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Part 1

OF THIS BOOK

there is also a special limited edition consisting of seventy-seven copies on special paper specially bound numbered and autographed of which seventy copies are for sale

IS FIVE

FIVE BOOKS

by E. E. Cummings

1. The Enormous Room 2. Tulips and Chimneys 3. & 4. Xli Poems 5. Is Five ¶

by E. E. Cummings

[Illustration: 5]

NEW YORK BONI & LIVERIGHT 1926

PRINTED BY SAMUEL AIWAZ JACOBS

AT THE POLYTYPE PRESS

NEW YORK

FOREWORD

On the assumption that my technique is either complicated or original or both, the publishers have politely requested me to write an introduction to this book.

At least my theory of technique, if I have one, is very far from original; nor is it complicated. I can express it in fifteen words, by quoting The Eternal Question And Immortal Answer of burlesk, viz. “Would you hit a woman with a child?--No, I’d hit her with a brick.” Like the burlesk comedian, I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little--somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions, the Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interest in making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should prefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses. It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my “poems” are competing.

They are also competing with each other, with elephants, and with El Greco.

Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the merely undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in a purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon the title page of the present volume.)

E. E. Cummings.

A LIST OF WHERE THESE POEMS

have been published

England France Italy Austria and America

TITLE IS V

FOREWORD vii

ONE I-XL 1-55

TWO I-XI 57-72

THREE I-X 73-86

FOUR I-XVIII 87-107

FIVE I-V 109-115

ONE

FIVE AMERICANS

I. LIZ

with breathing as (faithfully) her lownecked dress a little topples and slightly expands

one square foot mired in silk wrinkling loth stocking begins queerly to do a few gestures to death, the silent shoulders are both slowly with pinkish ponderous arms bedecked whose white thick wrists deliver promptly to a deep lap enormous mindless hands. and no one knows what (i am sure of this) her blunt unslender, what her big unkeen

“Business is rotten” the face yawning said

what her mouth thinks of (if it were a kiss distinct entirely melting sinuous lean . . . whereof this lady in some book had read

II. MAME

she puts down the handmirror. “Look at” arranging before me a mellifluous idiot grin (with what was nose upwrinkled into nothing earthly, while the slippery eyes drown in surging flesh). A thumblike index down- dragging yanks back skin “see” (i, seeing, ceased to breathe). The plump left fist opening “wisdom.” Flicker of gold. “Yep. No gas. Flynn”

the words drizzle untidily from released cheeks “I’ll tell duh woild; some noive all right. Aint much on looks but how dat baby ached.”

and when i timidly hinted “novocaine?” the eyes outstart, curl, bloat, are newly baked

and swaggering cookies of indignant light

III. GERT

joggle i think will do it although the glad monosyllable jounce possibly can tell better how the balloons move (as her ghost lurks, a Beau Brummel sticking in its three-

cornered always moist mouth)--jazz, for whose twitching lips, between you and me almost succeeds while toddle rings the bell. But if her tall corpsecoloured body seat itself (with the uncouth habitual dull jerk at garters) there’s no sharpest neat word for the thing. Her voice? gruesome:a trull leaps from the lungs “gimme uh swell fite

like up ter yknow, Rektuz, Toysday nite; where uh guy gets gayn troze uh lobstersalad

IV. MARJ

“life? Listen” the feline she with radishred legs said (crossing them slowly)“I’m asleep. Yep. Youse is asleep kid and everybody is.” And i hazarded “god” (blushing slightly)--“O damn ginks like dis Gawd” opening slowlyslowly them--then carefully the rolypoly voice squatting on a mountain of gum did something like a whisper, “even her.” “The Madam?” I emitted; vaguely watching that mountainous worthy in the fragile act of doing her eyebrows.--Marj’s laughter smacked me: pummeling the curtains, drooped to a purr . . .

i left her permanently smiling

V. FRAN

should i entirely ask of god why on the alert neck of this brittle whore delicately wobbles an improbably distinct face, and how these wooden big two feet conclude happeningly the unfirm drooping bloated calves i would receive the answer more or less deserved, Young fellow go in peace. which i do, being as Dick Mid once noted lifting a Green River (here’s to youse) “a bloke wot’s well behaved” . . . and always try to not wonder how let’s say elation causes the bent eyes thickly to protrude--

or why her tiniest whispered invitation is like a clock striking in a dark house

POEM, OR BEAUTY HURTS MR. VINAL

take it from me kiddo believe me my country, ’tis of

you, land of the Cluett Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint Girl With The Wrigley Eyes(of you land of the Arrow Ide and Earl & Wilson Collars)of you i sing:land of Abraham Lincoln and Lydia E. Pinkham, land above all of Just Add Hot Water And Serve-- from every B. V. D.

let freedom ring

amen. i do however protest, anent the un -spontaneous and otherwise scented merde which greets one (Everywhere Why) as divine poesy per that and this radically defunct periodical. i would

suggest that certain ideas gestures rhymes, like Gillette Razor Blades having been used and reused to the mystical moment of dullness emphatically are Not To Be Resharpened. (Case in point

if we are to believe these gently O sweetly melancholy trillers amid the thrillers these crepuscular violinists among my and your skyscrapers--Helen&Cleopatra were Just Too Lovely, The Snail’s On The Thorn enter Morn and God’s In His andsoforth

do you get me? (according to such supposedly indigenous throstles Art is O World O Life a formula:example, Turn Your Shirttails Into Drawers and If It Isn’t An Eastman It Isn’t A Kodak therefore my friends let us now sing each and all fortissimo A- mer i

ca, I love, You. And there’re a hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers, like all of you successfully if delicately gelded(or spaded) gentlemen(and ladies)--pretty

littleliverpill- hearted-Nujolneeding-There’s-A-Reason americans(who tensetendoned and with upward vacant eyes, painfully perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the sternly allotted sandpile --how silently emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance:Odor?

ono. comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush

III

curtains part) the peacockappareled prodigy of Flo’’s midnight Frolic dolores

small in the head keen chassised like a Rolls Royce swoops smoothly outward(amid tinkling-cheering-hammering

tables)

while softly along Kirkland Street the infantile ghost of Professor Royce rolls

remembering that it

has for -gotten some- thing ah

(my

necktie

workingman with hand so hairy-sturdy you may turn O turn that airy hurdysturdygurdy but when will turn backward O backward Time in your no thy flight and make me a child, a pretty dribbling child, a little child.

In thy your ear: en amerique on ne boit que de Jingyale. things are going rather kaka over there, over there. yet we scarcely fare much better--

what’s become of (if you please) all the glory that or which was Greece all the grandja that was dada?

make me a child, stout hurdysturdygurdyman waiter, make me a child. So this is Paris. i will sit in the corner and drink thinks and think drinks, in memory of the Grand and Old days: of Amy Sandburg of Algernon Carl Swinburned.

Waiter a drink waiter two or three drinks what’s become of Mæterlink now that April’s here? (ask the man who owns one ask Dad, He knows).

yonder deadfromtheneckup graduate of a somewhat obscure to be sure university spends her time looking picturesque under

the as it happens quite erroneous impression that he

nascitur

Jimmie’s got a goil goil goil, Jimmie ’s got a goil and she coitnly can shimmie

when you see her shake shake shake, when you see her shake a shimmie how you wish that you was Jimmie.

Oh for such a gurl gurl gurl, oh for such a gurl to be a fellow’s twistandtwirl

talk about your Sal- Sal- Sal-, talk about your Salo -mes but gimmie Jimmie’s gal.

VII

the waddling madam star taps taps. “ready girls”. the

unspontaneous streets make bright their eyes a blind irisher fiddles a

scotch jig in a stinking joyman bar a cockney is buying whiskies for a turk

a waiter intones:bloo-moo-n sirkusricky platzburg hoppytoad yesmam. the

furious taximan p(ee)ps on his whistle somebody says here’s luck

somebody else says down the hatch the nigger smiles the jew stands besides his teddy-bears

the sailor shuffles the night with Φυκινγ eyes the great black preacher gargles jesus the aesthete indulges

his soul for certain things which died it is eighteen hundred years. . . . exactly

under the window under the window under the window walk

the unburied feet of the little ladies more than dead

VIII

listen my children and you shall hear the true

story of Mr Do -nothing the wellknown parvenu who

(having dreamed of a corkscrew) studied with Freud a year or two and when Freud got through with Do-

nothing Do -nothing could do nothing which you and i are accustomed to accomplish two

or three times, and even a few more depending on the remu- nerativeness of the stimulus(eheu fu -gaces Postu- me boo

who)

even if all desires things moments be murdered known photographed,ourselves yawning will ask ourselves ou sont les neiges. . . . some

guys talks big

about Lundun Burlin an gay Paree an some guys claims der never was nutn like Nooer Leans Shikahgo Sain Looey Noo York an San Fran dictaphones wireless subways vacuum cleaners pianolas funnygraphs skyscrapers an safetyrazors

sall right in its way kiddo but as fer i gimme de good ole daze. . . .

in dem daze kid Christmas meant sumpn youse knows wot i refers ter Satter Nailyuh(comes but once er year)i’ll tell de woild one swell bangup time wen nobody wore no cloze an went runnin aroun wid eachudder Hell Bent fer election makin believe dey was chust born

death is more than certain a hundred these sounds crowds odours it is in a hurry beyond that any this taxi smile or angle we do

not sell and buy things so necessary as is death and unlike shirts neckties trousers we cannot wear it out

no sir which is why granted who discovered America ether the movies may claim general importance

to me to you nothing is what particularly matters hence in a

little sunlight and less moonlight ourselves against the worms

hate laugh shimmy

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)

XII

now dis “daughter” uv eve(who aint precisely slim )sim

ply don’t know duh meanin uv duh woid sin in not disagreeable contras tuh dat not exacly fat

“father”(adjustin his robe)who now puts on his flat hat

XIII

(and i imagine never mind Joe agreeably cheerfully remarked when surrounded by fat stupid animals the jewess shrieked the messiah tumbled successfully into the world the animals continued eating. And i imagine she, and heard them slobber and in the darkness)

stood sharp angels with faces like Jim Europe

XIV

it really must be Nice, never to

have no imagination)or never never to wonder about guys you 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 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 dam 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

ITEM

this man is o so Waiter this;woman is

please shut that the pout And affectionate leer interminable pyramidal,napkins (this man is oh so tired of this a door opens by itself woman.) they so to speak were in

Love once? now her mouth opens too far and:she attacks her Lobster without feet mingle under the mercy. (exit the hors d’œures)

XVI

it started when Bill’s chip let on to the bulls he’d bumped a bloke back in fifteen. Then she came toward him on her knees across the locked room. he knocked her cold and beat it for Chicago.

Eddie was waiting for him, and they cleaned up a few times--before she got the info from a broad that knew Eddie in Topeka, went clean daffy, and which was very silly hocked

the diamond he gave her. Bill was put wise that she was coming with his kid inside her. He laughed. She came. he gave her a shove and asked Eddie did he care to ride her? . . . .she exactly lay, looking hunks of love

in The Chair he kept talking about eyes

XVII

IKEY(GOLDBERG)’S WORTH I’M TOLD $ SEVERAL MILLION FINKLESTEIN(FRITZ)LIVES AT THE RITZ WEAR earl & wilson COLLARS

XVIII

why are these pipples taking their hets off? the king & queen alighting from their limousine inhabit the Hotel Meurice (whereas i live in a garret and eat aspirine)

but who is this pale softish almost round young man to whom headwaiters bow so? hush--the author of Women By Night whose latest Seeds Of Evil sold 69 carloads before publication the girl who goes wrong you

know(whereas when i lie down i cough too much). How did the traffic get so jammed? bedad it is the famous doctor who inserts monkeyglands in millionaires a cute idea n’est-ce pas? (whereas, upon the other hand, myself)but let us next demand

wherefore yon mob an accident? somebody got concus- sion of the brain?--Not a bit of it, my dears merely the prime minister of Siam in native

costume, who emerging from a pissoir enters abruptly Notre Dame(whereas de gustibus non disputandum est my lady is tired of That sort of thing

XIX

this young question mark man

question mark who suffers from indigestion question mark is a remarkably charming person

personally they tell

me as for me i only knows that as far as his pictures goes

he’s a wet dream

by Cézanne

mr youse needn’t be so spry concernin questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man’s solid bliss for youse ideas i’ll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is is worth a million statues

XXI

i was sitting in mcsorley’s. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing.

Inside snug and evil. the slobbering walls filthily push witless creases of screaming warmth chuck pil- lows are noise funnily swallows swallowing revolv- ingly pompous a the swallowed mottle with smooth or a but of rapidly goes gobs the and of flecks of and a chatter sobbings intersect with which distinct disks of graceful oath, upsoarings the break on ceiling- flatness

the Bar.tinking luscious jigs dint of ripe silver with warmlyish wetflat splurging smells waltz the glush of squirting taps plus slush of foam knocked off and a faint piddle-of-drops she says I ploc spittle what the lands thaz me kid in no sir hopping sawdust you kiddo he’s a palping wreaths of badly Yep cigars who jim him why gluey grins topple together eyes pout gestures stickily point made glints squinting who’s a wink bum-nothing and money fuzzily mouths take big wobbly foot-steps every goggle cent of it get out ears dribbles soft right old feller belch the chap hic sum- more eh chuckles skulch. . . .

and i was sitting in the din thinking drinking the ale, which never lets you grow old blinking at the low ceiling my being pleasantly was punctuated by the al- ways retchings of a worthless lamp.

when With a minute terrif iceffortone dirty squeal of soiling light yanKing from bushy obscurity a bald greenish foetal head established It suddenly upon the huge neck around whose unwashed sonorous muscle the filth of a collar hung gently.

(spattered)by this instant of semiluminous nausea A vast wordless nondescript genie of trunk trickled firm- ly in to one exactly-mutilated ghost of a chair,

a;domeshaped interval of complete plasticity,shoul- ders,sprouted the extraordinary arms through an an- gle of ridiculous velocity commenting upon an un- clean table.and,whose distended immense Both paws slowly loved a dinted mug

gone Darkness it was so near to me, i ask of shad- ow won’t you have a drink?

(the eternal perpetual question)

Inside snugandevil. i was sitting in mcsorley’s It,did not answer.

outside.(it was New York and beautifully,snowing. . . .

XXII

she being Brand

-new;and you know consequently a little stiff i was careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal joint tested my gas felt of her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she kicked what the hell)next minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my

lev-er Right- oh and her gears being in A 1 shape passed from low through second-in-to-high like greasedlightning justas we turned the corner ofDivinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

(it

was the first ride and believe i we was happy to see how nice she acted right up to the last minute coming back down by the Public Gardens i slammed on the

internalexpanding & externalcontracting brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB -ling to a:dead.

stand- ;Still)

XXIII

slightly before the middle of Congressman Pudd ’s 4th of July oration, with a curse and a frown Amy Lowell got up and all the little schoolchildren sat down

XXIV

Dick Mid’s large bluish face without eyebrows

sits in the kitchen nights and chews a two-bit cigar waiting for the bulls to pull his joint. Jimmie was a dude. Dark hair and nice hands.

with a little eye that rolled and made its point

Jimmie’s sister worked for Dick. And had some rows over percent. The gang got shot up twice, it operated in the hundred ands

All the chips would kid Jimmie to give them a kiss but Jimmie lived regular. stewed three times a week. and slept twice a week with a big toothless girl in Yonkers. Dick Mid’s green large three teeth leak

smoke:remembering, two pink big lips curl. . . .

how Jimmie was framed and got his

XXV

oDE

o the sweet & aged people who rule this world(and me and you if we’re not very careful)

O, the darling benevolent mindless He--and She-- shaped waxworks filled with dead ideas(the oh

quintillions of incredible dodderingly godly toothless always-so-much-interested- in-everybody-else’s-business

bipeds)OH the bothering dear unnecessary hairless o ld

XXVI

on the Madam’s best april the twenty nellie

anyway and it’s flutters everything queer;does smells he smiles is like Out of doors he’s a with eyes and making twice the a week you kind of,know(kind well of A sort of the way he smile but and her a I mean me a Irish,cook but well oh don’t you makes burst want to dear somehow quickyes when(now,dark dear oh) the iceman how,luminously oh how listens and,expands my somewherealloverme heart my the halfgloom coolish of The what are parks for wiggle yes has are leap,which,anyway

give rapid lapfulls of idiotic big hands

XXVII

(as that named Fred -someBody:hippopotamus, scratch- ing,one,knee with,its, friend observes I

pass Mr Tom Larsen twirls among

pale lips the extinct cigar)at

which

this(once flinger of lariats lean exroper of horned suddenly crashing things)man spits

quickly into the very bright spittoon

XXVIII

my uncle Daniel fought in the civil war band and can play the triangle like the devil)my

uncle Frank has done nothing for many years but fly kites and when the string breaks(or something)my uncle Frank breaks into tears. my uncle Tom

knits and is a kewpie above the ears(but

my uncle Ed that’s dead from the neck

up is lead all over Brattle Street by a castrated pup

XXIX

than(by yon sunset’s wintry glow revealed)this tall strong stalwart youth, what sight shall human optics know more quite ennobling forsooth?

One wondrous fine sonofabitch (to all purposes and intents) in which distinct and rich portrait should be included,gents

these(by the fire’s ruddy glow united)not less than sixteen children and of course you know their mother,of his heart the queen

--incalculable bliss! Picture it gents:our hero,Dan who as you’ve guessed already is the poorbuthonest workingman

(by that bright flame whose myriad tints enrich a visage simple,terse, seated like any king or prince upon his uncorrupted arse

with all his hearty soul aglow) his nightly supper sups it isn’t snowing snow you know it’s snowing buttercups

XXX

weazened Irrefutable unastonished two,countenances seated in arranging;sunlight with-ered unspea-king:tWeNtY,f i n g e r s, large four gnarled lips totter

Therefore,approaching my twentysix selves bulging in immortal Spring express a cry of How do you find the sun,ladies?

(graduallyverygradually “there is not enough of it” their,hands minutely

answered

XXXI

MEMORABILIA

stop look &

listen Venezia: incline thine ear you glassworks of Murano; pause elevator nel mezzo del cammin’ that means half- way up the Campanile, believe

thou me cocodrillo--

mine eyes have seen the glory of

the coming of the Americans particularly the brand of marriageable nymph which is armed with large legs rancid voices Baedekers Mothers and kodaks --by night upon the Riva Schiavoni or in the felicitous vicinity of the de l’Europe

Grand and Royal Danielli their numbers

are like unto the stars of Heaven. . . .

i do signore affirm that all gondola signore day below me gondola signore gondola and above me pass loudly and gondola rapidly denizens of Omaha Altoona or what not enthusiastic cohorts from Duluth God only, gondola knows Cincingondolanati i gondola don’t

--the substantial dollarbringing virgins