Edward Piercy

National Poetry Month 3

Wednesday, 1. April 2009, 13:50:08

Poetry, E. E. Cummings, National Poetry Month

E. E. Cummings.

The third and fourth and last in the series of poems for National Poetry
Month.

NOW I LAY (WITH EVERYWHERE AROUND)

by

e. e. cummings

Now i lay (with everywhere around)
me (the great dim deep sound
of rain; and of always and of nowhere) and
what a gently welcoming darkestness --

now i lay me down (in a most steep
more than music) feeling that sunlight is
(life and day are) only loaned: whereas
night is given (night and death and the rain

are given; and given is how beautifully snow)

now i lay me down to dream of (nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine)

something which nobody may keep.
now i lay me down to dream of Spring

I THANK YOU GOD FOR MOST THIS AMAZING

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any -- lifted from the no
of allnothing -- human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

National Poetry Month 2A Short Fable

Comments

PainterWoman # 1. April 2009, 19:46

Never quite took to e.e.cummings. Not sure why. I like the second poem.

Edward Piercy # 1. April 2009, 20:30

Thanks for commenting, though. My poetry posts almost never get comments. For reasons unknown.

PainterWoman # 1. April 2009, 21:14

Hmmmm....I don't know why either. Maybe not everyone likes to read poetry or maybe they like your BS posts better. Who knows? But don't stop just because of that.

Edward Piercy # 1. April 2009, 21:27

They'll pull that plume out of my cold, dead fingers.

Martin K # 1. April 2009, 23:54

I have a poet friend who is absolutely nuts about e.e. He does the same parenthic insert thing in his own poems as in the first of the above. Comes in handy, if you want to issue two different messages in one poem. It can be done very cleverly, if the two story lines are completely contraire.

Up with poetry!

Edward Piercy # 1. April 2009, 23:59

Yes, I agree. Cummings totally rearranged syntax, making something new. Or almost new. Actually, Emily Dickenson did quite a bit of it in the U.S. before him.

Up with poetry!

Darko # 2. April 2009, 04:47

"My poetry posts almost never get comments."

I have a problem with understanding poems in English. Don`t know why. If I know French I guess it would be the same, probably. I have no problem understanding any sort of text in English, but when it comes to poems.... I can understand the words but a meaning is usually unreachable.

Edward Piercy # 2. April 2009, 05:21

Interesting, Darko. I guess that could explain it in part.