unto him gave)

  responds,without getting annoyed

  “I will not kiss your f.ing flag”

  straightway the silver bird looked grave

  (departing hurriedly to shave)

  but—though all kinds of officers

  (a yearning nation’s blueeyed pride)

  their passive prey did kick and curse

  until for wear their clarion

  voices and boots were much the worse,

  and egged the firstclassprivates on

  his rectum wickedly to tease

  by means of skilfully applied

  bayonets roasted hot with heat—

  Olaf(upon what were once knees)

  does almost ceaselessly repeat

  “there is some s. I will not eat”

  our president,being of which

  assertions duly notified

  threw the yellowsonofabitch

  into a dungeon,where he died

  Christ(of His mercy infinite)

  i pray to see;and Olaf,too

  preponderatingly because

  unless statistics lie he was

  more brave than me:more blond than you.

  31

  if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have

  one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor

  a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but

  it will be a heaven of blackred roses

  my father will be(deep like a rose

  tall like a rose)

  standing near my

  (swaying over her

  silent)

  with eyes which are really petals and see

  nothing with the face of a poet really which

  is a flower and not a face with

  hands

  which whisper

  This is my beloved my

  (suddenly in sunlight

  he will bow,

  & the whole garden will bow)

  32

  a light Out)

  & first of all foam

  -like hair spatters creasing pillow

  next everywhere hidinglyseek

  no o god dear wait sh please o no O

  3rd Findingest whispers understand

  sobs bigly climb what(love being something

  possibly more intricate)i(breath

  in breath)have nicknamed ecstasy and And

  spills smile cheaply thick

  —who therefore Thee(once and once only,Queen

  among centuries universes between

  Who out of deeplyness rose to undeath)

  salute. and having worshipped for my doom

  pass ignorantly into sleep’s bright land

  33

  a clown’s smirk in the skull of a baboon

  (where once good lips stalked or eyes firmly stirred)

  my mirror gives me,on this afternoon;

  i am a shape that can but eat and turd

  ere with the dirt death shall him vastly gird,

  a coward waiting clumsily to cease

  whom every perfect thing meanwhile doth miss;

  a hand’s impression in an empty glove,

  a soon forgotten tune,a house for lease.

  I have never loved you dear as now i love

  behold this fool who,in the month of June,

  having of certain stars and planets heard,

  rose very slowly in a tight ba
lloon

  until the smallening world became absurd;

  him did an archer spy(whose aim had erred

  never)and by that little trick or this

  he shot the aeronaut down,into the abyss

  —and wonderfully i fell through the green groove

  of twilight,striking into many a piece.

  I have never loved you dear as now i love

  god’s terrible face,brighter than a spoon,

  collects the image of one fatal word;

  so that my life(which liked the sun and the moon)

  resembles something that has not occurred:

  i am a birdcage without any bird,

  a collar looking for a dog,a kiss

  without lips;a prayer lacking any knees

  but something beats within my shirt to prove

  he is undead who,living,noone is.

  I have never loved you dear as now i love.

  Hell(by most humble me which shall increase)

  open thy fire! for i have had some bliss

  of one small lady upon earth above;

  to whom i cry,remembering her face,

  i have never loved you dear as now i love

  34

  if i love You

  (thickness means

  worlds inhabited by roamingly

  stern bright færies

  if you love

  me) distance is mind carefully

  luminous with innumerable gnomes

  Of complete dream

  if we love each (shyly)

  other, what clouds do or Silently

  Flowers resembles beauty

  less than our breathing

  35

  somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

  any experience,your eyes have their silence:

  in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

  or which i cannot touch because they are too near

  your slightest look easily will unclose me

  though i have closed myself as fingers,

  you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

  (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

  or if your wish be to close me,i and

  my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

  as when the heart of this flower imagines

  the snow carefully everywhere descending;

  nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

  the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

  compels me with the colour of its countries,

  rendering death and forever with each breathing

  (i do not know what it is about you that closes

  and opens;only something in me understands

  the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

  nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

  36

  but if a living dance upon dead minds

  why,it is love;but at the earliest spear

  of sun perfectly should disappear

  moon’s utmost magic,or stones speak or one

  name control more incredible splendor than

  our merely universe,love’s also there:

  and being here imprisoned,tortured here

  love everywhere exploding maims and blinds

  (but surely does not forget,perish,sleep

  cannot be photographed,measured;disdains

  the trivial labelling of punctual brains. . .

  —Who wields a poem huger than the grave?

  from only Whom shall time no refuge keep

  though all the weird worlds must be opened?

  )Love

  37

  sonnet entitled how to run the world)

  A always don’t there B being no such thing

  for C can’t casts no shadow D drink and

  E eat of her voice in whose silence the music of spring

  lives F feel opens but shuts understand

  G gladly forget little having less

  with every least each most remembering

  H highest fly only the flag that’s furled

  (sestet entitled grass is flesh or swim

  who can and bathe who must or any dream

  means more than sleep as more than know means guess)

  I item i immaculately owe

  dying one life and will my rest to these

  children building this rainman out of snow

  38

  may i feel said he

  (i’ll squeal said she

  just once said he)

  it’s fun said she

  (may i touch said he

  how much said she

  a lot said he)

  why not said she

  (let’s go said he

  not too far said she

  what’s too far said he

  where you are said she)

  may i stay said he

  (which way said she

  like this said he

  if you kiss said she

  may i move said he

  is it love said she)

  if you’re willing said he

  (but you’re killing said she

  but it’s life said he

  but your wife said she

  now said he)

  ow said she

  (tiptop said he

  don’t stop said she

  oh no said he)

  go slow said she

  (cccome?said he

  ummm said she)

  you’re divine!said he

  (you are Mine said she)

  39

  little joe gould has lost his teeth and doesn’t know where

  to find them(and found a secondhand set which click)little

  gould used to amputate his appetite with bad brittle

  candy but just(nude eel)now little joe lives on air

  Harvard Brevis Est for Handkerchief read Papernapkin no laundry

  bills likes People preferring Negroes Indians Youse

  n.b. ye twang of little joe(yankee)gould irketh sundry

  who are trying to find their minds(but never had any to lose)

  and a myth is as good as a smile but little joe gould’s quote oral

  history unquote might(publishers note)be entitled a wraith’s

  progress or mainly awash while chiefly submerged or an amoral

  morality sort-of-aliveing by innumerable kind-of-deaths

  (Amérique Je T’Aime and it may be fun to be fooled

  but it’s more fun to be more to be fun to be little joe gould)

  40

  kumrads die because they’re told)

  kumrads die before they’re old

  (kumrads aren’t afraid to die

  kumrads don’t

  and kumrads won’t

  believe in life)and death knows whie

  (all good kumrads you can tell

  by their altruistic smell

  moscow pipes good kumrads dance)

  kumrads enjoy

  s.freud knows whoy

  the hope that you may mess your pance

  every kumrad is a bit

  of quite unmitigated hate

  (travelling in a futile groove

  god knows why)

  and so do i

  (because they are afraid to love

  41

  conceive a man,should he have anything

  would give a little more than it away

  (his autumn’s winter being summer’s spring

  who moved by standing in november’s may)

  from whose(if loud most howish time derange

  the silent whys of such a deathlessness)

  remembrance might no patient mind unstrange

  learn(nor could all earth’s rotting scholars guess

  that life shall not for living find the rule)

  and dark beginnings are his luminous ends

  who far less lonely than a fire is cool

  took bedfellows for moons mountains for friends

  —open your thighs to f
ate and(if you can

  withholding nothing)World,conceive a man

  42

  here’s to opening and upward,to leaf and to sap

  and to your(in my arms flowering so new)

  self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain

  and here’s to silent certainly mountains;and to

  a disappearing poet of always,snow

  and to morning;and to morning’s beautiful friend

  twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and

  let must or if be damned with whomever’s afraid

  down with ought with because with every brain

  which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up

  with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)

  here’s to one undiscoverable guess

  of whose mad skill each world of blood is made

  (whose fatal songs are moving in the moon

  43

  what a proud dreamhorse pulling(smoothloomingly)through