the twentieth century-e. e. cummings
what Got him was Nothing
& nothing's exactly what any one Living(or some body Dead like even a poet)could hardly express what i Mean is what knocked him over Wasn't (for instance)the Knowing your
whole(yes god
damned)life is a Flop
or even to Feel
how Every thing
(dreamed & hoped & prayed for
months & weeks & days & years & nights & forever)
is Less Than Nothing
(which would have been
Something)what got him was nothing
old age sticks up Keep Off signs)&
youth yanks them down(old age cries No
Tres)&(pas) youth laughs (sing old age
scolds Forbid den Stop Mustn't l)nn't
&)youth goes right on growing old
you notice nobody wants
Less(not to men
tion least)&) observe no
body wants Most
(not putting it mildly much)
may
be because everybody
wants more (& more & still More) what the
hell are we all morticians?
page 2
pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim(death and life safely beyond)
plays with the bigness of his littleness electrons deify one razorblade into a mountainrange;lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish returns on its unself.
A world of made is not a world of bornpity poor flesh
and trees poor stars and stones,but never this fine specimen of hypermagical
ultraomnipotence. We doctors know
a hopeless case if-listen:there's a hell of a good universe next door;let's go
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 ar1tierl
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 wnen
my Uncle Sol had a skunk farm but the skunks caught cold and died and so my Uncle Sol imitated the ck~nkc in a cnhSle 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)
Paqe 3
Buffalo Bill's defunct who used to ride a watersmoothsilver stallion and break onetwothrecfourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man and what i want to know is how do you like your blueeycd boy Mister Death
Ladics and genticmcn: if you all have been dcccived by some imposter so have 1. It you have been tricked and ruined so have 1. ,Nnd so has every man and woman, I say. I say it, and you feel it in your hearts: we are all of us no longer glad and whole, we have all of us sold our spirits hito death, we are all of us the sick parts of a sick thing, wc have all ot us lost our living honesty, and so we are all of us not any more ourselves.
Who can tell truth from falsehood any more? I say it, and you feel it in your hearts: no man or woman on this big small earth.
Ilow should our sages miss the mark of life,
and our most skillful players lose the game? your hearts will tell you, as my heart has told me:
because all know, and no one understands.
O, we are all so very full of knowing that we are empty: empty of understanding.
Ilumanity i love you because you would rather black the boots of success than enquire whose soul dangles from his watchchain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you unflhicilingly applaud all songs containing the words country home and mottler when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your hitelligence to buy a drink and when you're flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and because you are continually committing nuisances but more especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you are perpetually putting the secret of life in your pants and forgetting it's there and sitthig down
oll it and because you are forever making poems in the lap ot death HumanitY
i hate vou
why
do the fingers
of the lit tle once beau tiful la dy(sitting sew ing at an 0 pen window this fine morning)fly
instead of dancing are they possibly afraid that life is running away from them(i wonder)or
isn't she a ware that life(who never grows old) is always beau
tiful and that nobod y beauti
ful ev er hur
ries
dive for dreams or a slogan may topple you (tree are their roots and wind is wind)
page 4
trust your heart if the seas catch fire (and live by love though the stars walk backward)
honour the past but welcome the future (and dance your death away at this wedding)
never mind a world with its villains or heroes (for god likes girls and tomorrow and the earth)
If you can't eat you got to
smoke and we sent got nothing to smoke:come on kid
let's go to sleep if you can't smoke you got to
Sing and we sent got
nothing to sing;come on kid let's go to sleep
if you can't sing you got to die and we sent got
Nothing to die,come on kid
let's go to sleep if you can't die you cot to
dream and we sent got nothing to dream(come on kid
Let's go to sleep)
plato told
him:he couldn't believe itOesus
told him;he wouldn't believe it)lao
tsze certainly told him,and general (yes
mam) sherm an; and even (believe it or
not)you told him ;i told him;we told him (he wouldn't believe it.no
sir)it took a nipponized bit of the old sixth
avenue
elfin the top of his head :to tell
him
dying is fine)but Death
?o baby
I wouldn't like
Death if Death were good: for
page 5
when(instead of stopping to think)you
begin to feel of it,dying 's miraculous why? be
cause dying is
perfectly natural;perfectly putting it mildly lively(but
Death
is strictly scientific & artificial &
evil & legal)
we thank thee god almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death
it really must be Nice, never to
have no imagination)or never never to wonder about guys used to(and them slim hot queens with dam next to nothing
on) tango ing (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 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
if i
or anybody don't know where it her his
my next meal's coming from i say to hell with that that doesn't matter(and if
he she it or everybody gets a bellyful without lifting my finger i say to hell with that i
say that doesn't matter)but if somebody or you are beautiful or deep or generous what i say is
Dane 6
whistle that sing that yell that spell that out big(bigger than cosmic rays war earthquakes famine or the ex
prince of whoses diving into a whatses to rescue miss nobody's probably handbag)because i say that's not
swell(get me)babe not(understand me)lousy kid that's something else my sweet(i feel that's true)
WE ARE TRANSMITTERS
Life-D. H. Lawrence page 7
As we live, we are transmitters of life. And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow through us.
That is part of the mystery of sex, it is a flow onwards. Sexless people transmit nothing.
And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work, life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be ready and we ripple with life through the days.
Even if it is a woman making an apple dumpling, or a man a stool, if life goes into the pudding, good is the pudding, good is the stool, content is the woman, with fresh life rippling in to her, content is the man.
Give, and it shall be given unto you
is still the truth about life.
But giving life is not so easy.
It doesn't mean handing it out to some mean fool, or letting
the living dead eat you up.
It means kindling the lifequality where it was not,
even if it's only in the whiteness of a washed pockethandkerchief.
SICK
I am sick, because I have given myself away.
I have given myself to the people when they came
so cultured, even bringing little gifts,
so they pecked a shred of my life, and flew off with a croak
of sneaking exultance.
So now I have lost too much, and am sick.
I am trying now to learn never to give of my life to the dead, never,
not the tiniest shred.
SELFPI TY
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen
dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
SEARCH FOR LOVE
Those that go searching for love only make manifest their own lovelessness,
and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never
have to seek for it.
THE MOSQUI TO KNOWS
The mosquito knows full well, small as he is he's a beast of prey. But after all he only takes his bellyful, he doesn't put my blood in the bank.
I met a seer. He held in his hands The book of wisdom. "Sir," I said, "Child-" he began. "Sir," I said, "Think not that I am a child, For already I know much Of that which you hold. Ay, much."
He smiled. Then he opened the book And held it before me- Strange that I should have grown so suddenly blind.
I stood upon a high place, And saw, below, many devils Running, leaping, And carousing in sin. One looked up, grinning, And said, "Comrade! Brother!"
There was one I met upon the road Who looked at me with kind eyes. He said: "Show me your wares." And I did, Holding forth one. He said: "It is a sin." Then held I forth another. He said: "It is a sin." Then held I forth another. He said: "It is a sin." And so to the end. Always he said: "It is a sin." At last, I cried out: "But I have none other." Then did he look at me With kinder eyes "Poor soul," He said.
On the horizon the peaks assembled; And as I looked, The march of the mountains began. As they marched, they sang: "Ay! We come! We come!"
Nine Verses-Stephen Crane page 8
A man feared that he might find an assassin; Another that he might find a victim. One was more wise than the other.
I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was distrubed at this; I accosted the man. "It is futile," I said,
"You can never..."
"You lie," he cried. And ran on.
I walked in a desert. And l cried: "Ah, God take me from this place!" A voice said, "It is no desert." I cried: " Well, but . . . The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon." A voice said: "It is no desert."
In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, "Is it good, friend?" "It is bitterbitter," he answered; "But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart."
I was in the darkness; I could not see my words Nor the wishes of my heart. Then suddenly there was a great light .
"Let me into the darkness again.'