POETRY from CS-I and Imaginal Education courses

the twentieth century-e. e. cummings

what Got him was Noth

ing

& nothing's exact

ly 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

Everything (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

Must

n't Don't

&)youth goes

right on

gr

owing old

you no

tice

nobod

y wants

Less(not to men

tion least)&i

ob

serve no

body wants Most

(not

putting it mildly

much)

may

be be

cause

ever

ybody

wants more (& more &

still More)what the

hell are we all morticians?

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 born-pity 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'sgo

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)

Buffalo Hill's

defunct

who used to

ride a watersmooth­silver

stallion

and break onetwothreefourfivepigeonsiustlikethat

Jesus

he was a handsome man

and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

Ladies and gentlemen: if you all have been

deceived by some imposter so have I.

If you have been tricked and ruined so have 1.

And so has every man and woman I say.

I say it and you feel it in your hearts:

we arc all of us no longer glad and whole,

we have all of us sold our spirits into death,

we arc all of us the sick parts of a sick thing.

We have all of 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 women on this big small earth.

How should our sages miss the mark of life.

And our most skillful players lose the game?

Your hear5s 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.

Humanity i love you

because you would rather black the boots of

success than enquire whose soul dangles from his

watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you

unflinchinly applaud all

songs containing the words country home and

mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity I love you because

when you're hard up you pawn your

intelligence 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 sitting down

on it

and because you are

forever making poems in the lap

of death Humanity

i hate you

why

do the fingers

of the lit

tle once beau

tiful la

dy(sitting sew

ing at an o

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)

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 aint 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 got to

dream and we aint got

nothing to dream(come on kid

Let's go to sleep)

plato told

him:he couldn't believe it(jesus

told him;he wouldn't believe

it)lao

tsze certainly told

him,and general

(yes

mam)

sherman;

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

el;in the top of his head:to tell

him

dying is fine)but Death

?o

baby

i

wouldn't like

Death it Death

were

good: for

when(instead of stopping to think)you

begin to feel of it.dying

's miraculous

why?be

cause dying is

perfectly natural;pertectly

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)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 prow 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

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'

true)

Life-D. H. Lawrence

WE ARE TRANSMITTERS

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.

SELF­PITY

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.

Nine Verses-Stephen Crane page 8

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!"

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 disturbed 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 I 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 bitter bitter," 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."