10 April 2009

perfect.

just because i just read this and thought it was perfect.  by e e cummings:


the hours rise up putting off stars and it is 
dawn 
into the street of the sky light walks scattering poems  


on earth a candle is 
extinguished  the city 
wakes 
with a song upon her mouth 
having death in her eyes  


and it is dawn
the world 
goes forth to murder dreams….  


i see in the street where strong 
men are digging bread 
and i see the brutal faces of 
people contented hideous hopeless cruel happy  


and it is day,  


in the mirror 
i see a frail man 
dreaming 
dreams 
dreams in the mirror  


and it 
is dusk  on earth  


a candle is lighted 
and it is dark. 
the people are in their houses 
the frail man is in his bed 
the city  


sleeps with death upon her mouth having a song in her eyes 
the hours descend, 
putting on stars….  


in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems

2 comments:

  1. ee cummings has really grown on me over the years. This one is my favorite:

    somewhere i have never travelled

    somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
    any experience, your eyes have their silence:
    in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
    or which i cannot touch because they are too near

    your slightest look easily will unclose me
    though i have closed myself as fingers,
    you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
    (touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

    or if your wish be to close me, i and
    my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
    as when the heart of this flower imagines
    the snow carefully everywhere descending;

    nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
    the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
    compels me with the colour of its countries,
    rendering death and forever with each breathing

    (i do not know what it is about you that closes
    and opens; only something in me understands
    the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
    nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

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  2. I too love both of these! A couple of my favorite cummings. Love, love love.

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