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e.e.cummings

by John G.Hall 

Posted: 12 October 2003
Word Count: 117
Summary: A river runs through e.e.cummings home county called 'The River Mystic'


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e.e.Cummings

I

He jumped
(from a moving Dodge)
but soon learnt how to fall
awkward as ice-cream
(dropped on Mystic beach).
He tripped the purpose
of strides like donkey rides
(to nowhere special)
dramatics paused
by thin cups of black
small print written large
(as any funhouse).

II

Thought
showed us
a new move
off the top
of his nib,
like squibs
of Mozart's ink
flicked from
a fake baton,
or the tapping
snaps & crackles
of showering
meteorites,
as they spit
into the wind
of watching
breaths.

Tricky honey
plopped
from the spoon,
my tongue
still juggles
for the first
sweetness,
rolling the lather
of words into speech ,
bubbles popped
by your sharp lips.

John.G.Hall©2003






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Comments by other Members



Taupe at 12:03 on 01 November 2003  Report this post
I'm supposed to be a site expert but have been dragging my heels because of lack of internet expertise. I hope this gets through. I've chosen it as my first to comment on because it was posted on my birthday and I've always admired cummings. Do you know his wonderful autobiography/war memoir 'The Enormous Room'? I like your poem a lot, particularly the second section. The language is fizzy ( mischievously Mozartian! ) and the imagery playfully sensuous in the best cummings vein. I take the poem's speaker to be a synthesis of you and the master, and as such he certainly appeals to my imagination. When I get the hang of this, I'll take a look at other poems of yours.

tinyclanger at 14:16 on 30 April 2004  Report this post
Hi John, got to this from your latest piece and I'm glad found it. As you're probably aware, some of us have been looking at ee cummings in the Poetry Seminar Group this week and as I am becoming particularly interested in him, I was delighted to read this.
I think you capture cummings voice splendidly, yet it always remains your own, too. Enjoyed the last section particularly, "rolling the lather" - nicely ambiguous, I felt, as as Taupe said, sensuous.
x
tc


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