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

The First Of All My Dreams - e.e. cummings

Not a poem that I've seen anthologized often and one of few where there is capitalization in an e.e. cummings poem.  I believe it is a fairly early one.  The appeal to me is in the last line, though the entire poem speaks to the maelstrom of conflicting emotions within each of us during those early - there should be a special word for that period! - moments/days of courtship.  (And what has happened to courtship, in general??)  This one has innocence, happy uncertainty, and a wonderful denouement.
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The First Of All My Dreams

the first of all my dreams was of
a lover and his only love,
strolling slowly (mind in mind)
through some green mysterious land

until my second dream begins –
the sky wild with leaves; which dance
and dancing swoop (and swooping
                whirl
over a frightened boy and girl)

but that mere fury soon became
silence: in huger always whom
two tiny selves sleep (doll by doll)
motionless under magical

foreverfully falling snow.
And then this dreamer wept: and so
she quickly dreamed a dream of spring
- how you and I are blossoming.

                                                                                   e.e. cummings- American

i like my body when it is with your - e.e. cummings

This is possibly one of cummings' most anthologized poems.... which doesn't lessen it's joyfulness!    it's so sensual, suggestive yet "clean",  and just plain happy.   What more can one ask for?   I first read it as an inexperienced teenager titillated by the heady images.   Now, the appeal is in the strobe-like illumination of two lovers and how well it captures the complexity and the nuances.  Ahh....
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i like my body when it is with your
                                                                        
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
I like your body. I like what it does,
I like its hows. I like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which I will
again and again and again
kiss, I like kissing this and that of you,
I like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh…. And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly I like the thrill

of under me you so quite new
                                                                           e.e. cummings - American

may i feel said he - ee cummings

Another by cummings (two days in a row!), possibly one of his most popular poems, which doesn't diminish its place here.  It's playful and suggestive in a sweet way - an erotic-lite poem grandma could read without blushing too much.  A great poem to read and act out loud, it reminds me of a real-life story about political-correctness gone extreme, when Antioch College in Ohio instituted a code of conduct wherein students on a date had to ask - and get - permission at each step of an amorous situation!  (Of course, a creative mind could subvert the powers-that-be and eroticize the whole Q & A in ways unintended by the school administration!  It's what I would do....)
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may i feel said he

may I feel said he
(i'll squeal said she)
just once said he
it's fun said she

may i touch said hejavascript:void(0)
how much said she
a lot said he
why not said she
let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she

may i stay said he
which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
(is it love? said she)
if you are willing said he
but you are killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she

now said he
ow said she
( tiptop said he)
don't stop said she
oh no said he
go slow said she
(ccome? said he)
ummm said she
you are divine! said he
(you are mine said she)

                                                                         ee cummings - American

it may not always be so - e.e. cummings

If there is too little love poetry from Jarrell (yesterday's selection), the opposite is true with e.e. cummings (1894-1962).  Fertile in his output, choosing something from him is like selecting a chocolate from an assortment box: there is one to satisfy any craving and even the wrong pick is someone else's favorite.  He will be well-represented during the run of this blog.  Cummings is  perennially popular and re-discovered by every generation of love-sick college students wanting quotable poems.  In his Complete Poems, a tongue-tied freshman could find enough love poems - fitting every occasion and lass - to last him through all four undergraduate years.   Cummings experiments with punctuation, syntax, etc.  and the sensuality and sexuality in his work added to the appeal.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), I did not get a copy of it until Spring of my third-year or else I would have read fewer poets... This one was an early favorite.  It has a sweetness and romanticism that still cuts through the cynical layers life inevitably forces on us as protective covers.   (I say "force" because who would choose cynicism as a life-style??) I like this poem for that ability and also for its clearly-impossible-to-follow example of how to be in real life in that situation!  
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it may not always be so

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be --
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.
                                                                                                      e.e. cummings - American