Saturday, October 9, 2010

Sonnets - Actualities - I - e.e. cummings

 The fifth selection from cummings.  I have a concern that it may be harder to understand by someone whose first language isn't English, but I believe in "stretching" when it comes to reading.  It's not a BIG poem, but one that captures well that state of anticipation waiting for the appearance of the loved one.  Check out the John Berryman Sonnet 23: it's another take on that "in waiting" state, which sometimes is more exciting than what happens after the arrival.  Everything is perfect when waiting, yet we have all had the experience of the actual time together be the total opposite.....   This one also made it here because it has lines describing the physical effect on the heartbeat created by the  presence of one's love.   Just like  the Inuit language is supposed to have 20 or more words for snow,   I am intrigued by how many different ways poets describe a heart beat in love. There should be one more than there are for describing a heart in pain....
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Sonnets – Actualities


                        I

when my love comes to see me it’s
just a little like music,  a
little more like curving colour (say
orange)
                 against silence, or darkness……….

the coming of my love emits
a wonderful smell in my mind,

you should see when I turn to find
her how my least heart-beat becomes less.
And then all her beauty is a vise

whose stilling lips murder suddenly me,

but of my corpse the tool her smile makes something
suddenly luminous and precise
-- and then we are I and She ………

what is that the hurdy-gurdy’s playing

                                                                     e.e. cummings - American

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