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+*** 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
+
+
+  1. The Enormous Room
+  2. Tulips and Chimneys
+  3. &
+  4. Xli Poems
+  5. Is Five        ¶
+
+
+
+
+  by E. E. Cummings
+
+  is
+
+  [Illustration: 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
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+FIVE AMERICANS
+
+
+I. LIZ
+
+    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
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+POEM, OR BEAUTY HURTS MR. VINAL
+
+
+    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
+      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
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+ITEM
+
+
+    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
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+oDE
+
+
+    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
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+MEMORABILIA
+
+
+    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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77021 ***